The people of Maryland made history Tuesday, the Baltimore Sun writes, as they voted to make same-sex marriage legal. The question was on the ballot in the Free State, primarily due to efforts by groups that oppose same-sex marriage, who perhaps based their hopes of victory on the fact that same-sex marriage had been defeated each of the 32 times it had been on the ballot in other states.
“To Maryland’s children: Please know that you and your families matter to the people of our state,” the Sun quoted Gov. Martin O’Malley, who pushed for the law, as saying in a statement just after the vote had been called. “Whether your parents happen to be gay or straight, Democratic, Republican or Independent, your families are equal before the eyes of the law.”
Similar questions were also on the ballot in Maine, Washington, and Minnesota. The issue passed in Maine and Washington as well, barely but happily. Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, so even though the question was slightly different, the outcome there shows the majority’s support for gay marriage as well.
Laws to allow gay marriage are already active in Iowa, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, but the three states of Maine, Maryland, and Washington are the first to approve it by a vote of the public. The issue was very close in all three states, within 3 or 4 percent. Maryland’s same-sex couples may apply for licenses beginning Jan. 1, although the law specifically protects any church or other religious organization from having to perform any ceremony that is inconsistent with its doctrines.
A brief look at the signs against same-sex marriage
As I walked up to my polling place Tuesday, I was greeted not by signs for either President Obama or Governor Romney. No, I saw blue signs with white writing on them, saying, “Don’t redefine marriage … Marriage = one man + one woman.”
I wondered, Is this a math contest? I’m pretty good at math, especially simple addition.
I thought that was funny, because the main people I heard from who oppose gay marriage were parish priests. I was asked by three separate priests in two different churches to sign the petition to get the measure on the ballot. They got their signatures, as you see. The issue would not have been on the ballot without their valiant effort.
What the Bible says
But church doctrine isn’t really into math, you know. In conversations, the support for the argument against gay marriage became clear: It is based on the Bible, in the first book known as “Genesis,” where the story of creation is found.
Although we will examine this text for its relationship to the arguments put forth in a political campaign, please understand that we do not endorse the texts we analyze.
We quote here from Genesis in Chapter 2, verses 24 and 25:
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
No other (supported) argument against gay marriage has been advanced by these groups, and I couldn’t find any myself. However, on its face, this can be seen as a well-founded argument. But as with any religious text, what’s not there is often more important, especially as it applies to people’s lives today.
What the Bible doesn’t say
Although this is not an explicit definition of marriage, many Christian churches have interpreted it as such, saying that their holiest book at this point “defines” marriage as a man and a woman who become “one flesh.” Almost every English translation of the Bible contains wording very similar to the above, which is taken from the New Revised Standard Version.
However, despite the fact that the Bible doesn’t refer to Adam’s or Eve’s “father and mother,” we must stipulate here that the text refers to a “future” time—probably the time of the reader, which is us. Fine.
What is not clear in this passage, though, is whether the writer is talking about Adam and Eve becoming “one flesh” to procreate and grow the human species on Earth or talking about all of mankind. The Bible’s wording just isn’t clear enough, and our laws need to be clear.
If we decide to be extremely lenient and allow that the wording in the Bible talks about marriage for all of the children that will come in the future, there’s another problem: The Bible never says that’s the only way to define marriage for all time.
The text definitely asserts that a man and a woman becoming one flesh is a “sufficient” way to marry, but it is never claimed that no other way exists, whether created by God or not.
The Bible acknowledges its incompleteness
Although we do not promote any one religion, the argument against gay marriage originates in Christian dogma. In order to treat this fairly, we must therefore continue our scrutiny of the argument as it has been made by those making it.
Consider the text of the book called “John,” which Christians consider one of the actual stories (gospels) of Jesus. Here, the Bible says,
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that have not been written in this book. These have been written so that you may believe …
The text is clear that some things were not written in the Bible. Perhaps one of those things not told but still accepted by Jesus was a God-approved path to a “marriage” that was different from Adam and Eve’s. Of course, what isn’t written, we’ll never know—at least from Jesus himself—but we’ll also not know that it wasn’t so.
Also, consider Jesus’ parable known as “The Good Samaritan.” This story, attributed to Jesus himself, has many points to drive home in Christian teaching, but one of those points concerns a man who was unaware of the laws in a community coming to the aid of a beaten and robbed man after one religious and one civil ruler passed him by, essentially leaving him for dead.
Which of these three, do you think, were the true neighbor of the man who fell into the hands of brigands? He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Many Christians hold this story as central to fundamental doctrine. Here, the teaching seems to say that even a man who was not generally considered to be knowledgeable in the law can follow it anyway (and be recognized as good) because of what’s in his heart. Or, if you take actions to treat people with kindness, God doesn’t care if you know exactly what the scriptures say.
In other words, Jesus teaches here that people other than those who are defined as good by a certain set of laws can also find other, different paths to goodness. What seems to matter in Jesus’ telling of the story is the end result of kindness shown, not the motives of the person showing the kindness: The man who actually performed a deed and made sure the beaten man was cared for was the one who was recognized as good. Our actions define us more than our knowledge or titles. From this teaching, we can extrapolate that marriages other than those explicitly listed in scripture can be holy as well.
Conclusion
The traditionalist argument here—that making everything equal means that nothing is special—doesn’t wash, either. We all hold our own work to be special, for instance, despite the fact that other people have different jobs. Those of us who are strongly religious often feel blessed to do the work we do and hope to encourage others to achieve the same professional success we have. But we don’t think anybody who has a different job than we do is somehow making the work we do any less important or serving of our communities. Marriage is kind of like that: Just because some people have different types of marriages doesn’t make the marriages of strongly religious people any less special.
Here and now, because the thrust for opposition to gay marriage came mostly from Christian churches, the teachings of Christianity have been called into question by the very people who profess and preach them. Unfortunately, the religious argument works against itself in the case of gay marriage and tends to discredit those who claim by simple virtue of their title the right to define a concept. Opponents to the ballot question in Maryland argued that gay couples could achieve the same rights through a civil union and should not “redefine” marriage.
Simply put, there’s more to that definition, especially as it has been defined by the civil authorities in several states and now seems to be understood by the majority of voters. It is a tenet of linguistics that a word means what reasonable people understand it to mean. It’s a matter of using it in a certain way. A few decades ago, we in America might have understood “marriage” to exclude those couples of different races. Some religions, even today, consider marriage to exclude those couples not officially recognized by their church.
Times are changing, though, and with them, our language. A majority of the people in Maryland now understand marriage to represent love between two people, regardless of their sex. This represents an “addition” to the concept of marriage, not a redefinition. Furthermore, all previous definitions of the word are still intact.
We consider the concept of same-sex marriage to be consistent with our nation’s laws and at least not inconsistent with what we find in the Bible. If churches want to take another stand, they do so at their own peril. Their own actions send them, uninformed, into a political debate where the only certainty is that there will be debate. And frankly, they can’t stand the heat.
We believe churches should preach a message of love, not laws or elections, but their actions, once again, define them. Our actions also define us as a people, and our vote has spoken loudly on this concept.
The attempt to portray the gay marriage laws as a “redefinition” of a term in our lexicon was narrow-minded and unnatural. Words and the concepts they represent are defined by the people who use the language. An issue that should never have been opened is now closed.
