FAMILY VALUES
2-22-04
I am convinced that it is time for our society, and the church, to recognize same-sex marriage. I am
delighted about the same-sex marriages that have been performed lately at City Hall in San Francisco, and I hope that soon, such marriages will be legalized everywhere.
A few years ago, I was asked by two gay men to perform their wedding. One of them had grown
up in the church where I was the minister. Both of them were at a point in their relationship where they
wanted and needed to make a public commitment to each other for life. There was nothing about the
conversations they had with me that was substantially different than the conversations I've had with
hundreds of other couples I've married -- except the fact that they were of the same sex. Before I met these men, and held their hands to bless their rings in their beautiful ceremony, it was my opinion that same-sex marriage made sense. Since that holy moment, it has become a spiritual conviction.
That marriage was the real thing -- a spiritual union of two loving people, joined in front of those they
loved. Marriage ultimately is a matter of the soul. I believe that a couple truly can be married without benefit of the legal status of marriage. Laws change, laws come and go. But the spiritual reality of
marriage transcends the law. It is up to the church to lead the way toward legal marriage, both
heterosexual and homosexual, because marriage starts in the soul.
Same-sex marriage is good for family values. It's extremely ironic to me that so-called defenders of
"family values" are opposing it. Marriage encourages personal and mutual and social responsibility. It is a fundamental building-block that holds our society together. Certainly it's not the only way for people to live. Single people have families, too, and can display wonderful family values. In a society with as much division and loneliness as ours, all of us ought to be promoting positive values in every imaginable manifestation of family life -- same-sex marriages included!