Wedding Rings
Undoubtedly, the recent Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage will reignite arguments in The United Methodist Church regarding its position on homosexuality. Before we let our anger, our faith, and some misunderstandings get ahead of us, it would be wise at least to pause and learn what those Supreme Court Decisions, did not say:
None of the Decisions Said Anything That Has Any Effect on Religious Weddings.
These decisions do not affect any clergy in his/her performing a wedding, or following the tenets of his/her particular religious faith. All 50 states in the U.S. and its territories allow a clergy to act as an agent of the state in affirming that the vows of a wedding were made in his/her presence---but they cannot force a clergy to perform a wedding that is against the tenets of his/her own faith. This has been in effect in state laws for almost one hundred years, and has not changed.
All the decision over California’s Proposition 8 affirmed (and this only affects California) was that if the state government is to be in the business of licensing marriages, it has to do so for all people. It only affected civil weddings---the kinds performed in courthouses, by wedding chapels, and in some states, even by Notaries Public.
Part of DOMA—the “Defense of Marriage Act” passed by Congress---was found to be unconstitutional because it allowed some people who were legally married in a state (i.e., heterosexual couples) entitlement to over one thousand legal benefits in federal law (the most obvious being allowed to file their income tax returns jointly) while another class of people who were equally legally married in a state (i.e., same-sex couples) were denied the same benefits. Whether one likes the idea of same-sex marriage or not, it is something of a no-brainer that people who are legally married in whatever state they married, should be given the same benefits granted to all other legally married couples. This principle we all learned in our High School Civics lessons.
Nothing has been added to or taken away from any church or its beliefs by these decisions. Nor have any of our own marriages been diminished by these decisions.
God’s Intentions for Marriage Have Not Been Diminished, Either.
If one reads the earliest writings about marriage in the Torah, one can see that God not only wanted humankind to procreate. God wanted us to live in covenant relationships, not only for the care of children as they grew but to be the bricks out of which functional and functioning communities could be constructed.
God’s intentions for marriage, as found The Bible, have not changed. As in the Torah, what has changed is our understanding about how God’s intentions can be made to work as societies evolve over the years. If you doubt that, do a quick Concordance search of the legal duties of a wife to her husband, and of a husband to his wife, as found in the Torah. Read them out loud, and ask yourself, after every sentence, if that is something you could or should affirm in your own marriage. I suspect you’d not be able to affirm most of those verses. Our legal understanding of how marriage is supposed to work in the twenty-first century has changed.
Let me give you an example: my wife’s parents were residents of California all of their adult lives. However, they were not allowed to get a marriage license and marry in California. Her father was a Filipino immigrant in the early 1930’s. This was in the era of the “Oriental Exclusion Act,” which forbade “persons of ‘Oriental Extraction’” from entering into contacts—a law which was heavily enforced on the west coast. Marriage is a legal contract, as well as (for those in churches) a religious covenant. Because he was from the Philippines, he was deemed to be “of Oriental Extraction.” They had to travel to western New Mexico, where they were legally married in a state where the Oriental Exclusion Act was not as heavily enforced. They returned to California, where their New Mexico marriage was recognized as legal---even though it was not legal for them to get married in California.
Most of us today would look at that and either laugh, or ask ourselves, “Why on earth did we ever have a law like that?” For what it is worth, this law was active in the U.S. from 1920 until 1949, when the Supreme Court ruled that such legal prohibitions were unconstitutional. Does this story sound familiar? Or maybe the better question to ask would be: Was that understanding of marriage something consonant with God’s intentions for marriage? Most of us would say “no.”
These Supreme Court Decisions Do Not Affect What Is In Our Discipline.
Let us be honest: the Disciplinary ban on UM Clergy performing services blessing same-sex unions is nothing more than a footnote to what has been part of our Discipline, at least since the 1939 Unification:
Under “Responsibilities and Duties of Elders and Licensed Pastors---
“(a) To perform the marriage ceremony after due counsel with the parties involved and in accordance with the laws of the state and the rules of The United Methodist Church. The decision to perform the ceremony shall be the right and responsibility of the pastor.” 2012 Book of Discipline, ¶340.2(3a)
We clergy have always had the responsibility of deciding, after due counsel, whether we would (or should) perform a marriage of a couple. Generally this decision was to be based on our feeling as to whether a couple has a reasonable chance for a long and healthy marriage. Yes, there is a sub-rule: we are not to perform services blessing any kind of homosexual union. Each of us has to evaluate that sub-rule in the light of the above, on the same basis that we would evaluate any other couple coming to us, asking us to perform their wedding. If we do choose to perform a wedding of a same-sex couple, we can face complaints and disciplinary action.
Yet ask yourself: Looking back at all the weddings you have performed in your career, have you ever performed a wedding of a couple where you were reasonably sure that marriage would not last---and it didn’t? Have you ever asked yourself: “What would happen if I were to face complaints and disciplinary action for performing such a wedding?” that would equally be a violation of the Discipline. We need to keep that question—the same question as implied in the anti-homosexual union rule--in mind, too, as we make these decisions as to whether to perform a wedding.
Nothing has changed. We UM Clergy are still responsible for our own decisions and actions with regard to performing marriages. One Supreme Court decision only affect civil marriages performed in California. The other only affects what federal benefits a couple already married should receive in benefits, simply because they are legally married. God’s intentions for marriage remain constant, but those intentions have been effectuated in thousands of ways since the early days of the Israelite community.
If we are to debate the effects of the recent actions of the Supreme Court, let us at least debate on what is affecting us, and be honest about what is not affecting us
Thomas H. Griffith is a retired elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference, now residing in Arizona.