Gay marriage

From Neoredemptive

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Civil Gay Marriage

The issue of civic recognition of same-sex marriages was brought to the forefront of the public attention in 2003 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision on Goodridge. Since then, much of the Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Mormon world has been caught up in various crusades to outlaw same-sex marriage at the local, state, and national level.

What is missing from most of the posturing and writing on the subject is a recognition that same-sex marriage as a legal institution is a symptom. While it's not wrong to go after symptoms, wise leadership involves working backwards to causes and working to remedy them; otherwise, even if we can quell one set of symptoms, other symptoms will simply spring up in their place later. See, e.g., Albert Mohler's chapter in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ.

But, having recognized that the church's first response is to be apostolic/prophetic/pastoral and not civic, let us briefly consider the civic implications. The most common assertion for a basis for civic recognition of gay marriage is that it is a "human right" (see Toward a Theory of Human Rights, an otherwise very useful book which goes inexplicably sideways on this point). But such a statement is, of itself, largely vacuous because civil marriage of itself consists wholly of having your names recorded in a county clerk's register somewhere. What is actually meant is not that having your names so-recorded by a county clerk is a human right, but rather that certain adjoining powers, protections, privileges, and obligations which are legally attached to marriage are human rights. But which ones? To have a like-minded clergyman pronounce you "married" (covered by the 1st Amendment)? To cohabitate? To fornicate/sodomize/copulate? To have preferential tax status? To have presumptive rights to medical consent and hospital visitation? To have presumptive inheritance and estate rights? To adopt, as a couple, a ward of the state? To be recognized and treated by those who object to your lifestyle as though you are "married"? The whole "human rights" conversation would most likely be more productive if it could be channeled into assertions about such specific rights instead of assuming that the large and ever-changing constellation of rights, privileges, and obligations associated with marriage are equally included by-reference under a nominal "right to marry".

Ecclesiastic Marriage

The Episcopal Church has for a long time now condoned various flavors of services to bless or condone same-sex unions, and other mainline denominations seem to be getting in line to do the same.

God reserves a particular ferocity of judgment for those who "call evil good" (Isaiah 5:18-21), and such is their failure to (at the institutional level) prophetically renounce that which the Lord renounces and (at a personal level) pastorally confront those who wish to have their sin legitimized.

"Married" Gay Couples in the Church

Whether married by law or only in a nominal church service, we need to think carefully about what to do when men and women come to Jesus and come into the church with the understanding that they are already "married" to someone of the same sex.