Gay Marriage and Equality For All

Confession time

I'm not gay, I was brought up as a Catholic, but I am divorced and currently not married with two small children.  I would consider myself ambivalent at best about religion.  Although not gay, I fervently believe in equal rights for all human beings, gay, straight, transgender, disabled, black, white or whatever.  I do reserve the  right to dislike or like any of those people but only based on what they do and or say, not where they're from or what they look like.  That means for those of you who are pro gay rights, but hate posh/poor people because they are different to you, I'm afraid you too are a bigot!

So What's all the fuss then?

I am astonished by the fact that it's OK for me to be divorced, or, like Jordan marry and remarry on a fairly constant basis, but,  if I suddenly decided to tie the knot with my male partner then all of a sudden I'm an issue of debate and quite amusingly the downfall of western society and the end of Christianity and sanctity of marriage, if only I was so powerful.
There are a variety reasons why people in this debate oppose equal marriage rights. 

• Some based on intolerance of homosexuality as it's seen to be disgusting, 
• some based on religious beliefs, 
• some based on lack of understanding and 
• some based on the fact that everyone else in my social group/political party is against it, so I might as well join in.  

It's almost back to the days of when people didn't want gay people around them because "you never know what they'll do!".  Guess what, they're going to do what you do, but probably with a lot less homophobia and possibly more fashion sense (sweeping generalisation alert).
I am also slightly confused (you'll see this happening in my blogs a lot).  There are clearly two opposing sides in this debate.  Those in the  "pro lobby" and those "anti lobby".

If you are in favour of Gay people having the right to marry, I'm assuming that some of you in this "pro lobby" will be directly affected by this Bill, either by being gay or lesbian.  I am not assuming that it is only gay/lesbian people in this group, but I'm going to do a sweeping generalisation and suggest that the majority of those who are gay/lesbian are more likely to be in the "pro lobby" than the "anti lobby".  Therefore it might be possible that you will end up one day (if you're lucky to find the right partner) marrying someone of a similar gender to you. 
If you are in the "anti lobby", I am going to have to assume that you are a) not gay, lesbian, transgender or other wish and b) unlikely to be the same gender as the people in the previous list and want to marry them.  Therefore, you can only be objecting on behalf of other people, unless you are confused and you think the equal marriage concept is that you have to marry a person of the same gender?

Not just a little fuss but actual hatred

I sometimes wonder at the sheer venom of people when debates become about beliefs and or belief systems.  By and large our beliefs are by their very nature personal, I cannot tell you what to believe, and indeed you cannot tell me what to believe..  Therefore, I probably have different beliefs to those of my friends, relatives, colleagues and acquaintances.  That's a good thing surely? 

What I don't have is an overwhelming urge to make everyone else in the world live by my belief system (and trust me, most of the world doesn't want that either I'd imagine). 

What I'm also finding interesting is that some religious groups (or people that claim to be from religious groups) are sending hate mail to MP's voting on the issue yesterday, which as far as I can tell isn't promoted much in the Bible/Koran etc they appear to be defending. 

To balance this of course MP's opposing the Bill are also receiving death threats.  I'll be honest, I am not exactly sure I've ever cared enough about a political issue that doesn't directly relate to me enough to want to kill someone over it.  See point above about pro and anti lobby.

If you also take my point about not disliking people for their gender, sexual orientation, race etc but being allowed to dislike them for their behaviour (what they say and do).  I am going to be controversial here and say quite happily, that if you wrote your MP a death threat about this particular issue, then you are on my "not like" list.  I don't care which side of the lobby you are on.

Morality, the Bible and Other Stuff

So, what's it all about then?  This morality thing is quite interesting.  People will often use the Bible or Koran or other religious tomes to identify that homosexuality is wrong (quite commonly only male homosexuality is the issue).  The Old Testament (Leviticus) specifically speaks of "men laying with men  as with women" should be put to death, however those that use this rather literal translation often forget some of the other good stuff in the Bible like the variety of views on judging others.  Can we both abhor someones' behaviour due to our Christianity and at the same time not judge them due to our Christianity? A conundrum at best!  Let me draw you to the only Bible quote that I have ever tried to live by in my daily life John 8:7, for the non religious among you it's the one about sin, stones etc.  As of yet, I've never thrown stones at anyone for their behaviour or sins, so I'm doing well I think because I have been tempted!

