As I have been working out some thoughts on why, given the choice between only these two options, I prefer to support homosexual marriage in American law rather than forbid it (here and here), a couple of related questions and criticisms have been raised.
In general, these tend to ask why a Christian sense of morality shouldn’t inform our political posture as much as anyone else’s secular sense of morality informs theirs. In particular, people have been suspicious that arguing for laws that run counter to the religious preferences of Christians might leave us no room to argue in favor of our other Christian positions such as opposition to abortion.
I do not find this line of argument persuasive.
First, there is a difference between arguing for a “Christian” position and arguing for a position on Christian grounds. 
If the only argument we have to make is a Christian argument, then a pluralistic society should reject those arguments. Moreover, to see that such a rejection is right in our political context is simply to affirm that religious liberty is good for all faiths, including Christianity.
And, in assessing whether my “Christian” position should be enforced more broadly I am not setting aside my Christian convictions. Instead, I’m asking what it looks like in a given situation to love my neighbor as myself and to do unto others as I would have done to me. In a pluralistic society, my ethic of Christian love dictates that I do not impose my religious law on another–just as I would not have their religious law imposed upon me.
In the case of abortion, asking these questions creates a network of issues that complicates what is otherwise a simplistic and insufficiently Christian pro-life position, but they do lead inevitably to a recognition of abortion as an injustice that should be rooted out of society.
Asking these questions complicates the issue of abortion because we do have to ask what it means to love the pregnant woman as ourselves. This question is too little asked by pro-life groups, and folks who are theologically and politically conservative here tend to take too little stock of the systemic issues that both lead to unwanted pregnancy and lead to termination of it. Loving the pregnant neighbor means more than forbidding her to end the pregnancy.
But in complicating the issue it does not pull us away from protecting the life of the unborn child–because we have to ask, also, what it means to love this unborn neighbor as ourselves and to do unto him or her as we would have done unto us.
In fact, I would argue that protecting the unborn child and standing up for civil equality are two instantiations of the same posture of protecting the powerless, defending the outcast.
However, the more compelling parallel to my mind is between homosexual marriage and interracial marriage as the latter was at first forbidden then gradually allowed, and now is generally accepted–at least in theory–all by Christians and for Christian reasons. We’ll look at this tomorrow.
your last comment is the most interesting.
Of course, Race was an unbiblical category forced on the bible, foreign to it. Course, now that we allow science to override the bible and Adam is no longer the progenitor of all, and we note that african DNA possesses no neanderthal alelles and non-african DNA does, maybe that needs to be revisited.
But anyway, the christian reasons for accepting interracial marriage involved realizing the categories were unbiblical.
“What does it look like” to love the neighbor is such an antinomian question. Better to ask “What does God require you to do” to love your neighbor, and the answer is in the text.
Maybe you should re-read MLK on natural law.
Thanks for continuing to tackle these issues, Daniel. I appreciate your movement to separate the false parallel of legislation surrounding homosexual marriage and abortion. It is critical that the pro-life advocate be more committed life than to the politically conservative party line. Neither legislation against abortion nor legal deterrents reduce the number of actual abortions. Rather, as those committed to an ethic of life, we must work to eliminate the factors that lead to abortion. Overwhelmingly, those factors are fears about financially affording to care for a child, lack of medical insurance, and lack of a husband—statistically, men who are not able to financially support a family are far less likely to marry. If these factors are true, abortion is more a symptom of economic injustice than a symptom of moral decline.
Robby: I guess one way to address the economic injustice is to give welfare to unemployed men, instead of unmarried women with children. That will make them able to financially support a family.
Justice will then prevail.
Wait a minute, are you arguing that assistance should not be given to unmarried mothers with children, or are you just advocating that assistance (apparently not currently given) be given to unemployed men?
Or are you being sarcastic? I really can’t tell, and I’m having trouble making sense of what you’re trying to get at here.
No, Mark. I think it’s safe to say, primarily, he’s mocking me.
I find nothing compelling at all in the parallel between homosexual marriage and interracial marriage.
That’s tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned.
