Why Christians Should Vote to Legalize Same Sex Marriage
For the purpose of this article I am going to adopt a distinctly
conservative Christian perspective and write for a distinctly
conservative Christian
audience. I want to put forth the idea that even if you believe
homosexuality is morally wrong, a sin even, you should still vote for
its legalization.
Freedom vs. License
"Freedom and fear are at war. Freedom is not, "being able to do whatever
you want to do." That is license. If you have license, rather than
authentic freedom, your house is built on sand and will collapse.
Authentic freedom is the power to do what we ought to do; the power to
choose the good, the true, and the beautiful. That will vanquish fear
every time. If your concept of freedom is really license, fear will
come out on top every time. Freedom has to be united with truth. There
is no freedom outside of the truth: No authentic human freedom outside
of the truth. "If you are truly my disciples, you will abide in my
word. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." True
freedom is rooted in God."
– Fr. John Corapi
As Fr. Corapi says, Freedom is not
license, it is more along the lines of personal authenticity. If God
is both Truth and within you, then when you are acting the most
authentically and genuinely, you are acting in God's will.
Interestingly enough, this does not mean we should forsake license, for
license and Freedom are tightly intertwined. If it weren't for
license, we could not genuinely choose to do what is right, for we
would do it automatically. This is why God gave us free will. He
allows us to sin so that we might learn, grow, and come to the truth in
a very personal and authentic way. There can be no authenticity, and
no Freedom, without license.
The opposite of Freedom is fear, and the opposite of license is
restriction. When a society implements restrictions on its citizens,
it does not only prevent its citizens from acting authentically, it
acts out of fear itself. Even though our intentions are good,
restricting the public to do only what is morally right harms
everyone. The people may choose the right thing, but for the wrong
reasons. They follow truth, but they do so disingenuously. We are
teaching them to act a certain way out of fear of the consequences.
And we ourselves, who put the policy in place, we are acting out of
fear as well. We are afraid that we can't trust people, and that if we
don't exert some pressure on them, they won't choose the right thing.
When God looks at us, does He have these fears? Well, His heart is
probably breaking all the time, seeing us choose to bury our true
selves and choose against His will. But He does not intervene and
force us to change our minds. He honors His gift to us of free will,
and He lets us make mistakes. He does not act out of fear that He will
lose us. In fact, one of Jesus's most persistent messages was "Be not
afraid." Fear blinds us, keeps us from the truth. And out of fear we
impose God's will on the people in our society, when even God himself
will not do that.
The Purpose of Law
Contrary to a lot of current
thought, the purpose of Law is not to uphold or enforce morality. Law
is about enforcing the minimum standard of action necessary to be a
functioning member of society. It is about preservation of society,
putting restrictions on license where necessary in order to prevent its
citizens from harming each other. Other than that, it should allow its
citizens as much license as possible. If you look at many of our
current laws (against murder, theft, drinking and driving, etc), we make acts illegal when they harm someone or infringe
on their rights against their will.
Morality calls us to a much higher standard than the Law. Christian
morality is about rejecting sin in all its forms and transforming
yourself inside and out to become more and more like Jesus Christ.
And, as I stated in the last section, we cannot force Christian
morality on members of our society without denying them the chance to
choose it freely. That's what makes morality such a wonderful, lofty,
and praiseworthy ideal. It is not something you are forced to do, it
is something you choose to do.
Given everything that has been said thus far, as Christians it is
our duty to emulate God and allow people to sin, as long as that sin
does not harm another person. It may break our hearts to see people
shun the truth, but we have to let them. From the standpoint of the
Law, we need to allow same sex marriage. To vote against it is to act
out of fear, and to thereby distance ourselves from God.
Calming Leftover Fears – Definitions
In order to
get ourselves to a place where we are emotionally ready to permit same
sex marriage on a political level, we need to address two major fears
that plague our hearts.
The first is that by legalizing gay marriage, we would be
corrupting an institution that God created. I know this is a sensitive
issue, and I will try my best to treat it fairly and gently. We must
admit that the word marriage is full of different meanings on different
levels. Traditionally, marriage has not always been meant as a
spiritual union in the eyes of God. There has always been a social
aspect as well. Marriage has been used as a political tool to unite
warring factions or countries. It has been used in order to barter out
a better life for your family line. It has been used as a financial
safety net. Even today, people marry for all sorts of reasons. They
marry for money, for lust, or for social status. Some people get
married for love, but do not associate themselves with any religious
tradition at all.
