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Overturning traditional marriage

By a narrow 4-3 vote, the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage on May 15. One month later, clerks in numerous California counties began issuing marriage licenses to jubilant same-sex couples. Marriage in California will no longer be dealing with “husbands” and “wives” but with the union of “Party A” and “Party B.”

The court’s ruling overturned the will of the people of California, who in 2000, voted by a 62 percent margin for Proposition 22, which stated, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The May 15 ruling said that this statute is unconstitutional. The ruling also defied two millennia of clear sacramental Christian teaching about marriage. In response, 1.2 million signatures have been gathered to place Proposition 22 on a ballot in California this November as a constitutional amendment.

In the midst of such seismic challenges to our nation’s Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage, United Methodism needs clear, biblical guidance from our bishops. It is their charge to “guard, transmit, teach, and proclaim…the apostolic faith as it is expressed in Scripture and tradition” (Par. 414.3, Discipline). Unfortunately, their contributions to the discussion of critical moral issues facing our church and nation are too often woefully inadequate. Sometimes they even contradict the church’s historic social teaching, which only adds to our moral and ethical confusion.  

This court decision could well affect every one of our 35,000 United Methodist churches in America. Right after the May ruling, Bishop Mary Ann Swenson (Los Angeles Area) told the San Diego Union-Tribune she “hadn’t decided what she would tell Southern California ministers about same-sex marriage.” Ultimately, she issued a statement saying United Methodist ministers could not conduct same-sex weddings, but what explains her initial hesitation? United Methodism has been crystal clear in upholding the sanctity of marriage.

We should expect a clearer word on this subject. North Georgia Bishop Lindsey Davis modeled just such a helpful response in his statement following the pro-homosexual demonstrations on the floor of the 2008 General Conference. After hearing an episcopal colleague, Bishop Melvin Talbert (retired), state that the body’s votes on the homosexuality issue were wrong, Davis countered, saying, “I think the church is right. I think we are very much in sync with historic Christianity and very much in sync with 99.9 percent of Christians in the world. I make no apology for our position. It is biblical, and it is in keeping with 2,000 years of Christian tradition.”

Commenting on Talbert’s comparing the church’s votes on homosexuality with the action in 1939 which created the segregated Central Jurisdiction for black Methodists, Davis said, “I definitely disagree with Bishop Talbert on that matter… I do not think it has anything to do with civil rights. I will go to the mat to protect the civil rights of all of these persons who protested today, but I don’t think you can equate the two. If you do, it is doing a disservice to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and on.”

There is far more at stake in the California ruling than most of us realize. Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, says that the California court endorsed two bad ideas that can affect us all. First, the internationally recognized human right to marry includes same-sex marriage. In U.S. constitutional law, fundamental human rights are those deeply rooted in our long traditions. Same-sex marriage is not so rooted. Gallagher notes, “Not even in Massachusetts or New Jersey could the courts quite stomach the idea that same-sex marriage is deeply rooted in those traditions.”

Not even the European Court of Human Rights or the United Nations Human Rights Committee has so ruled concerning same-sex marriage. In 2003, the European Court of Justice ruled, “Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects only traditional marriage between two persons of opposite biological sex.”

What is troubling is that the California court grounded the right for same-sex marriage in a supposed larger human right to form families of choice and to have the government sanction all family forms as having equal dignity. This expanded view, of course, amounts to a radical redefinition of family.

In his dissent, California Justice Marvin Baxter lamented that the majority (4-3 vote) “finds that our Constitution suddenly demands no less than a permanent redefinition of marriage, regardless of the popular will.” He went on to warn, “Who can say that, in ten, fifteen, or twenty years, an activist court might not rely on the majority’s analysis to conclude … that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?” Once our values are severed from biblical norms affirmed by the populace, we are left only with personal tastes and preferences to guide us.

The second bad idea, says Gallagher, is that sexual orientation should be treated just like race under the California equal protection amendment.  The court said, “We conclude that … statutes that treat persons differently because of their sexual orientation should be subjected to strict scrutiny under this [equal protection] constitutional provision.”

In lawyer’s legal language, the California decision is inserting into that state’s legal system the principle that “gay is the new black,” says Gallagher, and that “sexual orientation is just like race.” We have often heard this faulty analogy, but this is the first time it has been cited in a court decision. 

Once this principle is established as law, then Christians, Jews, and Muslims who recognize traditional marriage will be “in the exact position as racists under California law,” says Gallagher. It would appear that the Supreme Court of California has ruled that holding to the historic, civic understanding of marriage is itself a form of bigotry, the legal and moral equivalent of racism.

This decision creates a major conflict between religious liberty and gay rights. If the Christian view of marriage is interpreted as a bigoted view, not unlike racism, it will not be ignored by law. In fact, legal action had already begun, prior to the California decision, against persons and groups opposing same-sex marriage on grounds of personal and religious convictions. Consider:

• The United Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of New Jersey refused to rent its boardwalk pavilion to a lesbian couple for their civil union ceremony. The couple filed a complaint and the state revoked the organization’s tax exemption for the pavilion area. The association estimates it will lose $20,000.

• A same-sex couple in New Mexico asked a photographer to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined on grounds of religious conviction. The couple sued and the court ruled against the photographer and ordered her to pay the couple’s legal fees of $6,600.

• Catholic Charities in Massachusetts refused to comply with state law mandating placement of children with same-sex couples, choosing instead to shut down its adoption ministry in 2006. And there are more.

Supporters of traditional marriage are working for the passage of the Marriage Protection Amendment sponsored by the Alliance for Marriage to thwart the judicial activism, while Californians will likely approve the constitutional amendment this November. In the meantime, we need to remind our church leadership that most United Methodists have spoken loud and clear—time and time again—in support of traditional marriage. 



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