“It is critical that the pro-life advocate be more committed life than to the politically conservative party line. Neither legislation against abortion nor legal deterrents reduce the number of actual abortions.”
You really think so? There are millions and millions of abortions now. There were some before, but really, you think the number of abortions was unchanged from prior to roe v wade?
That seems amazing to me. citation?
and as long as we’re comparing everything to everything else, how does this sound
“It is critical that the antiracism advocate be more committed to eliminating racism than the politically liberal party line. Neither legislation against segregation nor legal deterrents reduce the number of actual racist incidents. Pastors who advocate for merely legal remedies like getting rid of legal segregation are engaging in an unchristian civil war, imposing their vision of moral law on nonchristian society.”
Pduggie has a solid point. No other time in history has there been so many people suffering from the effect of abortion. This is absolutely a unique time in history. I am not a political person on this issue, instead my family has a ministry to heal people from the effects of abortion. So if you ask the question “how to I love my neighbor?” I say I can offer a way to healing. I am not in the business of telling people what’s wrong, I will encourage them to keep the child, but when the decision is made to abort the church needs to be there to bring healing to a broken lives. The statistic in Orange County is 1 out 3 women have had an abortion. One could easily argue that a law banning it would bring the numbers down, but this is not the case and our view is this ministry has a lot of work ahead of it.
Greetings Pduggie,
In response to your request for citation, here is a link to an article by Glen Stassen (Fuller Ethics Prof.) http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0906&article=what-actually-works
As for CDC abortion numbers (not millions upon millions, but your rhetorical point is well taken: it is a tragically high number) here is a link to the CDC statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5808a1.htm?s_cid=ss5808a1_e
Walking through this as a minister I see the possibility of how this works civilly and religiously. My question is this: As a minister of the gospel, would you perform a homosexual marriage? Also, if the law stated that clergy could not deny such a request, or if a minister would not wish to for what he would see as biblical reasons, would you support the law… or the minister?
Dan, my preference is for ministers to perform weddings that have no standing in the eyes of the state. State creates unions, church can marry whomsoever it does or does not please.
A law that required a minister to marry homosexuals should be opposed as instituting a state mandate for a religious decision. It goes against not only a particular position, but the very freedom of conscience and equal protection under the law that my advocacy of homosexual unions by the state intends to uphold. That’s where I’d say that the state has definitely crossed the line into mandating a religious decision in the opposite direction of what many states are doing right now.
Thanks for those thoughts. I can see states going that distance over time. It’s something to prepare for eventually.
The ‘analogy’ between interracial marriage and same sex marriage seems incredibly slight to me. The restriction of interracial marriage occurs in a limited range of contexts, and generally for reasons that are very historically and culturally situated. In contrast, the male-female character of marriage is one of the nearest things that we have to a universal, transcultural norm.
The idea that there is little difference between the bearing of skin colour upon the institution and practice of marriage, and the bearing of the male and femaleness of the partners is patently ridiculous. The fact that the two cases are deemed analogous by many says more about how blinkered many people’s views of marriage have become than it does about anything relating to reality.
Daniel, I would be interested to see whether you would be prepared to follow up these posts with a series of posts on the subject of what the Church SHOULD do to resist gay marriage and the attitudes the underlie it. It would be great to hear how the importance of sexual difference should be unequivocally and uncompromisingly proclaimed, how the bringing together of male and female in a God-imaging union in which the divine blessing of fruitfulness and multiplication can be known has a peculiar significance, etc. When these things are only admitted in a somewhat apologetic tone, and far more effort is devoted to get Christians to stop acting on the subject and to avoid offending homosexuals, rather than refocusing their resistance, it is hard not to suspect the presence of moral cowardice.
I make no apologies for wording myself strongly here; I think that this debate could benefit from a greater appreciation of the fact that we are not merely dealing with honest differences here, but with cases of sin, of rebellion, and of tragic deception. While we may not think it right to ‘impose our ethics’ upon the rest of society, as a Church we do have a prophetic duty to bring wickedness into the light, and a responsibility to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, seeking to bring erring brothers back to the truth. If you truly believe that homosexual marriage is a perversion of the biblical vision of marriage, it would be great to see you do a lot more to speak out strongly and clearly on the subject, even though it might not be appreciated by many of your readers. We should esteem the reproach of Christ greater than all of the riches of academic respectability.
