Reform Jews Back Gay Marriage, Denounce Cardinal O'Brien

The Reform movement has branded as "inflammatory" an attack on same-sex marriage by one of Britain's leading Catholic clerics.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, described plans to legalise gay marriage as "madness" and a "grotesque subvesion".

But Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, movement rabbi for Reform Judaism, said that the cardinal's comments were "inflammatory and incitement to homophobia which can have grave consequences".

Jewish women under a Beverley Hills chuppah in 2008 

Reform welcomed the proposed legislation, she said. "A recognition of equality of marriage for homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can only strengthen society and the institution of marriage."

Rabbi Colin Eimer, who chaired a working party on the issue for the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK, said: "Religious ceremonies exist in Jewish life for heterosexual couples to express their love, commitment, values and ideals. We believe that homosexual couples should have that same opportunity for a religious ceremony within the sanctity of Jewish community, tradition and practice."

via The Jewish Chronicle.

One commonly heard argument for opposition to equality is that it is an attack on freedom of religion. It is not, as this example and the one below clearly show. It in fact supports religious freedom - freedom for the increasing number of religious groups that wish to minister to all in their congregations, without discrimination.

Related articles

• Gay marriage: Public consultation on the way.(queeringthechurch.com)
  
  
  

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• Gay Marriage: Listen to your head and heart, not the Bishops' bluff and bluster
• Senior London Cleric: "Embrace Gay Marriage" (Contrast with Catholic Bishops)

• Conservatism And Marriage Equality (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Reform backs gay marriage (thejc.com)

How the Bishops Are Insulting (Opposite - Sex) Married Couples

 Isn't it quite insulting to heterosexual married couples to reduce their affirming commitment through marriage of their relationship to a simple biological act? If marriage is merely for reproductive purposes, why do they insist on trying to defend it as sacred? Is reproduction more sacred than love? Not in the New Testament it's not! Now I look at it like that, aren't they a load of silly billies?

-Jennifer Hynes, QTC comment thread.

One of the more offensive aspects of the Vatican teaching on homoerotic relationships is the way in which everything is reduced to "genital acts" (which are dismissed as mere gratuitous self-gratification). As anyone who has lived in a committed, long-term relationship can testify, it's about far more than mere sex. It's also about mutual caring and support, for each other and for family members, aging parents and growing children (even for animals).

It's shared pleasures, at the movies, in music or art, or dining with friends. It's about shared domestic duties, and joint participation in neighbourhood, community (and parish) concerns. Sex itself is far more than  mere genital acts: it's also about caresses, hugs, and kisses. Especially as we age, "genital acts" are of diminishing interest.

It hadn't occurred to me, but Jennifer is right. By focussing their opposition to marriage equality so obsessively on the capacity to create (not nurture) children, some Catholic bishops and organisations are similarly reducing heterosexual marriage to a series of mere genital acts. This is not only insulting to the LGBT community, it is also insulting to all loving couples.

Related articles

• Catholic Bishops Divided on Civil Unions (queeringthechurch.com)
• Catholic Bishops, Gay Marriage: "the Outer Fringes of Crazy Town" (queeringthechurch.com)
• Italian Bishop Advocates Civil Unions (commonwealmagazine.org)
• The "Gay Civil Unions" Approach of Some Within the Catholic Hierarchy: Too Little, Too Late (thewildreed.blogspot.com)

Gay Marriage: At London "Catholic Voices" Discussion, Gay Catholics NOT Welcome.

At a Catholic event in London next week,  specifically about Catholics and gay marriage, the people most directly affected - gay Catholics themselves- have been excluded.

In London next week,  "Catholic Voices" is hosting an event to discuss the public communication of the Catholic Church's stance on gay marriage. The advance material for this event made it clear that for security reasons , those wishing to attend needed to RSVP ahead of time, or they would be turned away.

Please note that, due to security policies at Notre Dame, nobody will be admitted who has not RSVP’d to the above email address by the date specified. If you are bringing a guest, you must give us their name and email by then.

-Catholic Voices mailer

However, when I tried to RSVP as instructed, I received a prompt response from the organizer, Austen Ivereigh, stating in effect that I was not welcome. Excluded (and not for security reasons). I have never met Mr Ivereigh, who was presumably responding simply to my name. I soon discovered that two other gay Catholics hoping to attend, had been similarly excluded.

Catholic Voices states that they "began with a single aim: to ensure that Catholics and the Church were well represented in the media when Pope Benedict came to the UK in September 2010". It is clear from this little kerfuffle that it is emphatically not all Catholics and the Church as a whole that they are aiming to represent, but purely and simply the bishops: not "Catholic" Voice, but "His Master's Voice".

And so, we have the curious position that, at a Catholic event specifically about Catholics and gay marriage, the people most directly affected - gay Catholics themselves- are excluded.

