A Few Thoughts about Marriage

February seems as good a time as any to talk about marriage, especially this year in Virginia.  As nearly 500 people convened in Richmond last week for Equality Virginia’s Lobby Day activities, Virginia lawmakers voted to approve the so-called “Marriage-Amendment”— the final stage of a two-year process that will place the issue on the ballot this fall.  Of course, this means that we’re going to be talking a LOT about marriage in the coming months.  To be honest, these are discussions I both welcome and loathe.  Let me tell you why.  (You may want to get a beverage and put your feet up!).

I welcome these discussions because we have an opportunity to help educate our friends, neighbors, and family members about what this particular issue is really about — which is not so much a simple matter of defining “marriage” as it is a codifying of discrimination into the Virginia constitution, which may lead to much farther-reaching consequences than most voters realize.  I was grateful to our newly elected Governor, Tim Kaine, for at least raising this issue.  I hope he will do everything in his power to help legislators make the ballot language clear (i.e., including the amendment in its entirety on the ballot; after all, it is a whopping three sentences).  Of course, I wish we could defeat this amendment based purely on the fact that discrimination against same-sex couples is wrong, but we’re not there yet.  For better or worse, we’re probably locked into a strategy of helping voters realize that this amendment would not only define marriage as being between one man and one woman, but also ban civil unions, domestic partnerships, and a potential host of other contractual agreements/legal protections for all unmarried couples (gay or straight).  I welcome the opportunity to have these discussions and to participate in defeating this amendment.  I welcome the opportunity for LGBTQ people and our families to openly share about the beauty of our living and our loving. 

I loathe these discussions because they are driven and framed by political efficacy, which necessarily limits discussions to sound-bytes and avoids the complex and multivalent conversations I wish we could have.  For example, I wish we could have a serious dialogue about the distinction between religious and civil definitions of marriage, as well as how these disparate understandings and roles might best relate.  I am actually in favor of following the example of several other countries that keep these roles separate by having civil marriages performed by government officials (not clergy) and leaving religious communities to handle the celebration of relationships and commitments as they see fit, free from legal complications.  This would make the default understanding of marriage a civil one, where its practical implications are most real and important (concerning such things as death and taxes).  It might also encourage religious communities to reclaim their liturgical responsibility, creativity, and power to bless many different types of commitments and relationships.  Further, it could help free religious ideas about relationship and commitment from being used to manipulate the masses; in other words, it might help fair-minded religious people maintain their own religious and ethical understandings about “marriage” while at the same time working to secure equal rights for those whose understandings differ.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the ice-berg.  I wish we could go much farther in examining the many ethical, legal, and sacred implications of “marriage” … as we know it now and as it is becoming.  I recently re-read a round-table discussion about marriage in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion that includes a thought-provoking essay by Christian theologian and ethicist Mary E. Hunt, as well as responses from a number of Jewish and Christian scholars and pastors.  Would that our public debates and conversations about marriage had room for this type of inquiry and discussion!  With Hunt, I wholeheartedly believe that all adults should have the right to marry, but I question whether or not marriage is the best way to organize society for the common good.  For example, the 1000+ legal entitlements that go along with marriage, including important issues related to hospital visitation, access to a spouse’s healthcare plan, and inheritance rights actually mean that married people enjoy a privilege that single people do not.  At a time when over 50% of marriages end in divorce, is this the best way to secure rights for all of our residents?  Is it ever?  Shouldn’t every person have access to healthcare and the ability to determine who can visit them in the hospital?  I think Mary Hunt rightly argues that these are benefits all human beings deserve because we have bodies, not because we have partners.

And, as you all know, I could go on and on!  J  Unfortunately, our society does not seem open or responsive to an in-depth discussion about marriage. We tend to prefer the simple and surface.  We’d rather toss insults back and forth and argue with one another.  Even more unfortunately, it may well be that having such a broad and in-depth discussion would actually be counter-productive to our immediate political goal of protecting the safety and security of (some of) our families.  So, while we’re out there working to defeat the marriage amendment and advocate basic equal rights for same-sex couples, let’s do what we need to do to help educate our community about the detrimental effects this amendment would have for all Virginians.  But, while we’re here in this place – as we continue to value doing the difficult and meaningful work of “stretching, connecting, and celebrating” as people on a “spiritual journey” – let’s not allow the public discourse to limit our own. 

Sincerely,

Rev. Kharma Amos

(Who, incidentally, always welcomes your feedback!)

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