In fact the Bible has very little to say about the act of marriage itself, lots of side references, but not much positive stuff.  In fact there are some rules regarding ownership, abeyance and rape, but not a lot of the "sanctity of marriage" or the marriage contract, there's an interesting article here.
In fact, if you consider that Jesus wasn't married and Peter was encouraged by Jesus not to marry, then perhaps you can see that those who don't believe the Bible word for word might be confused as to why Homosexual marriage is destroying the institution of marriage from a Christians point of view when Jesus himself wasn't married.

Hang on, does this mean marriage is owned by the religious people?

Well, the first written references to marriage are over 4000 years old, so that sort of rules out Christianity.  In fact, in many religions marriage wasn't one man one woman, but, one man many women, certainly not a gay friendly approach at first sight. 
Indeed, even in Western Society, it's not until fairly recently that a wife hasn't been seen as an actual possession of her husband, perhaps this is what confuses traditionalists?  Who would own who?  Clearly a man wouldn't be able to own antother man, and women wouldn't be able to cope with responsibility of owning another woman therefore different gender marriages are required.  Perhaps I oversimplify?
Not only that, but some religions treat the concept of divorce very differently.  In the Catholic church, divorce is a no no (without some rather interesting and unusual caveats), however in other monotheistic religions, divorce is allowable, in Islam although not seen as a good thing, it is seen as dissolving a legal contract, in Judaism domestic harmony is seen as the ideal, so divorce is also allowable.  Three religions, one God and not a lot of common ground for interpretation on divorce here.
In fact lots of issues around marriage between men and women have been movable feasts since the concept was involved, ages for example, taking of a husbands surname, numbers involved, wedding bands, arranged marriages etc etc.  None of these issues were mentioned in the Bible, but seem to have been adopted as part of the "ceremony" and "sanctity" of marriage.

Religion and Interpretation of Bible 

Here's a thought, perhaps those that "interpret the Bible have forgotten that they are a) interpreting a book that has been translated many times, written over many years and b) has quite a few other bits they probably quite happily ignore. 
In fact I suspect when people skim through a bit of Leviticus who some traditionalists believe was written by Moses (who's clearly not the most tolerant of characters), I wonder which bits they would follow?
For example in Leviticus

• Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed. (Leviticus 20:9) 
• If a man cheats on his wife, or vise versa, both the man and the woman must die. (Leviticus 20:10)
• If a man sleeps with his father's wife... both him and his father's wife is to be put to death. (Leviticus 20:11)
• If a man sleeps with his wife and her mother they are all to be burnt to death.  (Leviticus 20:14)

How many of them have stoned someone from the city walls because they worked on the Sabbath?  How many of them work on the Sabbath? or, how many of them where mixed cloth or eat shell fish?
I'm afraid if you want to convince me that you're following the word of God in this particular issue, you'd better follow all of the rules!  You can't just pick and choose!!!!

 Equality

If you are objecting to the idea of same sex marriage based on the Bible, I think I can only point you towards the book itself which although states that "those who sleep with men as with women should be put to death", they also do quite a lot of good stuff on equality

• There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28) 
• John 13:16 - Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him
• Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Forgiveness

Now, when I was being brought up as a Catholic, I have to say I don't remember many of the anti homosexual things, however, I do remember quite a lot of the forgiveness/love stuff.  In fact much of my Catholic education was quite positive, indeed, most of the priests I was taught by were as tolerant/intolerant as the rest of society, perhaps with a soupcon more forgiveness and dog collars!

•  Colossians 3:13 Bare with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you

There are loads more, but I'm starting to feel this blog has become biblical in itself.

Take home messages

If your objection to equal rights for marriage is religion, then I'd suggest you have a scoot through the rest of your religious book of choice and seek out the bits about forgiveness, judgement, loving fellow man etc and wonder where the contradictions are and the practice some of the nice stuff first.  Starting with forgiving me for offending you during this blog.

If you're objection to equal marriage rights are that it demeans marriage, then perhaps we should start with the divorce rate and work from there, you might also want to have a look at the inequality between men and women in marriages as well (honour and obey anyone?)

If your objection is due to the fact that you find homosexuality itself objectionable, then, perhaps you should meet some more gay men/women.  I say more, because I suspect you know loads already, but you didn't know they were gay.

If your objection to this is because all your mates/social circle object to it, ask yourself, how many of them are objecting because they think you're objecting?

And Finally!

Finally, having taken too long to write this, it appears that the Commons have passed the Bill and it now needs to got through the Lords.  Perhaps 10 years from now, we won't even be having a discussion about equality because it will already exist!  Indeed, I'm waiting for the first gay couple with learning disabilities to get married so I can stand back and watch the moral outrage transform the faces of those who believe they're liberal and open minded.  But then I enjoy a good controversial debate,