"IN DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE?"
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday, March 7, 2004
All
When I decided some while ago to do this sermon on the topic of recognizing same-sex marriages, I knew this was an important issue before us as a society, and it deserves being addressed. What I did not know then was that by the time this sermon rolled around on March 7, the topic would be at flood level proportions in the media. Every newspaper, every news show, every talk show, every conversation, it seems, in the last week, has in some way addressed the issue of same-sex marriage. I apologize if you feel you've heard all that needs to be said. All I can say to you is, just be glad I'm not speaking this morning on the Martha Stewart case!
Actually, when it comes to an issue of human rights, there can't be too much discussion in a civil society. Human rights is what our country is about in the first place, and if the word "patriotism" has any positive meaning at all, it means our loyalty, not really to the country itself, but to the values and principles that define that country. The discussions must continue until we as a society reach a consensus about what human rights means in terms of this issue.
It seems to me that in order to approach this issue rationally, we should first have an idea of what we mean by "marriage." I believe there are two distinct, but related, uses of that term.
At one level, marriage refers simply to two people who love each other and have chosen to make a life-long commitment to their exclusive relationship. They are partners in life. Their lives are joined together, facing their future together. The world views them as partners, as a "couple," and any plans they make for the future, they make together. Their marriage is the consequence of their joint commitment.
At a second and different level, marriage is a legal contract. It is a legal recognition by the government of the relationship defined by the couple. When couples come to me to plan a wedding, sometimes they ask what is legally required in the ceremony. I answer, "nothing." The ceremony is simply a public statement of the private commitment they are making. The only thing the government requires is an authorized signature on a piece of paper. That's all.
In some ways, the second meaning of marriage, the legal meaning, is only vaguely related to the first meaning, that is, a loving and committed relationship. The form I sign that makes them legally married does not ask if they are truly committed to living the rest of their lives with the other person. The form does not ask if they will be abusive to their partner, thereby severing the real meaning of marriage. The form does not ask if they will be loving parents. The form does not ask what happens if they fall out of love. The form doesn't even ask if they love their partner. All the government cares about in blessing this union is a signature. Let me add that many prefer to call what is being proposed a "same-sex civil marriage" rather than just "same-sex marriage" to clarify the fact that this is a civil rights concern and a government regulated contract rather than just a religious issue. As it stands now, the ordinary concept of marriage is confused about whether it is a religious institution or social institution or a legal institution. In this country it is important to keep state and church separate, but for purposes of this sermon I will refer to "same-sex marriage" just to save you from too much verbiage. The point of this being a civil contract, though, is well taken.
I believe it is important to distinguish between thinking of marriage, on one hand, as the personal commitment two loving people make to one another, and the legal contract on the other. The first sense is in many ways far more profound. True marriage isn't something the government bestows, it is something the partners in a loving, committed relationship affirm between them. In that sense of marriage, there already exist countless same-sex marriages in our society. I know of gay and lesbian partnerships that are far more solid and long-lasting than many heterosexual marriages. I know same-sex partners raising children who are far better parents than some heterosexual couples are. If the measure of a marriage is the level of love and commitment two people give one another when they join their lives together, then it seems to me gender has absolutely nothing to do with what marriage is about.
It is astounding the variety of marriage relationships two people can create. There are some very happy heterosexual couples who have no interest in physical intimacy, and they consider themselves happily married. That is their choice. Some couples choose to have children, some choose not to. There is no one single model of marriage.
It is interesting to me that in some areas the government does not make judgments about who can marry. An abusive husband's marriage is recognized and blessed by the government. The government does not deny marital rights to child molesters, or even killers. The government does not restrict marriage according to what a person does, or to whom a person is, but it restricts marriage according to whom a person loves.
As I say, if the measure of a marriage is the level of love and commitment two people give one another when they join their lives together, then it seems to me gender has absolutely nothing to do with what marriage is about. Unfortunately, under present conditions, gender does matter -- in fact it is the only thing that matters - to the law.
There is a reason that government grants legal sanction to marriages. It is believed that a marriage contract contributes to stability within society - and it probably does. There is a reason why we describe people who get married with the phrase "settling down." Commitment provides purpose and goals and a sense of being centered. All of this helps make society as a whole more stable.
In exchange for this benefit to society, the government grants a quite a few benefits to married couples which are not offered to unmarried couples. By and large, most people, married or single, don't question that these special rights are fair.
In fact, there are over 1,000 rights, protections, and privileges given to legaly married couples that non-married couples don't have.
Some of these include:
The rights to
Some of these may seem trivial at first glance, others are terribly significant. But even trivial items add up when there are a thousand of them. Here is and example of something that isn't trivial:
Say you have spent thirty years living in a committed relationship with someone. The years are filled with love, care, and mutual respect. Your partner becomes seriously ill, and you want to be by his bedside. The hospital won't let you. He has been estranged from his family for many years because they can't accept who he is. But only his family is allowed to be by his side in the ICU. If he is unconscious, you have no voice in medical decisions. If he dies, you have no say about where he is buried. All decisions are up to his family, the ones who rejected him so many years ago.
