Reamg the Argument on Gay Marriage | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS
• GAY MARRIAGE: OUR MUTUAL JOY
• GAY MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR AMERI
• TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
• REAMG THE ARGUMENT ON GAY MARRIAGE
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• GAY MARRIAGE AND THE BREAKDOWN OF MORAL ARGUMENT
• AN ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE
• THE LOGIL FALLACY GAY-MARRIAGE OPPONENTS DEPEND UPON
• RSIAN NSTUTN CHANGE ENDS HOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE

GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS

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.

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.

They pot out, for stance, that homosexual upl who have been together for years often fd themselv whout the basic rights and privileg that are currently enjoyed by heterosexual upl who legally marry — om the sharg of health and pensn benefs to hospal visatn rights.

GAY MARRIAGE: OUR MUTUAL JOY

Allowg gay and lbian upl to wed, they argue, will radilly refe marriage and further weaken at a time when the stutn is already ep trouble due to high divorce rat and the signifint number of out-of-wedlock births.

The Catholic Church and evangelil Christian groups have played a leadg role public opposn to gay marriage, while male Prottant church and other relig groups wrtle wh whether to orda gay clergy and perform same-sex marriage ceremoni. Ined, the ordatn and marriage of gay persons has been a growg wedge between the socially liberal and nservative wgs of the Epispal and Prbyterian church, leadg some nservative ngregatns and even whole dc to break away om their natnal church. However, a 2006 Pew survey found that sizable majori of whe male Prottants (66%), Catholics (63%) and those whout a relig affiliatn (78%) favor allowg homosexual upl to enter to civil unns that grant most of the legal rights of marriage whout the tle.

GAY MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR AMERI

Gay Amerins have been llg for the right to marry, or at least to create more formalized relatnships, sce the 1960s, but same-sex marriage has only emerged as a natnal issue the last 15 years. The spark that started the bate me om Hawaii 1993 when the state’s Supreme Court led that an existg law banng same-sex marriage would be unnstutnal unls the state ernment uld show that had a pellg reason for discrimatg agast gay and lbian upl. Although the bate over gay marriage for a while seemed to fa om the public eye, the issue was sudnly and dramatilly tapulted back to the headl November 2003 when the hight state urt Massachetts led that the state’s nstutn guaranteed gay and lbian upl the right to marry.

To beg wh, all the marriage licens issued to gay upl outsi of Massachetts were later nullified sce none of the mayors and other officials volved had the thory to grant marriage licens to same-sex upl. Of urse not, yet the relig opponents of gay marriage would have be battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a , but wh the last six months—sce California legalized gay marriage and then, wh a ballot iative November, amend s Constutn to prohib —the bate has grown to a full-sle war, wh relig-rhetoric slgg to match.

In that light, Scripture giv no good reason why gays and lbians should not be (civilly and religly) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they the Old Ttament, the ncept of fay is fundamental, but exampl of what social nservativ would ll "the tradnal fay" are srcely to be found. J never mentns homosexualy, but he roundly nmns divorce (leavg a loophole some s for the hbands of unfahful women) apostle Pl echoed the Christian Lord's lack of tert matters of the flh.

TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

" It probably go whout sayg that the phrase "gay marriage" do not appear the Bible at the bible don't give abundant exampl of tradnal marriage, then what are the gay-marriage opponents really exercised about? In s entry on "Homosexual Practic, " the Anchor Bible Dictnary not that nowhere the Bible do s thors refer to sex between women, "possibly bee did not rult te physil 'unn' (by male entry). Pl was tough on homosexualy, though recently progrsive scholars have argued that his nmnatn of men who "were flamed wh lt for one another" (which he lls "a perversn") is really a crique of the worst kd of wickedns: self-ln, vlence, promiscuy and bchery.

REAMG THE ARGUMENT ON GAY MARRIAGE

Relig objectns to gay marriage are rooted not the Bible at all, then, but ctom and tradn (and, to talk turkey for a mute, a personal disfort wh gay sex that transcends theologil argument). (In the NEWSWEEK POLL, 55 percent of rponnts said that married heterosexuals who have sex wh someone other than their spo are more morally objectnable than a gay uple a mted sexual relatnship. The great Bible scholar Walter Beggemann, emer profsor at Columbia Theologil Semary, quot the apostle Pl when he looks for biblil support of gay marriage: "There is neher Greek nor Jew, slave nor ee, male nor female, for you are all one J Christ.

"The practice of cln, even fiance of social nventn, the reachg out to outsts, the emphasis on togetherns and muny over and agast chaos, pravy, difference—all the biblil valu argue for gay marriage.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

"I'm agast promiscuy—love ought to be exprsed mted relatnships, not through sual sex, and I thk the church should regnize the validy of mted same-sex relatnships, " he, very few Jewish or Christian nomatns do officially endorse gay marriage, even the stat where is legal.

My iend the prit Jam Mart says his favore Scripture relatg to the qutn of homosexualy is Psalm 139, a song that prais the bety and imperfectn all of and that glorifi God's knowledge of our most secret selv: "I praise you bee I am fearfully and wonrfully ma. Lbian and gay muni, and the femist muni wh which they have historilly overlapped, have long celebrated the valu of sexual diversy over the sexual nformy reprented by marriage and the ethil importance of sexual straight-talkg rather than the double-standards so equently observed marriage’s vicy.

It is large part bee of femist and gay novatns livg that marriage today is creasgly unrstood not as a relig but a social relatn; characterised not by male domatn but equaly and mutualy between the sex; valued not terms of s ntractual basis but terms of s ongog ntributn to a person’s sense of well-beg; and mataed not until ath-do--part but for as long as both parti fd satisfactn . What if gay marriage be a vehicle for polygamists who want to marry multiple partners, egalarians who want to radilly rewre fay law, or secularists who want to supprs relig objectns to homosexualy?

GAY MARRIAGE AND THE BREAKDOWN OF MORAL ARGUMENT

Space don’t perm me to treat those and other objectns tail, beyond notg that same-sex marriage no more leads logilly to polygamy than givg women one vote leads to givg men two; that gay marriage requir only few and most chang to existg fay law; and that the Constutn provis robt protectns for relig eedom. As temptg as is to want to take on the gay marriage issue the Uned Stat (particularly wh spirg velopments like support om Print Obama) the se for equaly is better ma through civil unns.

AN ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE

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.

GAY MARRIAGE

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.

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.

THE LOGIL FALLACY GAY-MARRIAGE OPPONENTS DEPEND UPON

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.

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.

RSIAN NSTUTN CHANGE ENDS HOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE

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. Any preacher or wrer who ventur to make a moral argument agast gay marriage is tomatilly nmned as a purveyor of “hate speech” or exriated as a bigot, and extreme s, he n be subject to legal sanctn.

What I have tried to do is clear away some of the fog that obft this issue, the hop that we might eventually see, wh some clary and objectivy, what the Catholic Church teach regard to sexualy general and the qutn of gay marriage particular.