Equal Marriage
Designed by www.freepik.com
Blog post by a member of St Bride's
As the equal marriage legislation inches its way through Westminster, we are daily being exposed to rhetoric from both sides of the argument. The debate is certainly polarised ranging from the abhorrent (claiming LGBT relationships are akin to bestiality) through to the triumphalist. Comments from the peerage seem to be particularly imperious and nonsensical. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury waded into the argument. My Archbishop. While his tone was far more measured than some of his fellow peers, his reaffirmation of the so called Church of England position still hurts. Why do I (as a gay man in a civil partnership and longing for the legal recognition of what I, my family, friends and community already acknowledge as a marriage) remain in the Church of England, or the Christian faith for that matter. Why stay in a church which at an institutional level believes I can (by marrying) bring society as we know it to its knees and destroy marriage for everyone else.
There are two things that expose this for the rhetoric it is. Firstly not one objector will specify the mechanism by which they believe this will happen. They make these grand claims but do not back it up with any sociology, anthropology or valid logic. Secondly they emphasise the procreative nature of marriage yet the logical conclusion of this is that only those who can and will procreate must be allowed to marry. No calls for this have yet to be heard!
The danger is that there are two audiences that listen to the messages from these debate. Firstly those who are bigoted and hateful with in our communities who hear the rhetoric as permission to assault LGBT people. A young gay man from our congregation was recently assaulted in a Liverpool park in broad daylight in a homophobic hate crime. A second audience is those hurting and vulnerable LGBT people who hear their faith leaders telling them, despite the at times pretty words, that they are abnormal, a threat to society and perhaps most patronising of all “worthy of compassion”.
This “debate” must stop! While we sit and debate whether all people are equal, people’s lives are being destroyed. The Church wrings its hands asking why no-one listens to it. Perhaps it is because the Church refuses to speak sense or live in the real world.
Why do I remain? Because I experience life at the grassroots of the church. Away from the halls of power there are many oases across the globe where “life abundant” can be seen. Places where people are real, living real lives and coming together as a community to muddle through messy real life, supporting each other on their journey through this life. Life is messy, complicated, joyful, heart breaking and much else besides which requires a flexible openness to what leads to human flourishing.
Arguments from tradition which many are using against equal marriage can be spurious, yet tradition has also shown us that humans thrive in loving and nourishing relationships. Relationships like this exist in many forms yet perhaps particularly so in a healthy marriage. A marriage is certainly no insurance policy and should not become an idol for worship, which many people of faith appear to hold it as. Knowing that loving, nourishing relationships are an uncontested good, acknowledging in language and law what is already true in practice, ie that LGBT couples are married, we will increase the chances for people to flourish and have “life abundant”.
I have found St Bride’s to be one of these oases, a community where I am welcome not because I’m gay or indeed in spite of being gay, but because I am a fellow human being, a beloved child of God, a fellow sojourner walking on a faltering journey into the mystery of the divine. That my dear Archbishop is what church should be all about.