February 2, 2010 - Courier-Journal

By Albert N. Pennybacker
Special to The Courier-Journal

With the current court challenge to California's Proposition 8 forbidding same-sex marriages, religious views are again surfacing. Some are blessed with insight, some with only clamor, bias and stridency. It is critical that religion's positive voice be heard.

Why? It appears that the California case could be headed to the United States Supreme Court. A definitive federal judgment upholding the legality of same-sex marriage would result in striking down state prohibitions including here in Kentucky. Now is the time to sort out what we really believe.

Perhaps in anticipation of this renewed effort to legalize same-sex marriages, Catholic Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville recently re-entered the debate, voicing again his and his church's continuing vigorous opposition. Some other religious leaders in our state share these views. The claim is that their opposition is based in “a received truth” from God, a classic absolutist religious stance. As such it is always one of those human claims that closes off real discussion and across the centuries has often led religious people into rigidity and meanness. And then, it gives God an ugly face.

There are some of us who hold a very different view, one equally grounded in a living religious faith. We favor recognizing same-sex marriages. That is, opposition is not the only or “true” religious position. Deeper than doctrine or ecclesiastical protocols, there is the religious affirmation of the humanity common to us all — God's gift at the heart of human dignity. There is “love your neighbor” ethics and its consequences for our social policies and public life. There is that wonderful vision of the ancient prophets captured in Scripture: “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain. ...”

The sad truth is that religious bodies have done more than any other single force to stigmatize and demean people over their sexual orientation. The current opposition to same-sex marriage is one more example. It is simply duplicitous for those holding that view to claim “we embrace the dignity of those with same-sex orientation.” It is not unlike the frequent disclaimer “we hate the sin but love the sinner.” How ingenuous! Remember, those religious leaders who hold to such opposition are the ones who also oppose legal abortion, divorce, embryonic stem cell research, the use of contraceptives and any living together outside of marriage. It is a flawed religious mind-set toward all human sexuality, with little sense of the need for apology or change.

One contention I find truly puzzling is that same-sex marriage does a “grave injustice” to heterosexual marriage. After having shared more than 50 years in a heterosexual marriage, I dispute the notion that same-sex marriages diminish what I have known. Nonsense! Rather, what heterosexual marriages may provide in strengths, joys, graces and pleasures, including the pleasure of sexual sharing, is exactly what I wish all people to experience whatever their sexual orientation. Instead of being defensive about heterosexual marriage, its positive values need to be available to those with other that heterosexual identities.

As religious people building a view of same-sex marriage we need to clarify our understanding of marriage itself. Marriage happens when any two reasonably adult people faithfully and publicly commit themselves to each other to build and share their life together, hopefully for a lifetime. As such its nature is two-fold, as much a secular as a religious institution. Though every religious community has the right to bless marriages or not according to its own precepts (which our Constitution protects), no religious body has the right to control or pre-empt the state's public interest in marriage.

When as a pastor I officiated at weddings, often as many as 80 to 100 a year, I did so in part as a representative of the state: “...and by the power invested in me by the state of. ...” It continues to be so today (whereas in other countries, two separate weddings typically occur: one secular and the other religious). That bit of wedding ritual honors the state's public side of marriage, what Theodore Olson as an attorney in the current California case describes as a “vital social institution.”

That being true it becomes plainly discriminatory to exclude any American from choosing and sharing in the benefits of marriage — social, economic and yes, spiritual. We shall never experience the human equality that lies at the heart of both the religious heritage and the American vision until we rid ourselves of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation. As an American Christian and a Kentuckian with deep religious commitments. I hold on to that American social vision, and I hold on to it religiously as a healthy, democratic, non-discriminatory and spiritually compatible hope for our country.

The Rev. Albert M. Pennybacker of Lexington is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and serves as Religious Advisor to the Kentucky Fairness Alliance (kentuckyfairness.org).