In a piece oddly titled “A Quiet Struggle Within the Gay Marriage Fight,”(for it has not been quiet) Matt Smith writes for the New York Times via the Bay Citizen juxtaposing the Proposition 8 question in California with the internal struggle of mainline Protestant churches over question of homosexual marriage and ordination:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit earlier this month upheld a decision declaring Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. The ruling represented a milestone in the secular struggle over gay rights. In the shadow of that struggle, however, a quieter battle is being waged within churches over whether gay people can be married and ordained. Long before the issue of same-sex marriage grabbed the spotlight, liberal Protestant pastors in Northern California were fighting against church rules prohibiting ordination and marriage of homosexuals.
The United Methodist Church seems to be “the last holdout among major mainline Protestant groups,” while nearly all the rest have gotten on board with gay marriage and ordination.
February 23rd, 2012 | 12:10 pm
That last sentence is a little odd, about “all the rest have gotten on board…”, particularly in light of (for example) the article in the current issue of FT about the troubles in the Presbyterian world. I have a friend who was present at the recent Presbyterian meetings, and to say that Presbyterians have gotten “on board” the gay ordination bus is to let the “official organization” stand in place of the people who are in it, a large number of whom have no interest whatsoever in doing so. Liberal congregation seem to be in steep demographic decline anyhow, so there is every possibility that in 20 years, there will be plenty of church hierarchies sanctioning gay ordinations, that they will represent hardly anyone.
February 23rd, 2012 | 4:51 pm
Personally, I’m not interested in changing church doctrine. If people want to maintain a set of rules that one must abide by to be a member of their club, let them have it. I don’t care whether those rules involve banning gays or contraception or if they require their adherents to embrace the five points of Calvinism. There are a sufficient number of religions and Christian denominations that one can find that will probably accept you without having to resort to “civil disobedience”.
The real problem is when you insist that civil laws must conform to your theological doctrines when they directly impact me and the person I care for. Then, we then have a problem.
February 23rd, 2012 | 6:35 pm
The real problem is when you insist that civil laws must conform to your theological doctrines when they directly impact me and the person I care for. Then, we then have a problem.
Yes, a zero sum problem. Either one side wins and the other side loses, or vice versa.
It’s not entirely clear why secular people think that zero sum issues should automatically be resolved in their favor.
It’s as if “live and let live” is not enough for humanists.
February 23rd, 2012 | 6:46 pm
BTW I would not mind if gay couples wanted to be recognized as couples.
Nor would I mind if they argued for the rights they’re entitled to.
It’s the assumption that they should be allowed to force people to pretend they’re the same as married – when there are in fact relevant, significant differences – that bothers me.
Why should I have to lie for anyone?
I don’t begrudge them the life partnership thing. It’s the part where I either have to pretend they are procreative – or pretend that procreative doesn’t matter – that I mind.
The relationship between a man and a woman is fundamentally unequal, because women carry a greater burden in the act of making a family. Gays do not have this fundamental inequality, and so procreative benefits are not necessary.
Gays should not be encouraged to use other people in exploitative ways in their quest to pretend they’re a “family”. A gay couple is incapable of ever being a family, except in a fantasy-world where people play along with lies out of a misbegotten sense of kindness.
When the adults are the ones requiring children and strangers to offer up sympathetic lies – while the child is the one forced into preternatural maturity in order that he may accept responsibility for his quote “parents” infantile role-playing fantasies – the entire social unit becomes a particular form of dysfunctional known as “parentification”.
We have an obligation to protect children from being pressured into playing along with such emotionally abusive fantasies. Every adopted child deserves the right to grieve his loss without the conflict that comes when the parents are the ones responsible for arranging that loss. No motherless or fatherless child should ever be coerced into pretending there’s no loss involved in being motherless or fatherless.
February 23rd, 2012 | 7:21 pm
“while nearly all the rest have gotten on board with gay marriage and ordination.”
If the LCMS (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) can be considered a “major mainline Protestant group,” then it is not one that has gotten on board. The LCMS has staunchly resisted any movement to ordain gays or perform marriages of such.
February 23rd, 2012 | 7:53 pm
Blake, in your statements I read an implied assertion that childless couples – by choice or nature – are inferior in some fashion. There are certainly degrees of self-sacrifice in life, but there is value in commitment and monogamy in themselves (whether children are present or not). From my experience being both single and partnered, I cannot deny that there are more demands placed on me being in a committed relationship … in my time, my attention, even my finances. If I use the basic notions of empathy, decency and charity taught to me by the fine Jesuits and nuns I grew up with, I’d have to say that monogamy makes me a better person. As a bachelor, heck … my only consideration was myself, and I think that was reflected in more than one aspect in my life.
When it comes to children, sure … the ideal is for children to be loved by their biological parents. We both know that the reality is something different. Not every couple who engages in procreative sexual intercourse will make decent or even tolerable parents. Children are abandoned, abused, molested and even murdered by their own biological parents routinely in this nation. I’m not sure I see the sense in denying many of these children some hope for a successful life by not granting them to a stable, affluent and caring gay couple who have been properly vetted. Every study I’ve read has shown that statistically, these kids do about as well as those raised by two parents with opposing sets of sex organs. To say these people are not “families” is an unfortunate and inaccurate slight, I think.
