A Paper Prepared for the
JOHN W. BALLOU AMERICAN INN of COURT
A Continuing Education Event
For Attorneys and Judges
Held October 23, 2008
In Orono, Maine
You have tasked me with an impossible assignment: to cover “Religious Practices of Marriage in American Religious Communities,” in the context of the culture wars and legal battles over same-sex marriages, in fifteen minutes or less.
I understand why you might wish such input prior to the two attorneys’ debate. For centuries religious communities have been defining the nature of marriage, officiating at marriage services, and nurturing the practice of marriage.
Moreover, same-sex marriage is a hot button issue, touching at an emotional, subconscious, even irrational level from which passionate informed debate too often deteriorates into fiery frustrating argument. Surely the religious community must have some moral and ethical guidance to offer.
Furthermore, ecclesiastical and judicial worlds overlap with marriage. The clear line separating church and state blurs when the bottom line of marriage licenses are signed, when authorized clergypersons become agents of the state, when sacred covenants become legal contracts.
But, alas, there is no single religious understanding of marriage, let alone a common religious voice on same-sex marriage. We cling to the myth that ours is a Judeo-Christian nation, but multiple voices clamor to be heard: Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Evangelical, Progressive, Fundamentalist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, First Nation, not to mention citizens who consider themselves spiritual but not religious, not atheist but agnostic.
A couple weeks ago my wife announced I needed a haircut. I became the next shopping mall walk-in. One stylist – the one with green hair, wearing all black, sporting tattoos and piercings – invited me to her chair. “What do you do for a living?” she asked, shaking open the plastic covering. “I’m a seminary President,” I answered. She was not impressed. Snapping the piece around my neck, she asked: “What’s a seminary?” “It’s a graduate school of theology,” I told her; “a place when ministers are trained to serve churches.” “Oh,” she replied, “we’re not allowed to talk about religion in here.”
She continued nevertheless. “I had a customer once who told me since people go to war over religion and since religious people get into lots of arguments, the world would be more peaceful if no one had any beliefs and we just had ideas instead. That made a lot of sense to me.”
It didn’t make a bit of sense to me, but by then she had a sharp pair of pointed scissors in her hand, and this religious person didn’t want to get into any arguments, or to cause her to lose her job. So I closed my eyes and kept quiet, the only sounds being the snipping. It must have become too quiet for her.
“Are you married?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied. “How long?” she wondered. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “must be thirty-six years now.” The snipping stopped as she took in that I had been married to the same person more than a decade longer than she had been alive. “Are you two, like, people who grew up next door?” “Close,” I said; “we met at church camp when we were ten, so we’ve actually been best friends for forty-eight years.”
That was beyond her comprehension. Hers is a world in which people live together without marriage, or consider themselves married but never make it legal, or engage in one marriage after another. Rather than extreme, hers is the more typical American experience. Far more than half of those who have come to me to be married have lived together first; their commitments were made long before they appeared at the altar or I signed their licenses; and while Americans may love getting married in traditional services, as you judges and attorneys know so well, we also divorce in high numbers.
Religious communities do have a stake in marriage, and laws need to be informed by religious ideals. But no one religious understanding of marriage should be imposed by law upon all, and the positions of those outside of religious communities also need to be taken into consideration.
That said, all I have to utter are two words – “Dearly beloved…” -- and minds leap to precious memories, future dreams, idyllic images of grooms in black tuxes and brides in white dresses, ring-bearers carrying ribboned pillows and flower-girls strewing petals, mood-creating candlelight and the Mendelssohn wedding march, and, of course, preachers waxing eloquently about love. Whether religious or not, when the words “Dearly beloved…” are said, everyone knows a traditional service of marriage is beginning. Some in Maine, though certainly not all people of faith, might say: marriage “the way it should be.”
