Why I Am Voting "NO" on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment

(and why I would encourage you to do the same)

One of the biggest hot-button topics in Minnesota these days is the proposed Minnesota Same-Sex Marriage Amendment to be voted upon in the November 2012 elections. The amendment would "provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota". I reject this amendment for many reasons, that boil down to not supporting certain religious groups forcing their rules, which I believe to stem from a terrible misreading of their holy books, on all citizens of a state in a nation still subject to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Now, before you go off saying, "You're gay" (or the more common "your gay" found in the adolescent garbage filling so many web sites' comment sections on various topics), I will point out that I tested "exclusively heterosexual" on the Kinsey Scale, at least as tested by a Facebook app a few years ago. I am happily married to a beautiful, caring, intelligent woman. Not that that should have any bearing on the validity of my arguments; I just want to point out that, while I am not directly affected by the outcome of this vote, several of my dear friends are.

I also never would have thought I would take this stand on the Amendment just five or ten years ago. I used to take the traditional Christian interpretation of Biblical condemnations of men having "sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman", though I firmly rejected the call for such people to be "put to death", placing such punishments in the same category as dietary laws that no longer needed to be followed after Christ's death and resurrection. But I recognize now that my picking those particular condemnations still to be applicable, while discarding others, was due to my own prejudices. I am sorry to say that those prejudices even led me to vote against the proposal – that did win in the spring of 1989 – to make the St. Olaf Student Congregation a "Reconciled in Christ" congregation. To all my gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends and readers I say that I was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me.

Even when I still thought homosexuality was a sin, I never believed the ridiculous idea that sexual orientation was a conscious decision. If anyone truly believes that someone would say to themselves, "you know, I really don't get enough institutional discrimination against me. I don't get enough hate thrown my way. I don't get enough insults, either. I don't get called nearly enough nasty names or be told that God hates me. I don't get nearly enough physical violence and death threats against me, or a high enough chance of getting killed every day. What the heck, I think I'll try being gay [or lesbian]." – then they shouldn't worry about some imagined epidemic of homosexuality. Instead, worry about an epidemic of the larger superset of masochism.

Over time, I came to realize that not only was homosexuality not a choice, but it was also not some kind of particular "thorn in [one's] flesh". It is just how some people are born, with people distributed across the spectrum of sexual orientation. I increasingly saw how my gay and lesbian friends live lives like my straight friends, often being some of the most caring and decent people I could hope to meet. They care for their families, including children. They have the same joys and frustrations in life. They feed the poor and help immigrants. They lead worship, both in preaching and in music; study the Bible, and pray fervently – and do such wild things as participate in Saturday game nights at church.

Going back to those handful of Bible passages that seem to address homosexuality and reading various scholar's studies on the texts, I am struck by how none of them address committed relationships between two consenting adults. One of the passages that anti-gay marriage people cite is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The "men of Sodom" clearly are not seeking a lifelong pairing with the angels visiting Lot, they are seeking to rape them. Throw in "dueling banjos" and a request that the angels squeal like pigs, and you'd have the most infamous scene from the movie "Deliverance". And, as anyone who has caught up to at least the mid-twentieth century should know by now, rape is a crime of violence, not love. And if anyone thinks that there have been no changes in what is considered acceptable and what is considered sinful since events recorded in Genesis, and have no problem with Lot's offering his two daughters to the rapists to do what they "like with them", then I think it may be time to call child protective services.

The big verse that gets cited is Leviticus 20:13: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." But for all those who say they follow every word in the Bible, they don't seem to be calling for nearly enough public executions, if the latter part of the verse has equal weight. Oh, but marriage has always been intended to be between one man and one woman? Except, apparently, for the multiple wives of Lamech, Jacob, Esau, David (and again), Solomon with his "seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines".... Such assertions that "3,000 years of recorded history" have defined marriage as "an institution between a man and a woman" seem especially meaningless when stated by a Mormon presidential candidate whose great-grandfather was a polygamist.

Why such a focus on this particular Levitical law, which modern researchers now believe to refer to cultic ritual sex practices for other religions, rather than anything resembling a modern understanding of gay or lesbian life? I don't hear much call for enforcing other Old Testament laws regarding marriage, such as the verses from Deuteronomy saying that one may marry war captives, or that a man must give the rights of the firstborn to the actual firstborn, even if that firstborn is not from the wife he loves, but "his unloved wife". Or for a brother to marry his brother's widow. Or to get a wife when buying property. Or, from the New Testament, avoiding marriage altogether. We don't insist on stoning to death a rebellious son, or condemning people for wearing blended fabrics, having tattoos, or cutting their hair or shaving their beard.

But again, all of this is studying various verses from the Bible. However, the First Amendment to the Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" I take this to mean that no one religious group should bring about laws that force their particular interpretation of their religious laws on all citizens of their state. I wonder how many of those who are insistent on imposing their particular religious views on marriage are also insistent that liberals are intent on imposing Sharia law within the country, without a sense of irony.

I also do not see how the state recognizing marriage between two legally consenting adults of the same sex will devalue my marriage to my wife. It certainly cannot make as much of a mockery of marriage as "traditional marriage" proponent Newt Gingrich asking his second of three wives to consider an "open marriage". Society as a whole, as well as couples, benefit from marriage: as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops notes, "Being married changes people's lifestyles and habits in ways that are personally and socially beneficial. Marriage is a 'seedbed' of prosocial behavior.... Marriage generates social capital. The social bonds created through marriage yield benefits not only for the family but for others as well, including the larger society." And, among the many excellent points made by the Human Rights Council, "Marriage is one of the few times where people make a public promise of love and responsibility for each other and ask our friends and family to hold us accountable." Death benefits from insurance policies and pensions awarded to spouses reduce their demand on government assistance. A stable relationship between spouses provides a more secure background for children – both natural-born and adopted. Adults should be able to specify who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf should they become hospitalized – a right that hospitals that "participate in Medicare and Medicaid" must now recognize, and that should be obvious out of a sense of decency.

One of the most insulting arguments raised by "Minnesota for Marriage" in favor of the amendment is that marriage "serves a vital and universal societal purpose to channel biological drive and sexual passion that might otherwise become socially destructive into enduring family units that have the best opportunity to ensure the care and education of any children produced by that drive and passion". What about marriages like the one of my friends who were unable to have children, and went through great expense and hardship to adopt two Russian boys? Does this argument imply that they love their children any less because they weren't biologically "produced by that drive and passion"? What about the long and happy marriage between my widowed grandfather, a Lutheran pastor, and his second wife, also widowed? Since they married at an age when they couldn't produce children, does that lessen the value of their marriage? What of the long marriages of my own sister to her husband, and of several friends, who determined long ago that they did not wish to have children? Do their marriages not "count", since they decided in advance they did not wish to have children?

Regardless of how one feels about gay marriage, voting against the amendment will not legalize gay marriage. Furthermore, should gay marriage be legalized in the future, the First Amendment guarantees that the state cannot force a church to host weddings between people that the church does not wish to host. This is not unlike churches requiring membership and pastoral counseling to be married in the church. Just as a congregation may require that the bride and groom be members of the church, they may also require that they be a man and woman. That is their right, just as it is the right of other churches to recognize same-sex marriages alongside traditional ones between men and women.

So eligible Minnesota voters, I ask you, please vote "no" on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. The benefits of committed relationships between two loving, consenting adults, both for their family and for their community, should be recognized for both opposite- and same-sex couples. These rights should not be suppressed by certain religious groups when there is no proven societal benefit of such prohibition.