Let’s try having some thoughtful conversations about the proposal to amend our North Carolina Constitution to ban gay marriage. The current debate does not make much sense to me and I’m trying to understand why anyone wants state government involved. When I try to think it through, I start with the history of marriage. As best I can tell, it exists in some form in every culture and often, but not always, it is solemnized in a religious ceremony. There is monogamous marriage, polygamous marriage, straight, gay and bi… Marriage may be for love or for political alliance or for convenience. It may be arranged by the family or based on the choice of the marriage partners. It can be intended as a lifelong commitment or a temporary arrangement until the kids are grown. If we look across different cultures and different eras, it becomes clear that marriage is not just one kind of arrangement and it evolves over time.  Several years ago a friend who is a Hindu from India was planning to return there to be married to a bride selected by his parents. He had not met her. When I asked him about this custom that was so strange to me, he asked me what the divorce rate is in the US. I don’t recall the number, but it was high. Then my friend asked, “Why should I think that I can do a better job picking a wife than my parents can do?” I prefer doing things my own way, but my friend did have a valid point.

Laws that try to define or govern marriage eventually run afoul of social changes. They become irrelevant or worse, they interfere in the personal freedom of individuals. We have experienced plenty of that within our own nation and our own lifetimes. Many of us can remember when it was illegal for people of different races to marry in some states. That changed gradually then finally our courts recognized inter-racial marriage as a basic civil right which states could not prohibit. Some states recognize “common law marriage”. If a couple live together for some period of time or if they have children together or whatever other criteria are set in the law, they are deemed to have entered an enforceable marriage contract whether they intended to or not.   If they move to a state without such a law, are they still married?

We’re headed for an interesting mess with more government intrusion into the personal values and religious persuasions of individuals. There are religious institutions (including Christian Churches in North Carolina) which perform same sex marriages today. They are going to continue regardless of what is in the constitution. Any attempt to stop them will create a head on collision between the State Constitution and the free practice of religion which most of us value highly. There are established churches in our state which now refuse to fill out the State’s paperwork for marriage licenses. The church performs the marriage and leaves it up to the individuals to decide whether to get a license and officially register the marriage with the State. Some of the folks so married claim married status on their tax returns, cover each other as family under insurance benefits and sign up for social security as husband and wife. They view themselves as married in their own eyes and in the eyes of their God.

Today we have an attempt by evangelical Christians to impose their personal view of marriage on everyone else. They stand in the tradition of their Christian predecessors who successfully banned inter-racial marriage and sexual relationships outside of marriage on biblical grounds. These laws were very serious matters. People were jailed for violating them. Why do we need a constitutional ban on same sex marriage? It won’t make homosexuality go away any more than a ban on blue eyes will make them disappear. I can’t see a benefit in this amendment to justify restricting anyone’s personal freedom.

To my evangelical friends, I pose this question, “What would Jesus do?” I have read the New Testament cover to cover in more than one translation. Assuming it to accurately report what Jesus taught, I find a great deal about how people should treat each other. I cannot find one occasion when he proposed enforcing any of his teaching through civil law. Not once. Never. As best I can tell, the idea never arose in Christianity until the Roman Church became a political power and began to impose its beliefs on others. There is, perhaps, one pertinent statement from Jesus that ought to be considered. The Jews of Jesus’ time had many (sometimes conflicting) religious laws governing daily life. Many religious and political leaders did not approve of Jesus’ teaching and one day he was interrogated publicly about the laws. At one point, a lawyer asked him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus replied to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with your all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” He made it clear that he was teaching values about respect for others; always teaching and never imposing his teaching on anyone else. That is what Jesus did.

I can’t find any justification for the State of North Carolina imposing evangelical values on people who do not share those values. I want to live in a North Carolina which fully respects the rights of every individual to live as he or she sees fit as long as they do not harm others. Live and let live. We are far better off not imposing the values of any religion in our constitution.

1/28/2012