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.”

Three is Better Than One (an excerpt from my sermon on Trinity Sunday)

Karl Barth, the German theologian who wrote an indepth analysis of God, came to the conclusion that God is slowly revealing more of God’s self to us over time. In his huge exposition called Church Dogmatics, Barth concluded that God is totally contained not needing anything from others. And yet God reached out to the “other” (us humans) because our God is a relational God who wants to be with us, the creation. The pattern of the Trinity is a symbol of the relationality in the character of God.

         Karl Barth also wrote about eternity and said it could only be understood in the light of the relationships of the three persons of the Trinity. We tend to think of eternity as everlasting time. But the Bible speaks of eternity as everlasting relationships. Each member of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit are always in communion with one another. And us children of God are adopted into that relationship with God, not due to any action of our own but because God loves all of creation so much we are all adopted and heirs of God’s kingdom. As it said today in Romans 8: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.”

         The Trinity or triune God has adopted you into a Trinity family made up of our Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit and YOU. …. We are always in communion with God whether we are aware of it or not. And for that we should be grateful!!

         Ted Peters, a professor of systematic theology who prolifically writes about science and religion, expands the concept of the relational Trinity in his book, God -- the World’s Future, “God is personal through one or another of the three persons. And the net effect of the doctrine of the Trinity is to understand the divine reality as a unity of relation.” Peters goes on to say, “The Trinitarian understanding of God is that God’s full self-investment in the incarnation redefines divinity to include humanity.”

         In 2010, I wrote a paper for a Cosmology course. I titled the paper: The Symbol of the Trinity Reflected in the Relational Three-Patterned Character of the Cosmos. As I researched for the paper, I found so many patterns of three everywhere!

         The more humans discover about the creation and fundamental structure of the cosmos, the more we see the Triune nature of God reflected all around us. Think about it: in our galaxy we see the pattern of three in relationship: Stars, moons, and planets. In molecular matter we have the pattern of three in: Protons, neutrons, electrons.  Living Matter on earth all depends upon: Water, Air, and Soil. All matter must exist in one of three forms: solid, liquid, or gas. The strongest geometric pattern is the 3 sided triangle. In human biology our bodies have patterns of three. Human hearts have three valves.  Human Blood is made up of: white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.  Our Body needs 3 basic elements to sustain life: protein, carbohydrates, and water. And 3 physiological systems necessary for life are: the brain, cardiac, and pulmonary systems.

         Social patterns also come in 3’s. Father, Mother, Child. Remember the movie: Yours, Mine, and Ours? In first grade it was Me, Marcia and Jane. The three of us would walk around the playground hand in hand every recess. Some people called us the 3 musketeers. And sometimes we would fight about who got to walk in the middle. One day Marcia was walking in the middle and we decided to play 3 blind mice and shut our eyes and run down a ravine blind. Poor Marcia broke her leg! That day 3 was NOT better than One… But it is interesting how humans gravitate towards a pattern of 3 even in personal relationships. And we say things like “Third times a charm!” Or bad things always happen in 3’s! 

         Humans are created in the image of a Trinitarian creator as body, soul, and spirit The triune three-pattern is reflected in the basic structure of our DNA. DNA proteins are made up of codons each with three base pairs of amino acids. Quarks are the tiniest particles that make a proton. They exist in three’s: two up quarks and one down quark.

         Does it really matter, knowing there are so many patterns of 3 in the world? Maybe the Trinity 3 is a symbol of reaching out beyond ourselves??

        Albert Einstein answers the question this way:  “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He/she experiences self, through thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... But that separation is a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

         The Cosmos is created to be relational. What happens in one part of the Universe reverberates in another.  The Universe is considered a living organism that is relational as are the smaller living organisms that inhabit it. Vaclav Havel once said, “we are mysteriously connected to the entire Universe, we are mirrored in it as the entire universe is mirrored in us.”

         Being created in the image of God whose essence is relational in the Trinity leads us to see that all creation is relational, including the Universe.

         You were born to be relational. Don’t isolate yourself away. Remember 3 is usually better than one. Jesus died on a cross between two robbers. He was not alone. The symbol of the Trinity was hanging side by side on the hill of Calvary.

         Ted Peters concludes his book by saying, “Down at our deepest level we do not want to be alone.” And WE ARE NOT! The Bible testifies to this in the name, Emmanuel, “God with us.”  Thanks be to God!   

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