February 23rd, 2012 | 8:10 pm
Under Roman Catholic doctrine, remarriage following divorce is sacramentally invalid, and within the rules of the church, such a couple is presumed to be living in adultery.
However, RC are able to exist in a public square where such sacramentally invalid marriages are civilly recognized.
How is recognizing the civil marriage of gay couples any different than what the Roman Catholics currently endure?
Depriving a gay couple is deprived of the rights of civil marriage certainly disadvantages them. However, it is not clear how the fact of civil marriage for gay couples in MA, NY, and other states equivalently disadvantages those opposed. What is the evidence that procreation has ceased or straight marriage declined in MA?
Finally, let us realize that the battle for marriage equality is not a battle over families and procreation. Gay couples raise children regardless of their married status, and medical and scientific consensus is that those children are doing just fine– save for the legal limbo of their parents. Those families aren’t going away, and gay people aren’t hiding back in the closet, even if you prevent us from marrying.
Fortunately, there are many denominations that are supportive. For example the liberal Episcopal parish I attend is blessing same sex couples and growing apace. Seems lots of straight families want to raise their kids in a welcoming environment. Why not let them do so? You can keep your own views in your own church.
February 23rd, 2012 | 8:25 pm
Blake,
You have every right to feel that way, but why do you wish to force that sentiment on those of us who disagree? Just because California recognizes gay couples doesn’t mean that you have to. And just because you define marriage as “procreative” doesn’t mean that I have to.
How about a rundown of what rights a gay couple should be “entitled to?” How do you define them and where and how do they differ from the rights accorded to straight couples.
“When the adults are the ones requiring children and strangers to offer up sympathetic lies – while the child is the one forced into preternatural maturity in order that he may accept responsibility for his quote “parents” infantile role-playing fantasies – the entire social unit becomes a particular form of dysfunctional known as “parentification”.”
Also, what does any of this mean? I guess I’m stupid but it was incomprehensible to me. Are you saying that the happy children of gay couples have been manipulated into their happiness and are lying?
February 24th, 2012 | 4:06 am
The real problem is when civil laws conform to contemporary bigotry towards some segment of humanity that the bigots obviously don’t care for at all.
Human beings, from conception till birth, are the victims of the bigotry of our times. Killing this segment of the human family used to be against the law due to the long held belief in the intrinsic, inestimable value of every human life.
This belief was reflected in the “First, do no harm” ethic of Hippocrates, whose ancient medical oath explicitly prohibited abortion. Later, when Christianity came along, this belief in the inestimable worth of any and every human being was confirmed and explained in a much deeper way. Respect for all human life is part of the secular and the Judeo-Christian heritage of Western civilization.
So, we do indeed “have a problem.” It is bigotry. Every age has its own.
February 24th, 2012 | 5:23 am
IT
It really depends what you mean by marriage
In France, where the claim to SSM on equality grounds was rejected by the courts, the Civil Code containes no definition of marriage, but Article 312 “The child conceived or born in marriage has the husband for father” has been treated as a functional definition by jurists, including the three most authoritative commentators on the Civil Code, Demolombe (1804–1887), Guillouard (1845-1925) and Gaudemet (1908-2001), long before the question of same-sex marriage was agitated. This led one of the greatest modern commentators on the Civil Code (Carbonnier) to remark that “The heart of marriage is not the couple, but the presumption of paternity.”
Not surprisingly, given that background, the courts held that “Clearly, same-sex couples whom nature had not made potentially fertile were consequently not concerned by the institution of marriage. This was differential legal treatment because their situation was not analogous” For them, the purpose of mandatory civil marriage is the determination of the civil status of children.
It is significant that, in a country so committed to the principle of laïcité as France, no one has suggested that these views, or are either the result of religious convictions or an attempt to import them into the interpretation of the Code.
In contrast to some parts of the US, France has a robust system of civil unions (PACS) for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, to which the rule of filiation does not apply – A clear and rational distinction.
February 24th, 2012 | 2:53 pm
Michael PS,
It seems to me that IT still raises an interesting question, which I have also raised before, about the Catholic Church and civil marriage. One may oppose same-sex marriage on any number of grounds, but I don’t think I have ever heard anyone argue that where same-sex marriages are legal, same-sex couples who marry are not legally married. One may raise all kinds of objections as to why there shouldn’t be civil same-sex marriage, and why people of the same sex can’t “really” marry, but once a same-sex couple goes through a marriage ceremony, they are legally married. The Church seems to have no problem in 21st century America recognizing the legal (re)marriages of people whom they believe to be, in reality, incapable of remarriage and living in adultery. But the Church seems to be unwilling to recognize the legal marriages of same-sex couples (for example, by denying employees of Catholic organizations benefits that other married couples would receive).