“The ‘analogy’ between interracial marriage and same sex marriage seems incredibly slight to me. The restriction of interracial marriage occurs in a limited range of contexts, and generally for reasons that are very historically and culturally situated. ”
And the laws regarding the occasion of homosexual sex acts aren’t equally contextual with unique situations? To make that claim is to ignore the obvious.
Hopefully your just misunderstanding the literature. Otherwise, you’re simply cherry-picking to support one bias while soothing a guilty conscience over the atrocities committed by another.
Sean,
This debate isn’t about the legitimacy of homosexual sex. It is about gay MARRIAGE, which is a different thing entirely. As I already pointed out, the idea that marriage is a union of a man and a woman is one of the nearest things that we have to a transcultural universal norm (there are gay unions in various contexts, but these are regarded as different to marriage).
A further crucial difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage is that gay marriage is not just seen as something that is prohibited, but as an IMPOSSIBILITY, like a person born male becoming pregnant. Cultures haven’t generally gone around saying that gay couples can’t marry. Gay marriage is seen to be ruled out by definition and not by some prohibition that needs to be added.
“As I already pointed out, the idea that marriage is a union of a man and a woman is one of the nearest things that we have to a transcultural universal norm (there are gay unions in various contexts, but these are regarded as different to marriage).”
Whose definition of marriage are you using? I think you’re confusing legal definitions with Christian terminology. Culturally modern Americans generally define marriage as a “social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship.” However, this definition has shifted significantly over time and from various cultures. So the idea that it’s a universal norm doesn’t hold water. It’s an observational assumption at best and not a very good one.
With regards to definitions, it seems that you are stuck in too narrow of one and you refuse to budge. It is far from impossible that two members of the same sex can enter in binding monogamy contract. It’s not changing any core definitions to make that statement. It’s logical and valid.
Christian practices are not, nor should they, the sole influencer of law and custom. Christian practices apply only to Christians. If a church does not want to perform homosexual marriages then they should be free to do so. However, to take that church’s position as a cultural mandate is simply ludicrous.
You are ignoring the fuller reality surrounding not just the idea but the practice of homosexuality. Morality aside, homosexuals are an oppressed people; we even have laws now which hedge against this sad reality, as in “hate crimes.”
Therefore, the church nowadays ought to exhort and bless same-sex couples, not “resist” them like they are lepers. Would you have them cower away until they can reason themselves out of their homosexual ways, and only then have them come to church?!
…Thus, the analogy between interracial marriages and same sex marriage is a fitting one when seen on a sociopolitical level, as both were oppressed groups in need of the gospel message.
Sometimes God is willing to put his name on the line in order to reach people where they currently stand — see Hosea.
Michael,
Firstly, I never claimed that our posture in relation to homosexuals should be one of ‘resistance’. The resistance that I spoke of was to same sex marriage and the ideas that underlie it. Our posture towards homosexuals should be welcoming but not affirming.
The idea that the church’s blessing is about making people feel better about themselves, more accepted and included, and need not involve any relation to truth or to those ways of life that God declares to be good strikes me as evangelically bankrupt.
Interracial marriage should not be denied because prohibitions of it place an added arbitrary and unjust restriction on marriage. Attacking prohibitions of interracial marriage has nothing to do with making interracial couples feel more accepted, and everything to do with truth and justice. In the case of gay marriage the question we must ask is why same sex unions should be recognized as marriage, when they go against the very definition of the union that is present in practically every cultural setting and throughout history and clearly have a different character from and can’t serve the same ends as heterosexual marriage. It is the willingness to forgo questions of truth for the sake of tolerance and inoffensiveness that puts society at risk, subjecting the definition of marriage that we live in terms of to the demands of political correctness.
since when does blessing translate into “making people feel better about themselves?” That is your definition, not mine.
Again, you have missed the point: homosexuals are a minority group being persecuted against, and therefore ought to have sanctuary in the gospel.
