Why I Support Same Sex Marriage

Photo credit: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/09/opinion/stanley-same-sex-marriage/

In 2nd Samuel 1 there is the sad conclusion of the story of the love between David and Jonathan (the son of King Saul). In declaring his joy about the love Jonathan showed to him, David says: "Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”  And in1st Samuel 20: 16-17 it says they kissed and made a covenant of love between them. This relationship between David and Jonathan was undeniably a same sex loving relationship. We don’t know if they acted it out beyond kissing. But that is not important. That is private and should remain so. 

         I am very happy the PCUSA has affirmed same sex marriage. I look at it from a nurse’s perspective and know that whenever two people are allowed to make a covenant of love and commitment it is a healthy loving thing to do for their lives. (It is not sexual behavior. It is about LOVE!) Then when one is in the hospital the other in the married couple is legally allowed to be a part of their hospitalization decision-making and intimately support the healing process as any spouse is allowed to do. We have no business speculating if their loving relationship is enacted in their bedroom or not. That is none of our business. But I do know that people who are allowed to marry help build a healthier society. Less STDs and AIDS. Less alcoholism and depression and less suicide. More joy and happiness for all.

         God’s creation is good. God’s unique creation in its various forms of diversity includes not only different colors of skin but also different sexual orientations. If someone is born gay they are not born wrong, that is just part of the beautiful diversity of creation that has existed since the beginning of time. Anthropology is a favorite subject of mine and gay people can be found in every culture around the world and same sex coupling in the animal kingdom as well. 

         I have studied the science that being gay is an inborn genetically influenced trait and as the child develops they become more aware of their uniqueness. I have friends who knew around 6 years old that they were “different” but didn’t know why or how. They have grown up to be wonderful parents with same sex spouses and have become upstanding professors, doctors, choir directors, and teachers. 

         When a person doesn’t know anyone personally who is gay why do they think they can judge the moral correctness of their sexual orientation? They have no understanding of the difficult struggle many gay people experience growing up in a society with judgmental people who assume things about them but don’t take the time or energy to really get to know their life journey. No one chooses to be gay. You know it must be an inborn trait if a person is gay because choosing to be gay would be crazy in a society that kills people for being gay. (A 2001 review of twin studies found identical twins were significantly more likely to share a sexual orientation – that is, to be either both gay, or both straight – than fraternal twins, who are less genetically close. Such findings indicate that genes do factor into a person's orientation. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation)

         Just as the church changed her stance on slavery and women’s role in the church, many theologians and biblical scholars now understand these biblical prohibitions of homosexual behavior to refer instead to violent sexual acts (such as the horrible way the guards at Abu Graib prison treated their male prisoners with sexual torture in 2003).  We need to shift our focus to promoting fidelity and respect in marriage between two people. When we do not allow people to marry who love each other, we are interfering with God’s most important creation: Love. And we are putting an obstacle in the way of the Holy Spirit who inspires love between people. Who are WE to put an obstacle in the way of love and allowing people to share love with another in a mutual caring way? I don’t pretend I am God and understand all the mysteries of creation. But I do respect God’s creation and I am an ambassador of God's love.  

         In the days when Paul was writing about homosexual behavior, the Christian community needed to multiply and be very fruitful. So the big cultural pressure was on having children and more of them. It was a sin to “spill their seed on the ground” because they were supposed to use it to create more children. Now our world has over population and we don’t have that cultural influence that greatly affected what they wrote about same sex relationships. 

         Jesus never said anything about homosexual relationships. But he did explain about eunuchs: "For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Matthew 19:11-12)

         When allowed to get married, those born gay are able to be faithful to each other as well. Which is what we should promote for our society’s health in general. What I believe is immoral, wrong and a sin is making gay people feel as if they are second class citizens who can never marry when they fall in love and have happy families. Unless you have journeyed alongside someone who realized they were born gay and struggled to find their place in this world, you have no ability to understand the pain and hardship they go through. Remember Matthew 7: 1-3. 

         And most of all remember 1st Corinthians 13: 1-13:

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly,^* but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is LOVE.”