There is absolutely nothing trivial about such circumstances. In fact, there is something absolutely cruel in it. It seems to me we ought to be supportive of anyone who makes a life-long commitment to another person, and finds happiness in that commitment.
Anyway, the point here is that legal marriage does provide real benefits. The "institution" of marriage contributes to the stability of society, and in return, society grants substantial legal benefits to those who are married. Unless, of course, you happen to love someone not approved by the government.
One wonders why, then, it would not be in the interest of government, in the
interest of society at large, to extend the recognition of marriage to same-sex
couples. If society benefits when a loving heterosexual couple decide to make a
legal marriage commitment, then why, simply from the perspective of social
benefit, would we want to discourage or even prohibit that kind of commitment
from same-sex partners?
I don't need to tell everyone here that the question of extending legal marital rights to same-sex couples is a question we are being asked to decide as a society. It is, it seems to me, primarily a question of human rights and respect for human dignity. I know there is a broad spectrum of opinion on this issue, and I know there are those who disagree with me for some very legitimate reasons. Unfortunately, the issue is quickly becoming a political football in an election year. I say "unfortunately" because like any question of human rights, the issue gets dirtied by politics. The framers of our constitution realized that rights are not, nor should they ever be, subject to majority vote. Rights are beyond and above political manipulation.
But the issue is here, and it must be debated. My approach this morning has been to look at this issue by looking primarily through the lens of what marriage means. Looking at it this way, it is easy to see that over the generations, marriage has gone through evolution, and experienced substantial changes. Those who say that extending marriage rights to same-sex couples would change an institution that has remained sacrosanct for thousands of years are simply wrong. Each society chooses how it defines marriage.
For example, those who appeal to the Bible as the authority for restricting marriage to husband and wife may not realize that the same Bible that they say defines marriage that way also declares that if a wife's husband dies before she has had a child, she must have a child by her husband's brother before she can re-marry. If we are to use the Bible as the source-book for defining marriage, then we can't pick and choose what we want and simply discard what we don't want.
The concept of marriage has continually undergone transformation. I have no idea how I acquired it, but on my bookshelf is a thick volume called, "The Century Book of Facts." Published in 1900, its purpose was to provide, in almost seven hundred pages of small print, documentary descriptions of what the world was like at the turn of that century.
Not having this sermon in mind as I opened the book, its pages fell open,
like they were pre-destined by the patron saint of sermon-writers, to a page
with the title, "Marriage and Divorce Laws. Here was the status of
marriage laws in the year 1900:
Oh, yes. The Divorce Laws were interesting, too. Did you know that in
"Only for adultery will an absolute divorce be granted.
Partial divorce is ordered for cruelty, desertion, or neglect. Marriages are
annulled for fraud or force, idiocy, lunacy, impotency at the time of marriage,
or bigamy."
And in
Another interesting point this book reveals is how marriage, only one
hundred years ago, was in many ways a property contract. And more often than
not, women were treated as property, or were not given equal rights to
property. For example, the law in
"The property owned by husband or wife before marriage, and what either
may acquire afterwards, by gift, devise, or descent is community property. The
husband controls the common property, and the wife's separate estate. The common
property is liable for the debts of either, and the husband may dispose of it.
. . . A married woman cannot do business in her own name but she may become
security for her husband by mortgaging her separate estate."
Browsing through the provisions of other states for property rights for
married women, it is very common that husbands are granted decision making
rights over commonly owned property. In
Other than the fact that these pieces of trivia are quaint and interesting
peeks into the past, there are several reasons why I bring them up. First of
all, it is wrong to suppose that the so-called institution of marriage has
remained unaltered throughout human history. There have, in fact, been
substantial changes. Changes include not only who may marry whom - whether
limited by race or genetics - but also changes in terms of the way our laws
define the institution of marriage. At one time it was very much a contractual
institution concerning such matters as property ownership, for example. And our
legal definitions and requirements for marriage have always been in flux,
evolving, like all human institutions evolve, from one stage of society to the
next. In short, marriage is a legal arrangement defined however we as a society
choose to define it through our laws. It is not a mystical or transcendent
arrangement constructed by some divine designer. In other words, we control the
design of the institution, it does not control us.
When the issue is raised by those who oppose same-sex marriage, it is often suggested that this would threaten the "institution" of marriage. I am never quite sure what is meant by that. If we decide to allow two men or two women who love each other to have their partnership legally recognized, in what sense would that be a threat to any one else's marriage, let alone to the "institution" of marriage?
If the gay couple down the street who have been loving and committed partners for over twenty years, who work and pay taxes, who vacation together, who look forward to coming home to each other every night, who plan their retirement together, whose love is strong enough to withstand the prejudices around them - if that couple suddenly acquires a marriage license, in what sense does that fact threaten my marriage or your marriage? Are our marriages any weaker because two people who love each other can now be married, when previously they couldn't?