Thank you for tackling these issues Daniel. I’m looking forward to part 2! I think many, particularly fundamentalist/conservative “Christians” abuse the literature of Scripture, particularly with the issue of homosexuality. However, I’m approaching things with a background in literature instead of theology. I’m interested to hear your take.
Came across this stat. “From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S” (The Alan Guttmacher Institute). 45 million is an unreal number for me to imagine.
Daniel, I like where you have been going with this, but keep coming back to one question. If we argue for gay marriage (legally) but refuse to bless those marriages in the church, doesn’t that send a very confusing message to gay couples?
Like we’re pretending to support them, but in the end really don’t?
I ask this in all seriousness, because I want to be able to affirm legalizing gay marriage and hold a Christian sexual ethic at the same time, and find it to be a bit of a mess to do so.
Is there a way to draw a parallel with parental wisdom without sounding paternalistic? I know this is dangerous, but I’ll give it a try…
I started thinking that the answer is something like: I love you enough to call you to what I believe is best, and I love you enough to bless you on your way should you decline my invitation.
And the parental analogy came to mind: How would I treat my children, what would I want for my children, should they decide that they’re gay/lesbian? I point them away from that toward what I believe what is best, and should they decline my guidance, I still embrace them and their partner(s) warmly into our home and family and hope that my kids’ partners will stand by them and provide the emotional, physical, social, etc. support to make life in this world more doable, rewarding, fulfilling–and, at best, provide a context within which they will be cared for in their old age.
Tricky as it is, I want to figure out a way to love and bless people whom I do not agree with and who do not agree with me.
Daniel, we certainly want to adopt a welcoming attitude in such a situation, and to encourage the assumption of as many secondary moral responsibilities as possible (i.e. given that they are practising homosexuals and aren’t about to change, it would be better if they exhibited long term commitment, sexual exclusivity, and committed themselves to serving society more generally, etc.). My problem with your approach is that it completely gives away the store in order to do this. For all sorts of Christian and secular reasons, gay marriage isn’t marriage. Acting as if it is in order to make our gay relatives and friends feel more supported risks the integrity of our social fabric for the sake of an illusion and a lie.
I can’t get around the sense that using a definition of marriage at the outset is question-begging. In part this is because I’m more of a descriptivist when it comes to words’ meanings. I don’t know that the word or phrase marriage has a delineating, connotative and denotative force rather than a descriptive force for what society generally means by two people being joined (perhaps in the sight of God).
Because this issue is so deeply tied to religious conviction, my strong preference is for the government to only recognize civil unions–and those for all and not performed by clergy, leaving the marriage issue per se to the churches to do with as they will.
I don’t feel the force of the strong pleas concerning the fabric of society. In fact, I wonder if a few things might not get better if these unions were seen as more equivalent to traditional marriage.
The question-begging is on the same sex marriage side, where it is assumed rather than demonstrated that same sex relationships are equal in their significance and should enjoy equivalent status to that of heterosexual marriages.
It is bizarre to believe that this debate can be dodged by a descriptivist theory of meaning. The important issue is not dictionary definitions, but the way that words enable us to recognize reality. The word ‘marriage’ has traditionally been used to refer to a reality that is unique to heterosexual couples, and to a union that has a character that even the most committed and loving same sex couples cannot replicate. For this reason, same sex marriages were seen as impossible by definition. The issue wasn’t the term, though, but the reality that it referred to.
We could always argue that men can become pregnant if we define pregnancy merely in terms of a protruding belly (conception leads to women becoming pregnant, while beer has a corresponding effect for men…). This, however, is just a matter of playing with the meaning of words in order to decrease our capacity to recognize certain realities. In terms of society’s use of the word ‘marriage’, same sex unions can generally fit very nicely, and in certain respects they may even conform more closely to social ideals than heterosexual couplings. However, they only do so because we have gradually blinded ourselves to the realities that we once employed the word ‘marriage’ as a means of speaking about and relating to.
Daniel, I am not participating in this discussion any further. You sound like someone who is trying to dull himself to the nagging voice of reality and conscience on this matter and to ensure that he doesn’t lose the respect of liberal and non-Christian colleagues and friends. I will leave you to it. It will only be a matter of time before you manage to convince yourself completely and join the moral outrage against those in the church who resist the idea that same sex marriage is blessed by God.
