I have to admit, I’m daunted with the thought of being left alone in the comments section of my own blog with my former grad school professor’s pastor. (Tim, you strike me as a nice, reasonable person, but we are coming from such vastly different points of view I’m not sure how to respond. Also, your comments are more like sermons. I do appreciate your participation, and I’m not trying to turn you away; rather, I want to redirect this conversation.) My original post raised many different issues, and I worry that if I let the conversation continue the way it is, it will die the slow death of specialization. I hope I can open this back up to a wider group and examine the range of issues at hand. I’ve been getting many thoughtful private emails, Facebook messages and comments on the various topics, and I want to sort them out and give each one the attention it deserves.
While I’ve got all these Christians at my art blog, I’m going to cut to the chase. So, first up: gay marriage.
To Christians who oppose gay marriage:
It’s time to accept that it is going to become legal in this country, in every single state. It is an obscene violation of the Constitution that the Church has infiltrated the State regarding this, and other, issues. You have no right to deny any American citizen their basic rights. Nor do you have the right to segregate American citizens with arbitrary laws, by declaring that some Americans are permitted to marry while others may only have “domestic partnerships” or “civil unions.” It is time to start spending your time, money, and energy elsewhere. If you don’t change your attitude soon, your grandchildren will be embarrassed when they remember you.
To Christians who guess for now that they probably don’t see a reason why homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to get legally married– as long as some new revelation from the Bible isn’t uncovered (really?! do you think someone missed a part?) that might be read in a way by church authorities that might suggest the need (?) to prohibit gay marriage:
It is time to get your beliefs straight and speak up. (Tim Bossenbroek, of the Christian Reformed Church of Champaign Illinois, if I decode your last comment correctly, YOU support gay marriage! Great!) Now would be the time to start SAYING, “I support gay marriage.” It is your civic duty to your fellow Americans, and your Christian duty to your church. Most importantly, it is an act of kindness to your gay friends and family members. If you are Christian and have not specifically stated “I support gay marriage,” your gay friends (actually, all of your liberal, non-Christian friends) will safely assume that you do not support it. Your gay friends feel sheepish and ashamed around you and have avoided the subject because they fear what you might say. You have the power to put them at ease! Say it now, here in the comment section, “[I'm a Christian and] I support gay marriage.” Say it in your Facebook status. Say it at church. These words that could come so easily and sound so trite are HUGE to the gay people in your life. If you want to begin the healing process after years of discrimination, this is where you begin.
To gay-friendly people of all stripes:
Keep talking and supporting and engaging everywhere you can. Your efforts are significant.
To fellow gay folks:
Did you get married? How? Where? Who came to your wedding? Did you call it a “wedding” or something else?
Anna and I got married in 2004, at my parents house in Washington state. A lesbian lawyer/therapist/family friend/minister officiated. It was a beautiful day, there were many tears of joy. It was small, just 24 people, including my parents and brother (with his wife), and Anna’s parents and sister (with her husband). Absent were Anna’s Christian brother, his wife and four daughters.
Two days after our wedding, we drove two hours north to Vancouver B.C. and got married again, by a Canadian marriage commissioner, in her home garden. Our parents were the witnesses.
I’m a Christian and I support gay marriage. I promise to bring my campfire out of the closet more often. Thank you for the reminder and thank you for the dialogue!
Signed,
A Christian from the Christian school in the Christian town. (Calvin College/UIUC MFA ’09 grad).
a very sincere Thank You to you, Ryan!
I’m not a christian but I SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE. Great post!
Today at work, an Evangelical Christian colleague commented that she was sad for her gay friend in CA because even though her church does not support gay marriage, she still cares about him as a person. I said that it matters not to me what her church thinks, this is not a church matter, but a legal one. Unfortunately, the two are not separate in the way we like to claim them to be in this country. There are legal rights supporting one’s freedom to practice religion, and I support this, but at the same time there should be legal rights supporting one’s freedom to marry, regardless of gender.
I’m not a Christian, I support gay marriage, and I am enormously proud to live in a state that has marriage equality.
I also think that a lot of things people have to get married to have (like health care, federal family tax deductions, and formal recognition of a mutually caring relationship) should be right open to everybody, married or unmarried, in a couple-headed family, or in any of the other, wonderful ways people choose to love each other and live together (romantically or platonically). A minority of people now live in “traditional” households headed by a married heterosexual couple; it’s time that ALL our social support structures caught up to the way people actually live & love.