October 28, 2008

We are up to our eyeballs in defeating Proposition 8. A recent Associated Press report found that over $60 million has been contributed from all 50 states and 20 foreign countries. All this to sway 10 percent of the voters, the other 90 percent has already made up their minds.

We are amazed that the idea that consenting adults have the right to marry causes such controversy. Why is there even a proposition on a California ballot with the sole purpose of taking away a right? Who is hurt when same-sex couples are married?

Much of the energy in favor of banning same-sex marriage comes from parts of the religious community. We also have difficulty understanding this. What is the impact of same-sex marriage on the church? The church has always decided who it will or won’t marry; if they won’t marry same sex couples, then they don’t have to. Proposition 8 is not about the church marrying same-sex couples; it is about allowing same sex couples to marry.

They also argue that same-sex marriage is counter to God’s intention of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Didn’t Jacob have two wives? And Solomon 700? California’s bishops issued a statement that God ordained the sacrament of marriage to unite two lives out of love and to create new life. But the church blesses marriages between elderly couples who no longer are able to have children. Can we thus conclude that the union of two lives out of love is a sufficient reason to marry? Why should gender matter?

We also encountered the opinion that marriage between only a man and a woman has been the bedrock of civilization for thousands of years. We don’t know if that is true, but we do know that it is a sophomoric generalization. Over the centuries, marriage has undergone many changes, some of them momentous. For example, for most of that time, in marriage women were the property of men and had no rights. It seems that now the evolution of marriage has reached a stage where people marry because they love each other. Period.

Several times we heard the expression that “the voice of God may be heard in the voice of the people.” But the church is not listening, and it has had a historic difficulty accepting change. The practice of medicine was thought to interfere with God’s will; sacraments and a Christian burial were denied to those who charged interest on loans; slavery had a biblical justification; and Galileo was excommunicated for thinking against established Christian doctrine.

There is a happier side to this. California has 668 LGBT-accepting churches that embrace the LGBT members of their congregation. That is the way it should be. The rock that anchors a church is love. The rock that anchors a marriage is love.

Written by John and Belinda Dronkers-Laureta