Your treatment of the subject is more concerned about what we shouldn’t be doing than what we should. You try to render issues increasingly unclear. You indulge in logical contortionism to escape the responsibility to take a determined position on the subject. You say a lot about not imposing our ethic upon society, but reserve your criticisms for those opposed to gay marriage, failing to criticize those Christians who are arguing for the state and the church to recognize gay marriage, and regard it as no less of a Christian moral crusade. For this and other reasons, it is hard to believe that there is any real principle driving your argument in this and previous posts. You are merely trying to avoid the task of standing for something, and to silence opposition to gay marriage because it makes us less welcome in the academy and society. Christian support for gay marriage doesn’t bother you so much. You may not share their beliefs, but it doesn’t harm our popularity. You may not be a welcoming and affirming type, but you will do your damnedest to be a ‘welcoming and saying nothing that could be construed negatively’ type. Have the courage of your convictions, Daniel! Either come out and affirm same sex marriage as blessed by God, or speak of it openly as an evil (even if we may need to permit it on account of the hardness of people’s hearts). Seeking to be inoffensive just makes you look like a coward.
Alastair, I have to confess to finding your ad hominem response somewhat bizarre.
I have been laying out a position on sexuality over the past several weeks in which I have argued for a very traditional understanding of how desires for sexual intercourse should be fulfilled for those affirming the Christian story.
And, I don’t think that those convictions should be imposed on society.
Trying to create a middle ground between the folks on my right who think that consistency with my theology should mean enshrining the Christian position in public policy, and those on my left who think I’m an incorrigible fundie with regard to sex is not, I assure you, going to win me a bunch of new friends or help me make my way with the old ones. Your own response from my right demonstrates this ably enough.
I am in the relatively unique position of being able to say what I want to without fear of professional reprisal. Few evangelical Christians with any sort of platform could say in public what I’m saying without fear for their jobs.
I am not hiding in a corner. The only “safety” possibly in play here is to make myself the lightning rod for the wrath that will come from folks on both the right and the left and thereby create space for other Christians to eschew the dichotomies that have been handed to them and to courageously seek out new ways forward.
But my place in the ecclesiastical landscape is much less at issue in these posts than the question of Christians in the public square. So let’s not keep this thread of the discussion going, if that’s alright with everyone.
I agree that the case for civil recognition of same-sex marriages is closely related to the case for civil recognition of interracial marriage.
In our common law tradition, civil marriage laws are little more than a set of default rules that govern property ownership. Property laws are amoral. They adjust to reflect social circumstances, ensuring that the default rules governing property ownership reflect common social arrangements. Property laws are not intended to shape society or to be a moral guide; moral guidance is the province of the criminal law. Therefore, property laws should not be used to influence moral behavior unless there is an underlying criminal law that proscribes some kind of conduct.
For example, a 30-year-old man and ten-year-old girl cannot obtain a marriage license because the criminal law forbids such arrangements (or at least forbids consummation thereof). The same could be said for polygamous arrangements, as such arrangements are criminalized in most states.
In contrast, there is no underlying criminal conduct involved a same-sex marriage. Antisodomy laws have been struck down in all 50 states. Therefore, prohibition of same-sex marriage seems to further no compelling governmental interest.
By refusing to grant civil recognition to interracial marriages, Southern states were attempting to preserve some measure of the fallen Jim Crow legal regime. In the same way, opponents of civil same-sex marriage seem to be (mis)using property laws to try to reclaim features of the erstwhile antisodomy laws.
Alistair, is there really need to label folks as cowards on this blog?
Besides the bizarre accusations, I truly hope your words here are not read by any of my homosexual friends (thankfully they probably won’t be as these particular individuals have learned to avoid evangelical blogs since too often they contain arrogant, insensitive language that only seeks to destroy rather than build up human lives).
We argue and argue and meanwhile more kids after facing years and years of torment decide their only option is to take their own lives.
That this fact doesn’t at least give us pause, and perhaps encourage us to tone down our hurtful rhetoric is deeply saddening.