What do the Bible say about gay marriage / same sex marriage? |

Contents:

• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE?
• GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• GAY MARRIAGE
• TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
• WHERE SHOULD WE, AS CHRISTIANS, STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE?

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE?

Why is the gay rights movement so aggrsively phg for gay marriage/same-sex marriage when most people, relig and non-relig, are supportive of gay upl havg the same legal rights as married upl through some form of civil unn?

Scholars and the general public beme creasgly terted the issue durg the late 20th century, a perd when attus toward homosexualy and laws regulatg homosexual behavur were liberalized, particularly wtern Europe and the Uned issue of same-sex marriage equently sparked emotnal and polil clash between supporters and opponents. Relig and secular expectatns of marriage and sexualy Over time the historil and tradnal cultur origally rerd by the lik of Bachofen and Man slowly succumbed to the homogenizatn imposed by lonialism.

GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS

In other s, the cultural homogeney supported by the domant relign did not rult the applitn of doctre to the civic realm but may nohels have fostered a smoother seri of discsns among the cizenry: Belgium and Spa had legalized same-sex marriage, for stance, spe official opposn om their predomant relig stutn, the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the world religns have at some pots their histori opposed same-sex marriage for one or more of the followg stated reasons: homosexual acts vlate natural law or dive tentns and are therefore immoral; passag sacred texts nmn homosexual acts; and relig tradn regniz only the marriage of one man and one woman as valid. But when taken ntext, the lsons speak not agast homosexualy self, but rather agast rape, child moltatn, btialy, and other practic that hurt others and promise a person’s relatnship wh God.

Although opponents of same-sex marriage claim that lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr unns vlate biblil prcipl, no vers the Bible explicly addrs gay marriage or mted same-sex relatnships. What has grown is a much greater acceptance of gays and lbians our culture, as well as the social and enomic eedom for gays and lbians to emerge om the closet that has nfed them for so many generatns. The recent addn of same sex mment ceremoni the Sunday New York Tim weddg and engagement announcements and the populary of shows as "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye…" dite a shift our culture's attu toward gays and lbians.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

My purpose today is not to support or fend gay and lbian marriag—ed, many gays and lbians do not want to marry—but simply suggt a theologil approach that might open up the possibily for greater Christian acceptance of, and eccliastil approval for, same sex unns. Catholic sistence: one n uphold the digny of homosexual people while not upholdg their right-to-marry; no unjt discrimatn towards homosexuals is acceptable; they mt be treated wh rpect, and their rights fend. On July 25, 2014 Miami-Da County Circu Court Judge Sarah Zabel led Florida’s gay marriage ban unnstutnal and stated that the ban “serv only to hurt, to discrimate, to prive same-sex upl and their fai of equal digny, to label and treat them as send-class cizens, and to em them unworthy of participatn one of the fundamental stutns of our society.

The Amerin Psychologil Associatn, Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, and others nclud that legal gay marriage giv upl “accs to the social support that already facilat and strengthens heterosexual marriag, wh all of the psychologil and physil health benefs associated wh that support.

A 2010 analysis found that after their stat had banned gay marriage, gay, lbian and bisexual people suffered a 37% crease mood disorrs, a 42% crease alhol-e disorrs, and a 248% crease generalized anxiety disorrs. In 2012, the Williams Instute at the Universy of California at Los Angel (UCLA) found that the first five years after Massachetts legalized gay marriage 2004, same-sex weddg expendur (such as venue rental, weddg k, etc. 2016 printial ndidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fra stated that civil unns are aquate as an equivalent to marriage: “Benefs are beg btowed to gay upl [ civil unns]… I believe we need to rpect those who believe that the word marriage has a spirual foundatn… Why n’t we rpect and tolerate that while at the same time sayg ernment nnot btow benefs unequally.

GAY MARRIAGE

Court papers filed July 2014 by attorneys fendg Arizona’s gay marriage ban stated that “the State regulat marriage for the primary purpose of channelg potentially procreative sexual relatnships to endurg unns for the sake of jog children to both their mother and their father… Same-sex upl n never provi a child wh both her blogil mother and her blogil father. Lee Badgett, PhD, Director of the Center for Public Policy and Admistratn at the Universy of Massachetts at Amherst, stated that for many gay activists “marriage means adoptg heterosexual forms of fay and givg up distctively gay fay forms and perhaps even gay and lbian culture. Pla Ettelbrick, JD, Profsor of Law and Women’s Studi, wrote 1989, “Marriage ns ntrary to two of the primary goals of the lbian and gay movement: the affirmatn of gay inty and culture and the validatn of many forms of relatnships.

LGBT activist llective Agast Equaly stated, “Gay marriage ap hetero privilege… [and] creas enomic equaly by perpetuatg a system which ems married begs more worthy of the basics like health re and enomic rights. Queer activist Anrs Zanichkowsky stated June 2013 that the then mpaign for gay marriage “tentnally and malicly eras and exclus so many queer people and cultur, particularly trans and genr non-nformg people, poor queer people, and queer people non-tradnal fai… marriage thks non-married people are viant and not tly servg of civil rights. In Islamic tradn, several hadhs (passag attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) nmn gay and lbian relatnships, cludg the saygs “When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shak, ” and “Sihaq [lbian sex] of women is za [illegimate sexual terurse].

Matt Barber, Associate Dean for Onle Programs at Liberty Universy School of Law, stated, “Every dividual engaged the homosexual liftyle, who has adopted a homosexual inty, they know, tuively, that what they’re dog is immoral, unnatural, and self-stctive, yet they thirst for that affirmatn.

TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

A 2003 set of guil signed by Pope John Pl II stated: “There are absolutely no grounds for nsirg homosexual unns to be any way siar or even remotely analogo to God’s plan for marriage and fay… Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go agast the natural moral law. On May 17, 2004, the first legal gay marriage the Uned Stat was performed Cambridge, MA between Tanya McCloskey, a massage therapist, and Marcia Kadish, an employment manager at an engeerg firm. In the space of two days this week voters North Carola approved a nstutnal amendment effectively banng same-sex marriage and US Print Barack Obama ma clear his view that gay and lbian upl should have the chance to wed.

We Southerners have held the le for tradn and moral tth about marriage every time the issue has been put on the ballot how cisive the North Carola vote was, and given that gay marriage proponents have lost every state, even culturally liberal California, is temptg to thk we n stand athwart history yellg, "Stop!

In my newsroom experience, is taken as given that any opposn to gay marriage n only e om rank would no more take a fenr of tradnal marriage serly than you would take a segregatnist serly - or so the thkg go. Tryg to expla philosophilly why homosexualy is not the same thg as race draws blank is simply not somethg to be reasoned about, pecially not wh my generatn of journalists: too young to have seen the black civil rights movement, and who are not about to miss out on their own versn. Though I firmly believe there is only a superficial nnectn between gay marriage and ter-racial marriage, the legacy of the civil rights movement the South is precisely why I thk marriage tradnalists are gog to lose the long n.

WHERE SHOULD WE, AS CHRISTIANS, STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE?

Gay marriage opponents like to tell themselv that people get more nservative as they age - te, general, but unlikely this long as the tradnalist posn on same-sex marriage, almost universally held only 25 years ago, is treated as irratnal hatred and nothg but by the media, bs, and social el, there will be powerful social and psychologil prsure to shun . Prejudice - eher the bad sense of mdls bigotry, or the good, Burkean sense - is the only thg keepg gay marriage at will not last, pecially as the social, legal, and mercial price for holdg fast to tradn creas, as certaly will, now that same-sex marriage mands the high ground the US social and cultural hierarchy. Gay marriage plet the stutnalisatn of the sexual revolutn, agast which the forc of social nservatism and relig tradn have been pleasg as ballot box victori are, I see no reason for the long feat to reverse, at least not my lifetime.

Andorra 2023EuropeParliament the small mountao untry between France and Spa voted to legalize same-sex marriage.Argenta 2010Lat Ameri-CaribbeanFirst untry Lat Ameri to allow gay and lbian upl to marry.Atralia 2017Asia-PacificVoters supported legalizg same-sex marriage by a 61.6% to 38.4% marg a non-bdg natnwi referendum.Atria 2019EuropeA urt lg 2017 eventually led to the change.Belgium 2003EuropeSend untry the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after s neighbor, the Netherlands.Brazil 2013Lat Ameri-CaribbeanAbout half of Brazil’s 27 jurisdictns had allowed same-sex marriage until a urt lg ma legal natnwi.Canada 2005North AmeriSame-sex marriage was legal a majory of Canada’s provc before Parliament passed natnal legislatn.

Chile 2022Lat Ameri-CaribbeanSixth South Amerin untry to legalize same-sex marriage.Colombia 2016Lat Ameri-CaribbeanColombia’s Constutnal Court legalized same-sex marriage by a 6-3 vote.Costa Ri 2020Lat Ameri-CaribbeanFirst Central Amerin untry to legalize same-sex marriage.Cuba 2022Lat Ameri-CaribbeanChange allowg same-sex marriage was part of a broar referendum on fay law that passed by a 66.9% to 33.1% vote.Denmark 2012EuropeSame-sex marriage beme legal through a separate procs Greenland, an tonomo terrory of Denmark, 2016.Ecuador 2019Lat Ameri-CaribbeanCourt lg ma Ecuador the fifth South Amerin untry to allow gays and lbians to wed.Fland 2017EuropeThe law, passed by Parliament 2014, started out as a “cizens’ iative” – a public petn wh nearly 167,000 signatur. It me to effect 2017.France 2013EuropeThen-French Print François Hollan signed the law after an unsuccsful urt challenge.Germany 2017EuropeLegislatn passed after then-Chancellor Angela Merkel said members of her lg Christian Democratic Unn should vote their nscience even though the party formally opposed same-sex marriage.Iceland 2010EuropeAfter the law took effect, the untry’s prime mister at the time, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, wed her longtime partner, Jónína Leósdóttir, beg one of the first people to marry unr the statute.Ireland 2015EuropeFirst untry to legalize same-sex marriage through a popular referendum, wh more than six--ten Irish voters (62%) favor.Luxembourg 2015EuropeThe bill was champned by the untry’s prime mister, Xavier Bettel, who is openly gay.Malta 2017EuropeParliament almost unanimoly voted to legalize same-sex marriage.Mexi 2022Lat Ameri-CaribbeanSame-sex marriage eventually beme legal natnally after the Supreme Court clared state bans unnstutnal 2015. Netherlands2001EuropeFirst untry to legalize same-sex marriage after Parliament passed the law December 2000.New Zealand 2013Asia-PacificFirst untry the Asia-Pacific regn to allow gays and lbians to wed.Norway 2009EuropeThe law replaced a 1993 statute permtg civil unns.