“Dearly beloved, we gather together in the sight of God…” Sanctuary or synagogue, chapel or mosque, living room, garden park, or country club, there is something about the wedding ceremony which causes even non-religious persons to pause, to show respect, to sense they have entered sacred space, are standing on holy ground, are engaged in the profoundly spiritual. Non-religious people seek religious services when getting married, not because clergy can make their relationship legal, but from a longing for the presence of God when making the marriage commitment.
“Dearly beloved, we gather together in the sight of God to join this man and this woman…” One man. One woman. The way God intended. The way it’s always been. The way it always must be. So argue certain religious proponents of a traditional understanding of marriage.
But is that true? Wasn’t Jacob married to Rachel, and to Leah, and to Bilhah, and to Zilpah -- all at the same time? Solomon never was condemned for having a thousand wives, only that some were enticing him to worship foreign gods. How about Ruth? Wasn’t she relying on a religious marriage law no longer honored obligating a relative of her deceased husband to marry her?
There is no one definition of marriage or one manual of marriage practices found in the scriptures. Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, marriage has taken on various forms over time and across cultures. The closest American religious communities have come to consensus is in these words:
God has order the covenant of marriage so husband and wife can give to each other companionship, help, and comfort, both in times of prosperity and in times of adversity; so God might hallow the expression of natural expression; so children might be born into families and raised in godliness; and so human society can stand on firm foundations.[1]
The language reflects an opposite-sex understanding of marriage. But in increasing numbers prophetic religious voices on the America scene are asking if marriage should continue to be denied to same-sex couples. Do not same-sex couples – as human beings and as children of God – also stand in need of an institution that provides for companionship, help, and comfort; that legitimizes their natural God-given expressions of sexuality; that strengthens their family relationships; and that ends the societal injustice of discrimination against them as citizens deserving of equal treatment under the law?
Certainly the constellation of human sexuality issues has created considerable conflict within religious communities. But a change has been occurring over recent decades. The trajectory of this evolution in religious thought is clear.
As careful scholarship has exposed inaccurate scriptural interpretations, as those of homosexual orientation have risked coming out, as the gifts of gay and lesbian persons have been accepted and affirmed, as the medical community has forsaken its assumption that homosexuality is a behavioral disorder, and as the relationships of same-sex couples have proven as loving and committed as those of opposite-sex couples, the condemnation of all homosexual behavior as perversion, the history of homosexuals being punished for behavior permitted to heterosexuals, and the assumption that gay and lesbian persons enjoy no right of protection against discrimination – all are being abandoned, painfully but inevitably, out of hearts of compassion and with eyes focused on justice.
In an evocative episode of The West Wing[2] a publicly outspoken pundit of traditional religious values named Dr. Jenna Jacobs meets the President at a reception in which this exchange takes place:
President Bartlet: I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
Jenna Jacobs: I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President, the Bible does.
President Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus.
Jenna Jacobs: 18:22
President Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?
…My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?
Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football?…
Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?
Think about that, will you?
The “Dearly Beloved…” speech typically concludes with this line: “Therefore, let us invoke the blessing of God upon the union about to be formed.” When it comes to the “Religious Practices of Marriage in American Religious Communities” – when all is said and done – the religious role is to bless marriages.
Religious communities are not of one mind on same-sex marriage. Some religious communities will bless only certain opposite-sex marriages. Some religious communities will bless virtually all opposite-sex marriages. Some religious communities are open to discussing the blessing of same-sex marriages. Some clergy already are blessing same-sex marriages, whether legal or not. Some clergy now are refusing to sign licenses for opposite-sex marriages until the state also allows them to sign licenses for same-sex marriages. That is the way it is on the American religious landscape as tonight’s debate begins.
And what this one religious voice believes is that varying religious communities need the freedom to bless whatever marriages they choose, without the marriage understandings of any single religious community being imposed on us all.
[1] Book of Worship: United Church of Christ (working draft).
[2] Episode 25 entitled “The Midterms,” first aired October 18, 2000.
