And now for something completely different...
I've found myself getting into the gay marriage debate a lot, lately. Perhaps it seems odd, to you, that a straight, heterosexually married woman with two kids (whose sexual identities are yet to be discovered) feels strongly about gay marriage rights, but, well, I do.
To be honest, the whole gay marriage/gay rights thing is one of the biggest obstacles between me and faith. I may have mentioned that I'm kind of ... searching, when it comes to religion, right now. We chose not to join the church where MG attends preschool because of their stance on gay rights. There was a lot that was right about that church, for us, but I cannot and will not support a group with my time and money that propagates a message of hatred and inequality. Nope. Won't do it.
A lot of people I care about are gay. A lot of public figures I admire are gay. To be honest, a lot of the boys I dated long, long ago are gay. And if some neuron in my head was aligned differently, I might be gay, too. Or you might. And I think that people who are LBGT have just as much of a right to live their lives authentically and free of the judgment of other peoples' religions as I do.
Oh, shut up, Amy, the videos say it better:
Seriously, if we're going to take Leviticus so very seriously, let's not forget that tattoos are banned, and you can't eat shellfish or pork or leavened bread at certain times, you can't cut your hair and a whole bunch of other stupid stuff. Oh, but it's ok to own slaves and to kill your children for hitting you. In fact, those things are encouraged. Cherry-picking is one of the most annoying qualities of the "faithful," in my opinion.
Shockingly, I think I am done with the horrible accounting project. And now I'm going shopping.
8 comments:
Oooooo, retail therapy.......
I think it's very hard to argue for or against same sex marriage from a religious standpoint. It's like beating your head against a wall.
I have always felt the firmest ground to stand on regarding same sex marriage, is a constitutional one. The following link takes you to a post, where Haven Kimmel says it much better than I ever could:
http://havenkimmel.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/gay-marriage-and-why-its-time-to-stop-being-polite-about-it-please/
Hey Amy,
I had a question for you regarding this topic...what exactly is this church's stance on gay marriage that makes you say that it's a message of hatred and inequality? What are they saying?
Just curious...get back to me. :) Thanks!
Erin - the church used to be a member of the more liberal PCUSA branch of the Presbyterian church, but after the PCUSA started to support gay rights, the church in question left PCUSA and joined the Evangelical Presbyterian church, which is a lot less liberal in all ways (not just in terms of gay rights). It was a pretty clear "you're not welcome here" to any gay people who happened to go to the church, and it happened over the course of 2 or 3 years.
A
Are they not welcome there to worship? If that's the case, I agree with you completely. They're wrong to not welcome any gay or lesbian person. Is that what they're doing?
The website lists a few (5, precisely) things under "what we believe" and feels strongly enough that "love is between men and women only" that one of those 5 is, and I quote:
Moral and physical purity affirms Biblical patterns for governing and expressing our sexuality, whether through chastity in singleness or through fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman.So, while they don't come out and say, "Gays need not apply," it's pretty clear that even a committed, monogamous gay couple or family would not be welcome, let alone a fabulous flaming freaky gay couple.
I'd be happy to send you links via e-mail, if you'd like.
I wonder if the church would approve of all of the things that BJ and I have ever done in the privacy of our own bedroom.... But that's another topic for another day (a day which will never, ever come because BJ would KILL ME).
You're awesome. Love this post and the videos. Thanks for the support.
There is a long and amazing history of Judeo-Christian same-sex marriage that people tend to overlook. It's been happening for thousands of years. It's just now getting legally-recognized.
John Boswell has a book, "Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe" that talks about the various forms that they took.
Many forget that America is more than just Christian. It's the sum of every religion, spirituality, and philosophy in existence. Yet we tend only to legislate (and wrongly, given our supposed secularity) based on archaic Judeo-Christian law and popular belief.
The argument of whether it is "right" or "wrong" from the viewpoint of religion or morality is, frankly, irrelevant. It's about the Constitutional right of an individual.
We're all too young to remember the various proposed Constitutional amendments that would have made interracial marriage illegal, most notably in 1912 where it came very close to passing. Much like DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) today, many states had laws on the books then that prevented interracial marriage. It wasn't until 1967, only 42 years ago that Loving vs. Virginia made interracial marriage legal across the U.S.
One day in the future, when I'm able to be happily married, we'll look back on these laws like we look back on the Jim Crow laws: appalled and embarrassed.
Amy,
Go ahead and send me the link.
Thanks!
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