Congratulations United Church of Christ on Gay Rights

Congratulations to my denomination (and Barack Obama's and Jeremiah Wright's), the United Church of Christ, for joining a lawsuit against the theological hypocrisy of Proposition 8 in California. While it is terribly hard for one church to engage in a bitter dialogue with another church, still and nonetheless, the debate about Proposition 8 requires that such difficulty be entered.

I have no doubt that eventually the right for gay marriage will be won. We will look back on these days the way we look at "separate but equal" water fountains in dime stores. What were we thinking?

We will tell the history -- and how we found ourselves outside the Mormon Temple in Manhattan last week with a sign that said "No hate in the name of God."

It was in 1990, late in the day at the First Congregational Church in Riverhead. Two women came in and looked me straight in the eye and said, "Can we get married?" I remember saying, "No", much too quickly and with a touch of bitterness. It was my bitterness: why had just a few weeks ago I agreed to a heterosexual marriage on the spot, with a woman 9 and a half months pregnant and a man who clearly had a metaphoric noose around his head? I had agreed to perform that ceremony, reluctantly, with a kind of sadness. The other two children sat in the front row. The mother of the bride stood up for her. The sanctuary was eerily empty. I hastened to say to the two women that I would be glad to perform a civil union but marriage was something the state owned and there was no legal way for them to be legally joined. I remember walking into the sanctuary that afternoon, with the last light of the day around us, feeling duplicitous, sad, phony and not representing anything about the God I know to anyone. I was a lackey of a bad state, a mean state, and a state that affirmed heterosexuals, not gays in moral and sacramental behavior.

We performed a holy union that afternoon. The two women stared deeply into each other's eyes. They knew what they were doing: they were pledging themselves to each other. They had already been in a holy union and now the God of that little dusk and that little sanctuary joined their sacrament.

The first thing I have never understood is why some straights discourage marriage among gays. The theological and spiritual hypocrisy begins here. What horse do they have in that race? Is not one of the stereotypes against gays that they are "promiscuous? Why would we not want fidelity as a moral and family value? The second thing I have never understood is why straight marriage would be threatened by gay marriage. The third thing I have never understood is why straight people are mean to gay people. I just don't get the powerful resistance many so-called Christians have to gay marriage. It strikes me as the gospel of hate, not love, the gospel of fear, not confidence. It strikes me as the marriage of the church to one order of marriage, based in the 1950's version thereof, with no remembrance of how Jesus was celibate and Joseph a man of many wives. Sociologically and spiritually, marriage just keeps changing. I would think of all people the Mormons might understand!

Fortunately attitudes are changing. Those who measure attitudes on these matters assure us that people under 40 join me in not getting it. People over 40 are beginning to get it. The number of people who oppose gays or gay marriage is decreasing rapidly. Additionally, progressive religious organizations are getting on board and performing as many holy unions as we can. In Massachusetts and Connecticut we also perform gay marriages.

On Monday, July 04, 2005, in Atlanta, Georgia, the governing body of the United Church of Christ, direct descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, voted overwhelmingly to "affirm equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender," thereby becoming the first mainline denomination, and the largest Christian denomination in the world, to support same-sex marriage.

Endorsing gay marriage has surely lost some members and some churches; just as surely, it has attracted more members and churches, most notably the 5000 member Victory Church in Stone Mountain George, a largely African-American church which could no longer be at home among discriminating heterosexists. We are drinking, as Bishop Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire says, the last dregs of a bad cup of wine: heterosexism is over. Religious people will look back in ten years -- the way we now look back at slavery and the before civil rights era -- and say, "What took us so long?"

Gay marriage will come nationwide; it will be ordinary to our children. It will be more than just gay marriage: it will also free scriptural interpretation from meanness and the cementing of revelation. I don't know that my little union in Riverhead that day was the first one on Long Island; I hope not. I especially hope that it will not be the last but will instead join the great stream of people who sacramentalize and legalize the feelings they have for each other.

The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper was Pastor at the First Congregational Church of Riverhead from 1987-1993 and is currently Senior Minister of the Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

Comments

[Davwbaird]

God is beyond my understanding. That this being creator of everything could speak to us on such pedestrian issues as loving relationships between humans.... well when I think about it I almost go crazy. I have great respect for the UCC. While on the Council on Religion and the Homosexual in the late 60's they were one organization clearly guided by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Within my mythical framework, I learned something that seems applicable to sorting out people and their beliefs/actions. "By their works you shall know them". Its as simple as that. Narrow beliefs that exclude others for something that is inherit are in human terms harmful to the body politic and are to be shunned and given no merit. That includes all who supported prop 8. Their actions are speak louder than their words and makes them hypocrites of the highest order.
For our safety its important to ID harmful activity and persons. Within christian group.s that is never their proper activity to condemn, rather theirs are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Conflict in our times is between monotheistic religions and their myriad sects. How is that secular society must fall victim to their hate and exclusion? They are in their very actions something that is not healthy and good to the body politic. The clash of orthodoxy versus orthodoxy results in carnage.

[MickeyC]

It is good to see the people of faith standing up for the true Christian faith against so many who have commandeered the name for their own non-Christian philosophy. Sadly, Proposition 8 in California removes the rights of churches from legally practicing their religions when it comes to same sex marriage. This should be unconstitutional, as it establishes the beliefs of one religion over another. That isn't supposed to happen under our Constitution. It is disturbing to think, how many other religious practices will be made illegal by politico-religious bodies like the Mormon group who use money to force their will on others.

