The Meaning of Gay Marriage

Given by James Covington on February 29th, 2004

Dear Dr. Laura Schlesinger:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. … End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Law and how to follow them.

  1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
  2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
  3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
  4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
  5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. The passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
  6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?
  7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
  8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?
  9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
  10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D.
Professor Emeritus
Dept. of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education
University of Virginia

As most of you know after all these years, instead of choosing the heading of “sermon” in our program for this portion of our service, I have preferred to call it “interpreting for our time.” It may sound a bit bold and presumptuous, implying that I indeed know how to interpret the times in which we live. Yet, I believe that whatever I speak to from this podium, should be a humble attempt to indeed, interpret or at least address the meanings of events and changes occurring in our time, whether the issues are socio-political or personal.

Certainly events these days are no exception. War, poverty, human rights, separation of church and state, economy, Janet Jackson’s overexposed breast in the media, family values and the pursuit of personal meaning in a rapid-paced materialistic culture all remain urgent matters for interpretation and decision making. This week between the hoopla on Mel Gibson’s film on The Passion of the Christ and the joyful pursuit of marriage by same-sex couples in San Francisco’s City Hall I feel almost breathless trying to keep up. I write a bit about The Passion of Christ in the Newsletter coming out this week, but today I want to speak to the meaning of same-sex marriage. As it turns out, this sermon completes a trilogy of sermons this month on aspects of family life and next week I may speak yet again to an aspect of family life regarding the lives of our children.

Let me say first that I am personally proud to be associated with a denomination that for years has taken the lead among all religious communions in celebrating, affirming, and promoting the “inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; and mutual acceptance. We have actively stood for the rights of gay, lesbian and trans gendered individuals for almost 30 years.

This very weekend, the All Souls Church in Manhattan has sponsored a consortium of speakers addressing the issue of homosexual rights. As Forrest Church, the minister of All Souls has written: Our very name, Unitarian Universalist, twice emphasizes the preeminence of unity over all distinctions that divide us. As is this nation, our religious union too is predicated on the principles of e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

And we ourselves, as a congregation, have gone on record as a welcoming congregation that welcomes all persons to our Fellowship regardless of sexual identity.

So where do we begin with the meaning of gay marriage? Well, let’s start with President Bush’s announcement this week that he is recommending a Constitutional Amendment that will forbid same sex marriage. I wonder how Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich feel about this, or their daughters who are homosexuals, for that matter. My suspicion is that Bush’s decision is a political ploy to satisfy his conservative constituency. However, he knows that the amendment will probably not pass. I, for one, do not believe it will pass, even though the majority of Americans do not approve of gay marriage.

The Constitution has been amended several times. The First Amendment provides for separation of church and state and freedom of speech. The Fourteenth establishes equal protection under law. The Nineteenth Amendment extends the voting franchise to all citizens, regardless of sex. You will note that each of these amendments expands the letter of the law to reflect the spirit of liberty for all and equality under the law. Over the years, groups have proposed amendments to abridge that spirit—to impose Christian language on the Constitution, for instance, or, with respect to abortion, to eliminate a woman’s freedom to choose. Such amendments—amendments restricting or withdrawing as opposed to those expanding our liberties—have always, always failed. Americans do not change the Constitution lightly. And, believe it or not, we are also ultimately a liberal people: dedicated to the overarching principles of liberty and justice for all.

In addition, in spite of a majority against gay marriage, in many ways, gay marriage is already here, and it works. In a sense, the Massachusetts court decision to extend to gay couples the right to marry, is one more in a series of steps that have already provided legal rights to tens of thousands of same-sex couples in America. Presently about 1 in 5 same-sex couples now reside in a jurisdiction that grants some legal recognition to gay unions. There are now four states that extend at least some of the rights of marriage to gay couples. So partnership is a legal reality for thousands of gay Americans, and a social reality for millions more.

