Your Opinion On Gay Marriage?

[holly3278]

What is your opinion on gay marriages and civil unions? I believe that the Church should sanction both gay marriages and civil unions. I also see nothing wrong with homosexuality or homosexual sex acts.

[Uriel]

Holly - I will support my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in whatever form of union they wish. However, I don't really see a reason to create two different types of unions. If two people wish to make a commitment to each other, they should take on all the rights and the responsibilities.

Best
Uriel

[holly3278]

uriel said:

Holly - I will support my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in whatever form of union they wish. However, I don't really see a reason to create two different types of unions. If two people wish to make a commitment to each other, they should take on all the rights and the responsibilities.

Best
Uriel

I agree with you but the reason why I chose both was because some states will likely end up only allowing civil unions while others will allow gay marriage. Of course, this won't be permanent as like in the civil rights age, it will become to where gays and lesbians have equal rights as heterosexuals and will have gay marriage instead of just civil unions or nothing at all.

[Canadian Phil]

Sorry, but before voting, what do you mean by the Church sanctioning civil marriages as opposed to marrying them? How are these different?

Let me explain why this is an issue to me. I see serious Scriptural problems with supporting a gay marriage ceremony in the Church whether it is a form of marriage similar to the current forms for heterosexuals or a blessing on an existing civil marriage. There are reasons for that position which I won't get into now, but are fairly familiar to those who have seen me writing on this board as long as this board has existed (see the archives, if you want to know more).

Yet, I'm not prepared to say that we can impose this (or any) Christian position on non-Christians nor the State which must consider these same non-Christians on the same level as Christians. In that sense, in the Canadian context, I cannot see how Christians can forbid (argue against, yes,) civil unions or civl marriages for gay people. It would be, I would argue, unjust to do so.

That leaves the problem of what to do with people with civil unions in the Church. I really can't see how blessing these civil unions is in any way different from a marriage. Nor are we compelled to do so simply because the state has given sanction to this union (that, too, would be unjust on the part of the state to demand it). Remember that while our clergy may be licensed to sign for legal marriages, that particular role is not necessarily a ecclesial one. In Europe, certainly, the civil ceremony is separated from the church one.

Peace,
Phil

[srigdon]

So I voted no on both, although my reasons are different from Phil's.

I don't have a personal problem with either one. I can be content in a church which blesses dignified, lifelong committed monogamous relationships among gay people. If the church can survive and be vibrant with such a policy, I'm ok with it.

But it's not at all obvious that the church can survive it. That being the case, I'm not willing to risk the church and its future on this one issue. I think the general liberal approach of the church to lots of things is more important: our approach to the age of the world, evolution, ordination of women, etc. I'm willing to live with slow progress. I want my church to be as right as possible and still succeed. If we lose the gay battles and fold, you can be sure that for the next 500 years, no church will dare liberalize, for fear it's a slippery slope to something else.

One of the reasons the Bible emerged from history is that it's a record of successful churches. The churches that failed didn't get their thoughts preserved. The churches that were soft on homosexuality failed - if there were any. There is little reason to believe we won't go the same way.

Of course, you might argue that standing on principle and bringing comfort to our neighbors is the way to go, no matter the risk. I would argue in response that doing that now doesn't accomplish much if we're not there for the next generation. If we're not here in 50 years, who will tell the children that the world is billions of years old, not 6000? Who will tell the children that evolution is a fact? Who will tell the children that women deserve a say in leadership?

Those things are more important, and I want to see our church succeed fighting those battles first. Then we can go on to other things.

[holly3278]

How are civil unions different from marriages? Well, in actuality, they're not. The name is just different. Some people in the United States have said that gays should be allowed to get civil unions but not marriage. I honestly don't know why though.

[bostonian]

I also see nothing wrong with homosexuality or homosexual sex acts.

I don't understand how Christians can hold such a position. I am a new Christian so I don't claim to be a Biblical expert, but it seems like everywhere I look in the Bible it says things like "a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife" and talks about how homosexuality is an abomination, unnatural and shameful.

I know there is room for interpretation in reading the Bible, but "nothing wrong with homosexuality or homosexual sex acts" seems like a stretch to me.

[holly3278]

bostonian said:

I also see nothing wrong with homosexuality or homosexual sex acts.

I don't understand how Christians can hold such a position. I am a new Christian so I don't claim to be a Biblical expert, but it seems like everywhere I look in the Bible it says things like "a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife" and talks about how homosexuality is an abomination, unnatural and shameful.