This does not in any way detract from the beauty and profundity of
the Sacrament of marriage in its religious context. It is as if we can
talk about marriage on two levels. There is the social/political
level, and the spiritual/religious level. The social/political level
has changed many times over the centuries without affecting the
spiritual/religious ideal of marriage. And so it is today. Allowing
same sex marriage affects the social definition of marriage, not the
religious one. As a Christian, you do not have to recognize same sex
marriages as being approved or sanctioned by God. It is in the name of
the State only.
If this proves to be too difficult of a place for us to reach, then
perhaps we need to take another route. Many have stated that they are
just fine with civil unions, as long as gays aren't allowed to marry.
But what is a civil union other than the social/political level of
marriage? Although, if we insist on keeping the word marriage solely
in its religious context, then we must be fair in how we treat it on a
social/political level. By this I mean taking the word marriage out of
State hands entirely. Everyone would get civil unions, and then if
they chose to take the extra step of getting married, they can do so
through their Church.
But it is imperative that we maintain equality between same sex
couples and heterosexual couples. When Jesus dealt with sinners,
whores, and thieves, did he not treat them as equals? Isn't that what
allowed him to get through to them?
Calming Leftover Fears – The Children
The other
major fear has to do with what our children will see and be taught with
regards to homosexuality. We do not like the idea that schools and/or
the media will be telling our children that homosexuality is okay and
perfectly acceptable.
Before we go into ways to ease this fear, let us explore for a bit
the root of it. When it comes to our children, we want nothing to
corrupt them. We want the best for them. And because we are
Christians, we want them to grow up with those same values, that they
might find their way to God as well. But this leads us to be fearful
of letting anything "unclean" touch them. We are afraid that the power
of evil is too strong, too tempting, and that if our children are
exposed, their weaker minds will be enveloped and there will be nothing
we can do about it.
But children can smell our fear. And they react in one of two
major ways. They either adopt the same fears, or they rebel against
them and challenge them. As we discussed earlier, fear is not truth.
Truth is Freedom. Some children sense this on a deep level…that the
actions we take are spawned from fear, and so they reject any truth
that they might express. Either we perpetuate the feeling of fear, or
our children take their lives in a radically different direction in
order to reject it.
There is a better way. Do not be afraid to talk to your children.
Do not be afraid that they won't turn out how you want them to, or that
their lives won't be as happy as the lives you imagine and want for
them. Trust God. By working on your own inner state, you can better
help them grow up in God's love.
If you adopt the frame of mind discussed in this essay, talking to
your children about same sex marriage is not as confusing as many,
including the National Organization for Marriage, have made it out to
be. By showing your acceptance of it on a political level, you do not
give off the same fear, and children are less likely to rebel. You can
then explain to your child what I explained in this essay, that
marriage for Christians is something even more deep and spiritual and
religious than society's definition.
Should your child still grow up and choose to marry someone of the same
sex, the other thing that legalizing same sex marriage will do to help
you
is that it will drastically change the homosexual community. With
marriage and finding someone to love seen as the end goal of any life,
even a homosexual one, your child will grow up seeing examples of gay
men in loving, committed relationships. They will see gay women caring
for each other and their children. If your child does end up to be
homosexual, wouldn't you rather they choose this sort of life as
opposed to one of promiscuity?
This brings me to another caveat
to adopting a position free of fear. We must maintain a sort of
"detachment" from the outcome. If your child does happen to be
homosexual and to choose to marry someone of the same sex, you cannot
take it personally. It may break your heart, but to force your child
to deny what he feels is truth makes you look fearful and your child
will not respond. To give your child a chance at Freedom,
authenticity, and Truth…you must let him make his own choices.
Conclusion
In summary, the Christian life is
about transforming ourselves and emulating Christ, who is God in human
form. In order to become like God we must follow Freedom,
authenticity, and Truth…and we must lay aside fear. It is difficult,
and there is much resistance. The path is indeed narrow. It is hard to
give up what we think keeps us safe. But to do so shows that we really
do have Faith and Trust in God, that we are willing to let Him shape
events and to adopt His perspective rather than merely our own. In our
own struggle towards Freedom, we must surrender our fears about the
paths of others and strive, by example, to be a light to the world,
should they choose to see it or not.
*As you may have guessed, I am by no means conservative. I tried to adopt that perspective for the sake of the argument.
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