This is a reprint of a post
originally published by www.speakerschair.com
I am reprinting it because of the many questions I am getting on this
subject.
I am the Vicar of a
semi-rural parish in a quiet and lovely part of England, though I write in a
personal capacity. Our church is a pretty Victorian building, in much demand
for marriage services. I love ‘doing weddings’ because the happiness in the
church is palpable. The initial air of excitement and nervousness is followed
by an outpouring of celebration and joy as the service progresses. Marriages
start here, with the joining of two people into one fresh, new unit. A wedding
is a sacred moment and I am privileged to see, close up, the faces of people as
they pledge to honour, love and cherish each other, come what may, for the rest
of their lives.
I cannot understand why
this sacred moment of commitment before God and his people should be denied to
gay couples. If two people love each other and are willing to commit to a
faithful, devoted and lifelong partnership, I do not understand why we in the
church should refuse them simply because they are gay. It breaks my heart to
have to do this, and the lack of religious support to gay couples and to the
priests that wish to minister to them is painful. I have been deeply hurt in
recent weeks, firstly by the refusal to consecrate women as bishops and,
secondly, by the Church of England’s response to the question of gay marriage.
We are not just out of step with the modern world, we are out of step with the
pastoral needs of our people.
The Church of England’s
objection does not seem to be on the grounds that it disapproves of
homosexuality per se – they say:
The proposition that
same-sex relationships can embody crucial social virtues is not in dispute.
Rather, the issue seems to
be with the definition of marriage itself. Their argument is that marriage is
based on the idea of complementarity, of two people of different sexes coming
together to make one married couple. To me this is a simplistic reduction of a
complex truth. We are all different people who come together make the body of
Christ. We are all complementary, and to suggest otherwise is to suggest that
some people are unnecessary. We are all God’s children, unique and special.
When two of God’s children come together into the institution of marriage, they
create something fresh and new, an expression of God’s love worked out between
two people.
I can think of no reason
why this should not happen between two gay people, as long as they are able to
make and mean the demanding and sacrificial vows that take place in a wedding
ceremony. I have seen gay relationships which show levels of commitment and
love which are awe-inspiring, and to say that they cannot be placed on a level
with heterosexual relationships is ugly and discriminatory. Two gay people can
be complementary and together create something new and beautiful.
Some people are called to a
life of religious celibacy. Some live in hopeful singleness. Some are called to
marriage. To deny gay Christians the calling of marriage is to deny them their
personal vocation and is a cruel rejection that sets a poor example to those
who live in our diverse society. To reduce the complex and wonderful
differences between people to the one characteristic of sex is to deny our
individuality, and it ignores and excludes many people who cannot be so easily
pigeonholed. That gender identity and sexuality are more than a simple duality
is a scientific fact which has been recognised for many years.
The other argument, less
strongly put, but still widely heard, is that marriage is about creating a
stable union for the birth and rearing of children. Obviously, many of the
heterosexual couples we marry in church will not go on to conceive and bear
children together because of age, choice or infertility. Marriage is about more
than childbearing. What is more relevant is the number of people we marry who
bring into the new family children from previous relationships, or from their
own relationship in an earlier stage. We pray that these children will be
nurtured and loved as they grow up with the newly married couple. I cannot see
that gay couples will be any different. Some gay couples will bring children in
from previous relationships, some will have children within the relationship.
The child may not be the biological product of the two people, but then that is
often the case in families. We do not reject couples for marriage who will have
children with the help of third party donors. Marriage for gay couples would
offer the same benefits to their children as to the children of straight
couples, and to society as a whole.
It distresses me when we
hurl biblical texts at each other in these debates, because I frame this issue
in terms of human rights and the love of God for us all. To treat some people
as unequal is a violation of the supreme commandments that we love God and our
neighbour. Christians believe that God created people as equal beings, all
offered salvation by the sacrifice made once for us upon the cross, the one
defining act which redeems us by God’s grace and shows us our infinite value as
his beloved children. Discrimination denies the fundamental equality worked out
by Jesus in his life, his death and his resurrection for all people.
Discrimination, whether
based on ethnicity, sex or sexual orientation is sinful, a denial of the innate
beauty and value of every individual human being and a rejection of the wonderful
diversity of creation. I hope the Church of England will one day wake up to
this reality.