Gay Marriage: Theologil and Moral Arguments - Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS
• WHY THE ARGUMENTS FOR GAY MARRIAGE ARE PERSUASIVE
• WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS
• FIVE REASONS CHRISTIANS SHOULD CONTUE TO OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE
• WHERE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, OTHER RELIGNS STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE
• THE TOP 10 ARGUMENTS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE: ALL RECEIVE FAILG GRAS!
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

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 tent was two-fold: first to ve stunts to dialogue wh people different om themselv; send, to work to elimate, whatever small way I uld, homophobic attus on our mp and our muny.

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. See Katy Fst’s strikg article, “Dear Jtice Kennedy: An Open Letter om the Child of a Lovg Gay Parent, ” which she matas that she is “one of many children wh gay parents who believe we should protect marriage” bee “the ernment’s tert marriage is about the children that only male-female relatnships n produce.

Crawford, “Mechanism, Public Reason, and the Anthropology of Orientatn: How the Debate over ‘Gay Marriage’ Has Been Shaped by Some Ubiquo but Unexamed Assumptns, ” Humanum (Fall 2012): 8; available onle at /pdfs/CRAWFORD_SSU_ma_17pp_(fal).

WHY THE ARGUMENTS FOR GAY MARRIAGE ARE PERSUASIVE

Where some English translatns might clu “homosexualy” on this list, the translatn is not that simple, which is why var English words are ed (adulterer, immoral persons, prostut). In other words, monorg and proscribg human (homo)sexual activy is not a particular ncern of the Bible when pared to the overarchg mand for jtice, enomic equaly, and the fair treatment of foreigners and strangers.

Wh two landmark gay marriage s before the Supreme Court we are already seeg a flurry of articl, posts, tweets, and stat updat about the triumph will be when Ameri fally embrac equaly for all and allows homosexuals to love each other. Given the assumptns and patterns of thkg our culture has embraced the last fifty years, the se for gay marriage is relatively easy to make and the se agast mak creasgly ltle sense. I don’t thk the arguments or gay marriage are biblilly fahfully, logilly persuasive, or good for human flourishg the long n, but they are almost impossible to overe wh most Amerins, pecially younger generatns.

WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS

Gay marriage is the logil ncln to a long argument, which means nvcg people ’s a bad ia requir overturng some of our most cherished valu and most powerful of all the ways gay marriage fs wh our cultural mood and assumptns. And even if you thk the exampl are bi the pot, the fact remas that no law prohibs homosexuals (or any two adults) om makg promis to each other, om holdg a ceremony, om enterg to a venant wh each other. Conservative Christians have more kids; make sure they know what the Bible says and know how to should also remember that the church’s missn life is not to feat gay marriage.

FIVE REASONS CHRISTIANS SHOULD CONTUE TO OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE

And we need urage not to jt say what the Bible says, but to dare say what almost no one will say–that gay sex is unnatural and harmful to the body, that abandong genr distctns will be tastrophic for our society and for children, and that monogamy and exclivy is often unrstood differently the gay muny. Our Christian hearts, ns the (ually impassned) argument, pel to grant full moral and legal equaly to gay and lbian people; our Christian fah, the (ually impassned) rebuttal, pels to cleave, above all, to the word of God. All tak is readg those passag of the Bible where homosexualy is mentned wh the same re we would any other passage of the n tst God; we n tst that God is we n tst that we n -- and that we certaly should -- take God, this matter, as all thgs, at his there is no clearly stated directive the Bible to margalize and ostracize gay people, then Christians ntug to do so is morally fensible, and mt nnot be nied is that Christians have ed a great al of pa and sufferg to gay persons, by:Banng their participatn the church, th privg them of the forts and spirual us of the church;Banng their participatn the sacrament of marriage, th privg them of the forts and spirual us of marriage;Damagg the bonds between gays and their straight fay members, th weakeng the forts and spirual us of fay life for both gays and their fai; andUsg their posn wh society as spokpersons for God to proclaim that all homosexual relatns are disdaed by God, th knowgly ntributg to the cel persecutn of a mory populatn.

WHERE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, OTHER RELIGNS STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE

However, they ntend that they have no choicebutto do the thgs, based on what they say is a clear directive about homosexuals livered to them by God through the Holy Bible.

They say that the Bible f all homosexual acts as sful, stcts them to exclu om full participatn the church all non-repentant sners (cludg gay people), and morally lls upon them to publicly (or at least rolutely) nounce homosexual acts. Whout an explic directive om God to exclu and nmn homosexuals, the Christian muny's treatment of gay persons is clear vlatn of what J and the New Ttament wrers potedly intified as the most important mandment om God: to love one's neighbor as one's gay muny has cried out for jtice to Christians, who have a biblilly mandated obligatn to be jt. Heterosexual Christians are beg unbiblil by g the clobber passag as jtifitn for applyg absolute standards of moraly to homosexual "ss" that they themselv are not tempted to m, while at the same time acceptg for themselv a standard of relative moraly for those ss listed the clobber passag that they do routely m.

THE TOP 10 ARGUMENTS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE: ALL RECEIVE FAILG GRAS!

) The fact that homosexualy is so rarely mentned the Bible should be an ditn to of the gree of importance ascribed by the thors of the the Bible is nearly silent on homosexualy, a great al of s ntent is voted to how a Christian should behave. If heterosexual Christians are obligated to look to the Bible to terme the sfulns of homosexual acts, how much greater is their obligatn to look to the Bible to terme the sfulns of their behavr toward gay persons, pecially light of the gay muny's ll to them for jtice?

And so Christians accept as evable that any given Christian will, for stance, on ocsn drk too much, lt or tell a we've seen, the clobber passag Pl also nmns, along wh homosexualy, those three specific ss. Christians evaluate the gree of s, or even whether or not a real s has occurred, by lookg at both the harm ed by the s, and the tent of the s's do, that is, for all ss except homosexualy.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

Christians draw no moral distctn between the homosexual gang rape the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the i to which Pl refers his letter to the Romans, the wild sexual abandon Pl addrs 1 Corthians, and nsensual homosexual sex between lovg and mted homosexual partners.

Heterosexual Christians are beg unfair and hypocril by g the clobber passag as jtifitn for applyg absolute standards of moraly (and an absolute penalty) to homosexual "ss" that they themselv are never tempted to m, while at the same time acceptg for themselv a standard of relative moraly (and applyg no real penalty) for those ss listed the clobber passag that they do routely there is no monstrable harm arisg om sex wh a mted homosexual relatnship, and there is signifint monstrable harm arisg om discrimatn and nmnatn agast gay persons, what possible biblil basis n there be for not regnizg the vast moral differential between sex acts done wh the ntext of a lovg mted relatnship, and sex acts of any other sort? We would be foolish to fail to unrstand that not everythg the Bible is a mandment, and that Christians nnot take any small sectn of the Bible out of s own ntext, and still hope to ga a clear unrstandg of s the four Old Ttament passag to nmn all homosexual acts is not keepg wh any directive om God, nor wh the practic of ntemporary Bible's first four mentns of homosexualy occur the Old ntug to be spirually spired and fluenced by the Old Ttament, Christians were specifilly stcted by Pl not to follow the law of the Old Ttament, such passag as:The former regulatn is set asi bee was weak and els (for the law ma nothg perfect), and a better hope is troduced, by which we draw near to God.