Prop 8, Judge Walker and the Biblical view of marriage equality

August 19, 2010

Posted by Rita Nakashima Brock on huffingtonpost.com:

"Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to allow resumption of the freedom to marry in California has right-wing Christians claiming his ruling against Proposition 8 threatens "Bible believing Christians." I've read the Bible pretty carefully myself (I read it cover to cover when I was in high school) and even taught it as a college professor. It is not a source I'd turn to in order to defend traditional marriage, but I think it does offer ways to think about ethical marriage.

"The Bible presents multiple views of marriage, and most actual marriages it depicts are terrible by modern standards. 'Traditional marriages' in ancient biblical times were arranged as transfers of the ownership of daughters. The tenth commandment lists wives among properties like houses and slaves: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor' (Exodus 20:17, also found in Deuteronomy 5:21). Marriages occurred via deception, kidnapping, adulterous seductions, theft, rape, and murder, and were often in multiples so that the pater familias could amass land, flocks, and progeny and cement political alliances. Abraham, David, and Solomon had marriages that would be illegal today. The book of Hosea likens the mercy of God to a husband who has the right to beat or kill his adulterous wife, but spares her -- for this, she was supposed to be grateful. When women seek marriages, such as Naomi arranged for Ruth, it was to avoid an even worse fate such as destitution.

"The ideal of a housewife that Diana Butler Bass recently lifted up in Proverbs 31 suggests that a decent married life for women might have been possible in biblical times, but actual examples are rare. It's a telling fact that at Christian weddings today, passages of scripture used in the service mostly avoid marriage texts. They extol love between two women ("[M]y people shall be your people" [Ruth 1]) or communitarian values ("The greatest of these is love" [I Corinthians 13]) or erotic passion between unmarried lovers ("[S]et me as a seal upon your heart" [Song of Songs]). (Some people are shocked to find Song of Songs in the Bible at all.)

"In the Christian section of the Bible, Jesus and Paul disagreed about what marriage was supposed to be. The difference between them is striking: Jesus thinks of marriage as divinely sanctified while Paul thinks of it as an option for the morally weak who need to avoid fornicating. They lived around the same time, and both were Jews, so it's a bit puzzling why they differ so radically, perhaps as puzzling as why, today, some Christians vehemently oppose marriage equality while others like myself support it. Even evangelicals differ; poll data show that in 2008, 84 percent of those under age 30 supported same-sex civil unions or outright marriage equality while only 54 percent of their elders did.

"So let's at least get clear about one important fact: there is no Christian view of marriage; there are different Christian views, even if you follow the Bible. For over a millennium, the Christian church in Europe leaned toward Paul. It did not sanctify marriage but regarded it as a civil ceremony instead.

... "Arguments for California's Prop 8, which Judge Walker overturned, narrowed the purpose of marriage to procreation. Neither Paul nor Jesus explicitly mentioned procreation as a reason for marriage. While I don't think Jesus was talking about marriages of same-sex couples, his reference to Genesis 2 grounded marriage in equality and companionship. While Jesus and Paul differ on marriage, they differ for the same reason. They uphold love as the highest divine good, not women's subordination. In fact, because of the nasty history of institutional marriage in the Bible and heterosexist civil laws that are built on male dominance and female subordination, I think marriage equality means such gender inequality will no longer be inscribed as a necessary basis of marriage.

"In his carefully written decision, Judge Walker remarked on changes that have eliminated most of the values and reasons for traditional marriage. He noted that marriage had recently been transformed 'from a male-dominated institution into an institution recognizing men and women as equals' (p. 112). The changes also reflect cultural ideas that marriage is a union of sex with love. They do not nullify marriage per se:

'The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry. Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed. (p. 113)

"Judge Walker ruled that the state's interest in marriage is guided by the rights of equal protection, not by religion, and that religious ideas should not determine marriage law. He has, for the time being, restored legal the freedom to marry as a right than cannot be decided by majority vote.

"A number of Christian groups in California, as well as Reformed Jews and Unitarian Universalists, would agree. Prop 8 denied us our religious freedom by prohibiting us from authorizing marriages of same-sex couples, but, even worse, it denied the basic human right of marriage to a group of people based on unfounded biases about their sexual orientation. Same-sex couples, like heterosexual couples, offer each other love, companionship, and a stable family environment for raising children. If marriage is good for society, and equality is the ethical basis for marriage, then gender difference is irrelevant. Marriage equality is good for everyone, including Bible-believing Christians."

 

Click to read the full post: [Link]