But there is still a long way to go. It is also true that gay couples in this state and elsewhere continue to be denied such things as federal Social Security and survivor pension benefits, and many of the recent civil union proposals still fall short of providing the full rights under law granted to married couples. Nevertheless the debate over gay marriage need not be distorted by doomsday claims that the future of America is a stake. In many ways that future is already here—and those fears have not come to pass.

The reality is that this is a cultural revolution that has slowly been gaining speed for some time. In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld anti-sodomy laws, but last year the Supreme Court finally struck down the anti-sodomy laws. In the 1950s only 24 percent said they knew anyone who was gay. Today that number is over 50 %. It’s hard to hate people you know or discriminate against them by denying them the many civic benefits of marriage. The culture of gay life is now openly accepted in the media as in the sitcoms, “Will and Grace,” “Queer Eye,” and day time shows hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and of course, Rosy O’Donnell. Then in New York, both the governor of the state and the mayor of the city are gay friendly Republicans, as well as former mayor Rudolf Guiliani. And the Republican Convention is scheduled to meet in this gay friendly territory in the summer. That should be interesting.

The question remains in the minds of many: will Gays being married undermine the institution of marriage itself? This is a fair question that deserves attention. But the hypocrisy of this argument also comes clear to me in a cartoon of a man and woman sitting in a restaurant locked in a semi-embrace with wine glasses raised on high, a bottle of champagne on ice nearby. He says to her, “Same-sex marriage would destroy the institution of marriage and the family! She asks, “. . . and what does your wife say?” And then I read about former Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers who admitted he was a “hypocrite,” to rescind a job offer to a lesbian who intended to marry her partner. It seems that while Attorney General he was carrying on an adulterous affair(adultery is illegal in his state).

Some will say that legalizing same-sex marriage will only institutionalize sexual perversity. Well, what is sexual perversity? Perverse means “deviating from what is right and good.” Sexual perversity is deviating from what is good for an individual. Sexual perversity is a relationship where love is not—where one person exploits or abuses another—where the other becomes a means to an end rather than an end in him or herself. That is sexual perversity.

But marriage is designed for procreation, it is argued. But what of all those couples who do not procreate, some by choice and some by chance? Are they not married? And what about all those gay, lesbian and bi-sexual people who are parents by a previous heterosexual relationship, or have adopted, or have had children through in vitro fertilization or other means? I believe in same-sex parenting. Why, I’ve seen it done and done well. Where love is—there is a family worth supporting.

But marriage will not work for homosexuals, some will say—there is little loyalty there—only serial partners! Those who argue in this way have perhaps not observed the loving and committed same-sex relationships I have seen. And in our time heterosexual marriage is often serial monogamy. If same sex unions are troubled, can we not understand the pressure upon them by a doubting and disbelieving culture?

Understandably, there is concern about how young adolescents, contending with their own budding sexuality, may be affected by the acceptance of gay marriage. Will this be confusing for those who may be struggling with their sexuality? How will “gay marriage” be explained by heterosexual parents to their children? However, there is growing evidence that children raised by homosexuals are no more likely to end up gay than those raised by heterosexuals. For most people, their sexuality is encoded. Still this is a question that may need more attention as well as others.

But we also have to remember that inter-racial marriages were once equally if not more feared. A 1958 poll found that 96 percent of whites disapproved of marriages between blacks and whites(Deuteronomy 7:3 condemns interracial marriages.) In 1959 a judge justified Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage by declaring that “Almighty God did not intend for the races to mix.”

In fact, in 1968 when inter-racial marriages were made legal by the Supreme Court, more people disapproved of inter-racial marriages than presently disapprove of same-sex marriage.

Ultimately, I don’t see how Gays being married will undermine the institution of marriage itself. No one is going to force you marry another person of the same sex if you don’t want to. No one is going to force a priest to perform the sacrament of marriage for any couple who don’t qualify under the rules of his faith. As for the state of marriage in the nation today—a subject worthy of social concern—until we allow them to get married in the first place, it seems a bit of a stretch to blame Gays for a rise in the divorce rate. Actually, if marriage is a good, stabilizing, nurturing thing for straight people I can’t imagine that it won’t be good, stabilizing and nurturing for Gays.