[luke150]

I don't see any reason to deny gay couples to marry (civil marriage for sure), but a religious one. And obviously, not all churches are that stubborn on the issue. As some of the comments demonstrate, one can actually find reasonable legal arguments against gay marriage. However, I really don't see how deeply religious people can reconcile Jesus's message of love with openly stripping others's rights to pursue love. Most hetero people marry because they perceive marriage MOSTLY as something that solidifies their love and commitment. Why would a religious person want to deny that to others is beyond my ability to comprehend.

[cosmicmom]

Why can't the Lutherans (ELCA) be as loving and fearless?

[DMSmith]

There's a distinction between can and will.

[M1]

Excellent Post!

[DinkSinger]

There is no question that marriage is the one area of American culture where church and state interests overlap. One of the best legal arguments for same-sex marriage is that its prohibition deprives the UCC, Unitarian Universalists, and others of their right of free exercise of religion guaranteed by the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution.

While New York State does not yet allow same-sex couples to be joined in legal marriages within the state, it does recognize as legally valid same-sex marriages celebrated elsewhere. Here in Connecticut we do not have any residency requirements for either the couple or the clergy, so I invite the Reverend Doctor Schaper to make the short trip and solemnize legal same-sex marriages of her congregants here.

[randyjet]

I have no problem with gays having church marriages, but I DO have a problem when gays ask the STATE to get involved by demanding legal rights and subsidies as regular marriage. Marriage is a legal device instituted by the state for ITS own purposes and benefit, NOT just a nice thing for all to have available. The state grants subsidies to many businesses for its own reasons and benefits, and it does NOT deny the "rights" of other businesses when they don't get the same.

I would have been very happy when I was single to have been able to marry my mother since that would have given her a lot of benefits. Why is it right to deny ME that right too? The same can be said for polygamists. Why should they not be able to marry as many wives as will have them? In short, by taking this stand, you make government into a grab bag of goodies that all are entitled to. Citizens have equal liabilities as well as privileges. Marriage is NOT a right such as free speech since you don't need a license to practice it. The Loving decision of the Supreme Court said it was a right, but ONLY for regular man/woman unions. It did NOT extend that to same sex marriages and never even remotely considered it. So to say that marriage in that context is a right is an outright LIE.

[gaydm]

To say a civil marriage contract has anything to do with having sex, is a lie. Nowhere in that civil marriage contract is it required, demanded, or expected that sexual activity MUST occur. Neither is it required, demanded, or expected that children be a part of that civil marriage contract. You are only required to be able to consent freely, be of age, and not already in a marriage, or in some states not be a close relative. The genders of the 2 people involved are in no way addressed in the civil marriage contract. You have ZERO reason to deny anyone who is of age, or who freely wishes to consent to the marriage and is of the same or opposite gender a marriage contract, whether they are gay or not.

[DinkSinger]

Not quite true. While we mostly refrain in our laws from explicit sexual language, the law generally provides that marriages without sex are voidable. For example New York law provides that a marriage is voidable (may be ended by an annulment) if "one of the parties was physically incapable of entering into the marriage state". In addition, in all states marriage requires a commitment to refrain from sex with all others. Every state allows for the contract to be terminated (divorce) for adultery, defined in New York "as the commission of an act of sexual intercourse, oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct, voluntarily performed by the defendant, with a person other than the plaintiff after the marriage of plaintiff and defendant.­"

[LeftRight]

I have no problem with slaves having the church free them, but I DO have a problem when slaves ask the STATE to get involved by demanding legal rights and subsidies as regular citizens. Slavery is a legal device instituted by the state for ITS own purposes and benefit, NOT just a nice thing to have available. The state grants subsidies to slaveowners for its own reasons and benefits, and it does NOT deny the rights of other slaveowners when they don't get the same.

The fact of the matter is that you've come here before with the religious argument, and you got smacked down. Now you are coming here and claiming that a particular group doesn't deserve the same rights as the rest of us, and it's ALL bullhockey, and you know it as well as I do! You are simply AFRAID of gay people!

[Romulus]

"Now you are coming here and claiming that a particular group doesn't deserve the same rights as the rest of us"

I don't see marriage as a basic or fundamental right for anyone regardless of what CJ Warren said in Loving v. Virginia. What is do see as basic or fundamental is the right to co-habitate, to live with and share your life and fortune with any consenting adult regardless of gender.

The courts reasoning for it's decision in the Loving vs. Virgina case was that marriage was necessary for the preservation of the species ("Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival."­), but it should be obvious that is not true. Consider how many women today are choosing to have children out of wedlock.

I see marriage as a social compact whereby society decides to recognize certain types of relationships as beneficial to society as a whole. I think society has a right to do this.

So many same-sez marriage proponents cite Loving v. Virgina as "proof" that the "right" to marriage is being denied to LBGT without seeming to do any further research. Have any of them looked at Baker v. Nelson? In 1971, SCOTUS ruled "that a state law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples does not violate the federal Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process of law".

[Bloggerrogr]

Proud to be a member of the Scottsdale Congregational U.C.C.; prouder still for this most positive and affirmative stand for Human Rights on hte part of the Greater Church. Jesus gave us the model; when we fall short of his commandment, "...love one another", we show our lesser selves and not of those created in God's image.

[judiNJ]

Amen! and a proud member of Stanley Congregational (UCC) Church of Chatham, NJ.