It is also sometimes argued that marriage between a man and a woman is a sacred institution, and to tamper with that institution would threaten to defile it. I've already addressed the point that the definition of marriage has been constantly revised over history, but now I want to look at the idea of a sacred institution.
That is, of course, exactly how many people - the majority of people in some parts of this country - once viewed the practice of slavery. Slavery, they said, was a sacrosanct institution, rooted in the Bible itself, ordained by God. They were right. The Bible does explicitly approve of slavery, and advises, "Slave, obey thy master." Yet over the years, we came to understand that other biblical principles, such as respect for basic human dignity, were inconsistent with the institution of slavery, and society came to a consensus that these principles were far more important.
To say now that having marriage restricted to a man and a woman is a sacred
institution not to be tampered with, is begging the question. As with another
so-called "sacred" institution we should ask, is that tradition more
important than recognizing the basic human dignity of every person?
I say this is a civil rights and human rights issue. Often the question is formed in theoretical words, about what marriage means, for example. The fact is, though, that we are considering a question that has very practical consequences for very real people. For them, this is not just a theoretical debate.
I hasten to add that there is something even more fundamental, something more profound, than just whether certain tangible rights and benefits should be extended to those who don't have them. The real issue is one of basic humanity.
Consider the civil rights struggles of the last fifty years for the rights of Black Americans. There were actually two levels of concern. At one level, the most obvious level, the struggle was simply for equal rights: equal opportunity for housing, voting, employment, quality education, and so forth. The structures of racism were obvious to anyone who could see them, and the effort to re-write the laws only came at the expense of long struggle and too much spilled blood. By and large, the laws have been re-written over time, and with some glaring exceptions, our legal system is becoming inclusive of all races.
But the fight for legal rights was only part of the struggle. The other part continues and is far more difficult to overturn. The other part of the civil rights struggle was not just for acceptance of basic legal rights, but for acceptance of basic humanity. The voice of African Americans has called on our society for no less than to recognize the human dignity of every person, regardless of race. A simple re-writing of laws is not sufficient to achieve this goal. It may take several more generations before it is attained, but we know that, if we are true to our national principles, it must happen.
While it is not always legitimate to make parallels between the civil rights
struggles of black Americans and civil rights struggles of gays and lesbians
since so much about these struggles is different, there is one sense
at least in which there is a comparison. Some issues are issues of basic human
rights, and other issues are much deeper and involve recognizing and accepting
basic human dignity of everyone. Permitting gays and lesbians the right to be
married, like anyone else, is a simple legal question. But it is a legal
question rooted in something vastly more significant. The extent to which they
are denied the same rights as others is a reflection of how strongly our
society is committed to denying their humanity.
It seems to me one important way of approaching this question, in addition to the human rights concern, is to ask what good can result if we recognize same-sex marriages legally, and what good might result if we don't. I truly can't see what good is promoted by prohibiting people who love each other, who are committed to one another, from being married. Nor can I see what damage it could do to society if they do marry.
But I see substantial good produced by making marriage available to every loving and committed couple. If we truly believe that marriage is good for society, provides a stabilizing influence, then why can't that be true for the gay and lesbian sector of society?
It is clear that, slowly and surely, the world is coming to accept this
fact. Marriage or civil union is now legal in
I think I understand why this issue is so difficult for some people to accept. For many people, it feels like quite a stretch to equate heterosexual marriage, with which we are very familiar, with homosexual marriage, which is a relatively new idea for most of us. I understand that some people see this as a very radical change in our concept of the meaning of marriage, and are uncomfortable in making that change in what seems like a fairly brief time.
I think I understand a lot of the thinking that resists the idea of same-sex marriage. What I don't understand, - and this may in fact be the strongest of all arguments in favor of it - what I don't understand is how it is a threat to anyone's heterosexual marriage. Put simply, I don't understand what possible harm it would do, and it seems to me that if we are talking about someone's freedom, the right thing to do is to allow freedom unless there is some compelling danger to others in doing so.
No matter what one's perspective is on this topic, it is crucial that we, as Unitarian Universalists and as Americans, look at the human and civil rights issues. This week my 13 year old stepdaughter Kelsey had a social studies class that discussed this issue. She was upset by the number of students who had disparaging and disrespectful things to say about the prospect of same-sex marriage. But she was moved and inspired by one student who said, "How would you feel if everyone around you was gay and only gays could be married - but you loved a person of the opposite sex and weren't allowed to marry them?"
The basis of all ethics is what in the West we call "Golden Rule": treat others as you would want to be treated under the same conditions.
Thinking of our principles and thinking of our covenant, and no matter what
your opinion, let us all have respect for each otehr
and our rights as human beings.
NOTE: Following the service, an open discussion was made available for those who wanted to the conversation to continue.