Same sex marriage - some thoughts

Not surprisingly there are a range of Christian viewpoints on same-sex marriage. It is worthwhile to gain a wider historical perspective. A good introduction to that historical journey up to the late middle ages is by John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Christianity – Gay people in western europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, Chicago, 1980.

The last forty years has seen a significant change of attitudes in Western Christian attitudes. They are not uniform. Some churches are prepared to bless same sex couples and ordain, or even consecrate, practising homosexual Christians. In contrast, current news items report that  Pentecostal pastors in Uganda and Kenya are calling for the death penalty against practising homosexuals.

Within mainstream Christianity a genuine rethink is occurring. Worth reading is theologian Graeme Garrett's reflections on homosexualty. Graeme has journeyed from the Baptist church into the Anglican church. As a traditional theologian he found he had to rethink his presumptions and theology as regards sexuality. He records some of that journey in reflecting on the impressive integrity of his lesbian niece in his article "Starting With the Spirit: A Personal Reflection on Sexuality and Spiritual Gifts".

In approaching the issue of same-sex marriage, historians know that views of marriage change as society changes. In patriarchal societies the bride had to agree to be obedient and submissive to the husband. In traditional societies marriages were arranged by the older clan members. Choice was not permitted.

If procreation of children was regarded as the primary aim of marriage (and The Book of Common Prayer lists it as the first reason) then do those who cannot bear children have second rate marriages? In patriarchal societies the wife received the blame for being childless. Witness Elizabeth's words in Luke  1:25 – her disgrace had been removed because she had fallen pregnant.

           

In contemporary society stress is rightly placed on commitment, faithfulness and care in marriage relationships. As a letter writer to The Courier Mail (18/11/2010) noted, gay couples are also capable of commitment, stability and care.

Consider it this way. People point to promiscuity amongst gay people. If marriage were forbidden to heterosexual people, do you think there would be more promiscuity or less? I bet that there would be more, much more.

If children are a necessity to make marriage real, are those women who are past child-bearing to be forbidden to marry?

 

Appeals to the Bible will not solve the issue. Those who wholeheartedly welcome gays into the church have scriptural support as do the homophobic Pentecostal pastors in Easy Africa. No. The path forward will be best paved by encouraging the foundations of commitment, fidelity, and enduring loving care both in good and in testing times. And in marriage those qualities are essential.

Rev Dr Ray Barraclough

Stronger Futures - ten year extension to the controversial NT Emergency Response measures

Ever felt so morally outraged that you were sure you were going to go home after an event and write about it immediately for all the rest of the world (well, Australia at least) to share in your anger? Well, that's how I felt and probably the other 170 people in the auditorium at Victoria University's Sir Zelman Cowen Centre last Thursday. It is a reflection of modern life that we don't ever do things immediately any more or as quickly as we may wish.

Stronger Futures is the term they, meaning the Gillard government (with the tacit and happy endorsement of the Abbott opposition) have given to a 300-page thick document of legislation that sounds terribly convoluted and difficult to grasp. It contains reference to many other laws contained elsewhere, and was rushed through a relatively empty house in Parliament to ensure that the intervention of the government into the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory continues. Our government gets to say which families don't get money when the kids don't turn up for school, we claim it's all 'special measures', so we can keep behaving like bullies, we don't allow them to be able to refer to their traditional law in our courts, etc. In other words, we get to treat Aboriginal people like second class citizens in their own country.

All well and good if we were living in the 1800s or maybe even the 1900s but hey, it's 2012 and what happened to a 'fair-go' Australia?

The key criticism from Aboriginal leaders and organisations in the NT is that the consultation time was just too short and without proper time allocated, there are more questions than answers all round, so who suffers from this lack of clarity and inflexibility other than the Aboriginals themselves?

The "Stronger Futures" launch that I referred to was organised by the organisation, "concerned Australians" and no one less than Malcolm Fraser launched the report called "Listening but not hearing" put together by the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning. Midst various presentations by a number of well-known people, we also heard and saw the video-taped voices of a few elders from the Aboriginal community in Maningrida as they sat in 'consultation' across Jenny Macklin and her 'gang'. I found it interesting in today's modern times that they were lined in two parallel facing rows - like a confrontation - rather than the usual two semi-circles that most meetings, even in corporate board rooms, choose to be seated at in discussion or dialogue.

The voices of the elders were moving and eloquent, but like the report title suggests, somewhere our elected government is listening but not hearing. Check out http://www.nitv.org.au/fx-program.cfm?pid=6312D945-DFD1-0FE9-5A358ABD4B521506 and many other sites, just google 'Stronger Futures'.

Ann Ng