I think the Church would be a lot less opposed to same-sex marriage if only it were not gay people who wanted to enter into them. :P
February 24th, 2012 | 5:51 pm
Blake is correct and he has written the best argument I have read against gay marriage. An argument was given the other day by the pro-gay marriage lobby was that religious people in Washington State must have been appalled to find the morning after the signing of gay marriage legislation that the sun still rose and set the next day and the end of the world had not come.
I think that is a point Blake makes. Irrespective of human laws and the attempts at infantile role playing fantasies and “parentification”, God’s natural laws are still the overriding factor of what constitutes a family. The union of opposite sexes is the only natural means of bringing forth children and all else is a denial of natural law and is indeed role playing fantasy. A loving Father and Mother is the ideal to strive for; including adoption into families that cannot have children. Anything else is only an approximation of the ideal marriage.
February 25th, 2012 | 2:12 am
You have every right to feel that way, but why do you wish to force that sentiment on those of us who disagree?
It is the gays who wish to force the sentiment. Their fake families cannot pass for “legitimate” unless all of us are forced to participate in a redefinition of what “family” is. The idea that family can be whatever you want it to be is not compatible with the recognition that biological kinship is special, that biological kinship is in fact the essential thing that “makes” a family.
There is no way for gays to create a family that is equal to a real family. They can only “make” babies through parasitism and fraud. They can only adopt if their needs are prioritized over the child’s best interest standard. Their needs are in conflict with what the child has reason to value.
We are not talking about things staying the same except for gays being allowed to pick up a few dollar benefits here and there. We are talking about a fundamental reclassification at the category level. We are talking about whether you can take away my right to believe that the bonds that bind a family together – the essence of kinship – is sacred, and replace that belief with a new belief: that who is and is not a family is not based on kinship, but on legal classification – something the government can both grant and take away.
But it is not within the government’s power to make or break families; the only time they are legitimately within their rights to exercise such power is when a child is in crisis and must be cared for – and even then their interference is supposed to be limited by the “child’s best interest” standard.
I am within my rights to believe, not only that family ties are sacred, but also the beliefs that are implicated by this idea: in particular the corresponding belief that the obligations that go with those bonds are also sacred. Gay rights advocates can’t allow that belief because obviously they couldn’t have what they wanted if they were not granted license to pick and choose which obligations they do or don’t feel like honoring.
February 25th, 2012 | 2:20 am
How about a rundown of what rights a gay couple should be “entitled to?”
What they are entitled to is whatever they legitimately need.
They do not need rights that are expressly procreative in nature, because they are not procreative, and there is no reason why they need to share procreative benefits with each other when it would be better for everyone if they shared the procreative benefits to which they are entitled with the other person they’re actually making the baby with.
Marriage carries with it benefits that are clearly procreative in nature. The most important is the presumption of paternity – the idea that if Sarah is married to Joe, and Sarah gets pregnant, Joe does not have to prove he is the father; he is presumed the father, legally speaking. Gays and lesbians have already abused this presumption in order to claim parent status over children that are not their children, but should rightfully be classed as stepchildren. This is fraud, and it’s not good for the child either – there is a reason that even stepparents have to go before a judge when they intend to adopt their spouse’s child by someone else.
Other procreative benefits include the monetary benefits that enable a “breadwinner” or “head of household” to care for a dependent “caregiver”. If there is no procreation, then there is no reason why each adult in the household is not self-supporting.
Gays should expect to share childrearing-related benefits and subsidies with the child’s other parent. Children are not a transferable commodity.
You are welcome to pretend that marriage is nothing more than two people experiencing mutual love together, but you are not welcome to force me to pretend along with that: to me, the family-making aspects of marriage are just as important (maybe even more important) than the romantic aspects.
February 25th, 2012 | 9:03 am
David Nickol
The question of whether a same-sex couple are “legally married” is certainly going to present itself as a question of Private International Law (Conflit de droits) in many jurisdictions.
In Western nations, at least, great efforts have been made, especially through the various Hague Conventions, to prevent “limping marriages” – Marriages recognised in one jurisdiction, but not in another. However the Hague Convention on Marriage (1978) does not require any contracting state to recognize a marriage “manifestly incompatible with its public policy (“ordre public”)” and this is before we address the meaning of “marriage” in the Convention, which is left undefined.
On 11 July 2008, in France, which does not allow SSM, le service juridique de la fiscalité au ministère des finances [Tax Tribunal] recognized two same-sex Dutch citizens, married in the Netherlands, as spouses for tax purposes. The tribunal was careful to restrict its decision to the question of tax rules under EU directives and left the wider question of recognition untouched.
Whether the courts will treat such unions as marriages for all purposes remains to be seen. There has been much speculation among the jurists, as you can imagine, centring on inheritance (where, on the analogy of polygamous marriages, some suggest different answers may apply to moveable and immovable property) and the mutual obligations of support between parents-in-law and children-in-law (CC Art 205) That is before we start getting into the law of Nationality and Residence – a politically-charged topic in France.
The Netherlands, in compliance with its obligations under the Hague Conventions on International Adoption (1965 & 1993), permits only Dutch citizens to be adopted by same-sex couples.
So are same-sex couples “legally married?” I suspect that, at the moment, the answer is yes and no.
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