My thoughts about this are illustrated by one of my favorite stories from the State of Maine. A farmer there was once asked if he believed in infant baptism. ‘Believe in it,” he exclaimed, “Why I’ve seen it done!”

One of the first of those couples who waited in line to be married in San Francisco last week, were Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, who had been in a committed relationship with one another for 51 years. Compare that to the infamous marriage of Britney Spears whose marriage lasted 55 hours. And of course we have our own friends here amongst us in this Fellowship, who have been in long term gay relationships.

Despite all my intellectual research, I confess that my experience in knowing gay and lesbian people is what has most powerfully influenced me. My professional work as a counselor with gay and lesbian clients has also had a profound impact on me. Time and again, their stories of confusion and rejection, pain and humiliation have affected me. I have been privileged to listen to these stories and to learn of people’s deepest longings and dreams, precisely the same as any other person, gay or straight. And then, since I became a UU minister, I have had the opportunity in the last few years to lead several same-sex unions—the term used for same sex marriage without legal standing. The love and commitment that people bring to these unions has always moved me.

The only question I have had about gay marriage is whether or not it would be a better idea to call it by some other name that perhaps better reflected the homosexual culture. I don’t know what that name might be and would need to be decided within the gay community, of course. But whatever name might be chosen, the civil union would be recognized legally with the same rights as heterosexual married couples. I mentioned this as an alternative to a few of my colleagues this week, and most of them feared that gay marriage by another name would, even if it included the same legal rights of heterosexual marriages, still carry the stigma of being unequal, or second class. Perhaps so. In fact, there are some who believe referring to the same sex unions as gay marriage is itself an insult. Why refer to gay marriage? A marriage is a marriage.

The bottom line is that same-sex love is a mystery far more subtle than just a matter of Biblical injunction—just as interracial love has turned out to be.

Someday, we will regard opposition to gay marriage as equally obtuse and old-fashioned. No force is more divine than love, and if some people are encoded to love others of the same sex, how can that by unholy? To me, the blasphemy is not in those who want to share their lives with others of the same sex, but rather in anyone presumptuous enough to vilify that love. Where love is—there is holy ground.

Let me close with a theological point. Two hundred years ago, when the Universalist gospel began to spread like wildfire across this country, its success was above all due to the saving logic of a single doctrine. It goes like this. “God is love. God loves all God’s Children. And all children are God’s children.”

Today, our Unitarian Universalist faith has long since taken the lead among all other denominations with respect to Gay rights. We have hundreds of openly Gay ordained clergy. We have solemnized thousands of Gay union services. It is right that we should once again take the lead with regard to extending the full rights and privileges of marriage to all our citizens. Maybe, as we express our solidarity ever more openly, our churches will even grow. But we shall know that we have won, when gay weddings are being celebrated not only in Unitarian and Metropolitan Churches but across many denominations, a day, given the speed with which the Gay rights movement has progressed in this nation, that cannot be far off. Yet, in this instance, that is not the highest goal.

The highest goal relates not to the marriage sacrament, but to the marriage contract. With respect to civil marriage, with respect to equal protection under law and the liberty and equality enshrined in our nation’s founding ideals, we should not rest until the rights of all our citizens are honored and respected.

I expect that our children and grandchildren will look back on this debate with the same puzzlement that we bring to the resistance some of our ancestors met when they campaigned for emancipation or women’s suffrage. But I would hope for this. I would hope that they, seeing us in the vanguard of those fighting for human rights in our own time, might be inspired to do the same in their time too. I would hope that they would rise up to fight the scourge of some prejudice that we don’t even recognize, so blinded are we by our participation in it. And I would pray that they would bring to this struggle the same spirit that the nation’s founders and our Unitarian Universalist forbears and we ourselves did—in order that that they too might have the privilege of perfecting the noble experiment of freedom and equality for all that we know as the United States of America.