I know there is room for interpretation in reading the Bible, but "nothing wrong with homosexuality or homosexual sex acts" seems like a stretch to me.

I would suggest reading up on web pages like this one:

www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm

[bostonian]

I'm not seeing anything compelling there. Is there something in particular that you would like to reference?

"Homosexual sex acts" are sinful. I don't see how we can turn a blind eye to that. It is mentioned over and over and over again in the Bible. I suppose that we could also deny that Jesus existed since the Bible is open to interpretation, but I don't see how that would be sensible.

[Canadian Phil]

Holly;

I didn't read the materials in detail, but I read enough to caution you not to reduce the conservative or the liberal views to the two options this website offers. Yes, there are Christians who would argue the 'typically conservative' view and the 'typically liberal' view, but most people would have issues with either view. What I have found in many years of discussions about this topic is that very few people actually believe in the way that the caricatures of either side think they do.

Similarly, I would note that this is a distinctly liberal site, despite its title as religious tolerance. Watch the language here: describing the relevant Scriptural passages about homosexuality as 'clobber' passages. It is true that some conservatives have wielded these passages like clubs, but part of the reason for that is that liberals really haven't dealt with them seriously yet. Far too often, the strategy has been to implcitly edit them by arguing cultural bias or the impossibility that God would act like this. That doesn't impress even as moderate a conservative as I am.

I would also caution you that the treatment of the Scriptural passage is distinctively liberal and many of the ideas presented as fact are, in fact, highly controversial. That is one of the things which bothered me about the biblical explications in that site. There are two sides here and it is isn't that conservatives are just too stupid and unconnected from scholarship to 'get' what Scripture is really saying. That is why no conservative is going to take these arguments very seriously because they've heard them and found them wanting.

What the website was right about was that there are two distinctive ways of dealing with issue which correspond to rather different ways of reading Scripture. If you want to start with undestanding the conservative position and why we think this issue is a problem, start there.

Peace,
Phil

[holly3278]

Well, thanks everyone for your replies. I do appreciate them. I understand that the web page has its flaws but I personally agree with what the web page says. That said, I am totally for equal rights for gays.

[Canadian Phil]

That's fine, of course, Holly. The only thing any of us can ask is that you be open to hearing different opinions and listen to people who disagree with you. You do that, so no problem.

Peace,
Phil

[Sojourner]

The beautiful thing, Holly, is that without the support of the Church or society, my partner and I have loved and uplifted each other for 11 years, in a relationship that has empowered and blessed us both. Unfortunately, this successful partnership has rendered the Church's blessing irrelevant.

[Uriel]

Sojourner - I agree totally that a successful experience of love and blessing is entirely outside of, and superior to, any need for blessing by the Church. The Church, in my opinion, in the words of a friend of mine, is (often) a "hospital." If we are healthy, we don't actually need it.; though ideally it would tend to our perpetual infirmities But if it is itself not healthy, we had best stay away.

God is not perfectly congruent with the Church, ever. True blessing is not within the power of the Church to confer or withhold. God is vast beyond our finite minds. We are blessed as and when the Spirit listeth (which, I suspect, is actually always.) The Church, Scripture, all draw on the same source we as individuals do - the Great Source which we call God, which we strive to comprehend and share.

So yes, indeed, I am most prepared to accept that your relationship is a blessing with or without the "blessing" of the recalcitrant church.

Uriel

[jb]

Apr 14, 2008 8:20:39 GMT -5 Sojourner said:

The beautiful thing, Holly, is that without the support of the Church or society, my partner and I have loved and uplifted each other for 11 years, in a relationship that has empowered and blessed us both. Unfortunately, this successful partnership has rendered the Church's blessing irrelevant.

Sojourner, this is my first post. Your comment above resonates with my own conception of a sacrament, which is that sometimes it is a celebration that effects precisely what it brings to heart & mind and sometimes it is a celebration that brings to heart and mind what has already been effected. The Holy Spirit, we've been told, moves where the Spirit wills. In my view, the Spirit does not need an official conduit to effect the efficacies of God's love and I see this view as over against any clericalism. This is not to say that it is not also a very great gift for us to be able to celebrate and effect, officially and explicitly, the human value-realizations that we are also able to realize implicitly.

As to my opinion on Gay Marriage, I am still listening and learning. Thanks for the generosity of your depthful personal sharing, everybody.

May your relationship continue to flourish and empower and bless us all.

Truly,
jb