There’s another argument to be made when we fight state and federal marriage amendments. It has the potential to take back the debate because it’s about the Constitution and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.
There’s no doubt that the need for marriage equality is first and foremost about the civil and legal benefits that currently come with government recognition and approval of two people’s legal commitment to each other. It might be that the ultimate solution to the issue is to recognize marriage as only a civil issue with its legal benefits for everyone. Couples could then add the blessings of a religious institution of their choice to their union if they desired. Yet the history of marriage in U.S. culture and consciousness is enmeshed with religious images, sanctions, and overtones. That means that we must take those connections in American consciousness seriously.
There is an established legal history in this country that state governments license religious leaders. In fact, the only civil benefit of such government licensure is that ministers, rabbis, priests, and other state-approved leaders can then perform marriages for the government. Most marriage ceremonies are performed in churches and by clergy, and many pro-marriage-equality clergy would love to be able to perform them for the many GLBT people who’d prefer to get married in a religious setting.The language of marriage as “sacred” invokes religious images. Fighting those images is difficult. We need a new way to use them to express progressive values. Berkeley linguist George Lakoff in Don’t Think of an Elephant (2004) recommends we use the idea of sanctity, even if it’s not religious, when we speak of marriage equality. “Sanctity is a higher value than economic fairness,” he advises. “Talking about benefits is beside the point when the sanctity of marriage is in dispute. Talk sanctity first.”
The arguments behind the federal and state marriage amendments are essentially religious. Right-wing think tanks play on what have been the dominant cultural and religious sentiments, but they also know they must pretend that their crusade is not driven by sectarian religious goals. So, they couch their arguments in terms of historical accuracy, scientific-sounding theories, and statistics claimed to derive from the social sciences.
But they don’t even get their Bible right. Amendment supporters argue that same-sex marriages deviate from the “traditional” model of “one man, one woman.” One need not look deeply into the Old Testament to see that polygamy was traditional and even preferred. Early members of the Church were allowed to practice polygamy. (It is surely the height of hypocrisy that the Mormon Church has been a major defender—and funder—of “traditional” marriage, when Brigham Young had some fifty wives!)
Religious extremists need to recognize that there are many religious people who believe that the Bible, tradition, and God actually require them to support same-sex commitments. These progressive people of faith believe that the government has no business dictating to the churches who’s allowed to get married and preventing pastors from consecrating the love of two men or two women. Unitarian Universalists, the United Church of Christ, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis have spoken out of their faith to affirm same-sex marriage based on the central tenets of their faith.
We need to change this debate and expose it for the imposition of the sectarian religious position that it is. It’s time for liberal religious people to state so clearly. And it’s time for all of us to invoke the First Amendment in this matter. Amending the Constitution to forbid these religions from performing same-sex marriages violates both clauses of the First Amendment that deal with religion. It represents the establishment of a religious practice by the government while “prohibiting the free exercise” of the religion of one’s choice.
The Federal Marriage Amendment recently defeated again by the Senate must be put to rest permanently because it is un-American. Not only would it be the first amendment to write discrimination into the Constitution, it would also be a direct assault upon the Constitution itself. It forbids the religious practice of clergy, denominations, and religious communities that believe they are divinely called to affirm the love of two adults who happen to be of the same gender. It constitutes a fundamental abridgement of religious freedom.
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Robert N. Minor, Ph.D. is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas and author of Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society. Reach him at www.fairnessproject.org. This article is adapted from a piece that appeared in Minor Details, July 2006.