This morning, the Guardian has taken up the story:

Joseph O’Leary, on Catholic Theology and “Redefining” Marriage

Fr Joseph O'Leary has a useful short post at his blog, on the eruption of opposition by the English bishops to the (very modest) proposed amendments to the UK civil partnership provisions. He makes the point I have done before, that the Church has itself participated in the constant redefinition of marriage over the centuries, but adds an important observation that I had not realised: that historically, these redefinitions have come from the people, and only later have been ratified by the state and the church. Nothing new, then, in the current process of redefinition. In many countries, the state is already following the popular lead in recognizing same sex relationships. Most churches (not all, not by a long way) are further behind - but they too will catch up, in time:

Apparently the recent papal visit has galvanized opposition among English Catholic bishops to anything resembling gay marriage. Now they denounce Quakers and liberal Jews for daring to host civil partnership registrations, saying that no one has the right to redefine marriage. In fact, of course, marriage has been redefined many times throughout history. It is only since the 15th century or so that the Church itself has defined marriage as a sacrament. Such redefinitions come from the people in the first case, and are only later ratified by church and state. Today the Church has to face the growing reality of gay unions that resemble marriage, and when it buries its head in the stand, refuses to come up with an intelligent response, refuses dialogue and consultation, it is only making itself ridiculous.

Related articles

• Confused English Bishops, and the Catholic "Redefinition" of Marriage. (queering-the-church.com)
• Memo to Cardinal George: "Redefining" Marriage. (opentabernacle.wordpress.com)

New York Catholics Support Gay Marriage

Barbara Bush's public support for gay marriage has garnered a lot of press attention over the past week. Reporting on this the Washington Post has drawn my attention to another finding that should have drawn more attention. Alongside the number of Republican politicians and Evangelical Christians who are breaking ranks with their traditional opposition and starting to support equality, the majority of US (and European) Catholics have already parted company with their bishops on the matter. This has been demonstrated in several polls in recent years, at national level, and in state level polls, as in Rhode Island.

When I read and reported on the recent finding of the Quinnipiac poll that a majority of New Yorkers now support full legal recognition of same sex marriages, I neglected to follow through on my usual practice of checking the cross-tabs for a breakdown by religion. This was a mistake. (In mitigation, I plead that I was under intense pressure  for time last week). As the Washington Post has now observed, the national pattern is found in New York, too.  An absolute majority of New York Catholics support full marriage (not simply civil unions). As the paper's report notes in its concluding remark, "Republican and Catholic leaders may find themselves increasingly out of touch with the rhythm and blues that are moving their constituents and congregants on these issues".

For how much longer can bishops, in the US or elsewhere, get away with claiming to speak for "Catholics" on such matters (or, in the Philippines), it is patently obvious that they are not speaking of the real beliefs or real Catholics, but only for Vatican doctrine and the rule book Catholics who would prefer to get their ideas from a moral manual, without personal thought or reflection?

The Evolution of Catholic Teaching on Sex and Marriage.

In "The Sexual Person", the Catholic lay theologians Todd Salzmann and Michael Lawler give a useful historical review of the substantial shifts in the orthodox doctrine on sex and marriage - while also illustrating how much of that teaching is stuck in the fourth century thought of Augustine, and that of Aquinas from the thirteenth century. (Is there any other field of human thought that is so rooted in those two distant periods?) This is an important book that I will be discussing regularly in small bites. For now, I simply want to point to the briefest summary of the main argument, in preparation for a specific extract referring to Pope Paul VI and Humane Vitae.

Two things strike me in this account. As I have frequently noted before, it is completely untrue that the Catholic Church has a "constant and unchanging tradition" on sexual ethics.  Rather, the tradition has been constantly evolving. Just consider the complete transformation of the view on sexual pleasure - from one that it is to be avoided at all costs, even while begetting children or in nocturnal involuntary emissions, to one where it can contribute to the sacramental value of marriage. What has evolved in the past, will surely continue to evolve. That evolution will surely be aided by the capacity of theologians and popes to retrieve, when required, obscure and forgotten pieces from history - and proclaim them of fundamental importance. In two thousand years of theological writing, there will surely be a plethora of documents now obscure, which contradict some current thinking. Some of these will no doubt be retrieved by scholars - and being rehabilitated, will influence further adjustments in the changing tradition of the Church.

St Augustine - 6th cent fresco, Lateran

Pope Benedict's Strong Argument for Gay Marriage, Queer Families.

Last Sunday, I picked up a little book at the Soho Masses bookstall called "Christians and Sexuality in the Time of AIDS", a useful little book, which I bought at a ridiculously low bargain price. Some of the insights have little to do directly with the main theme, and it is one of these that is relevant here, an observation made by James Alison in his introduction, writing about Pope Benedict XVI and the nature of his theology.  James has frequently observed that when we respond too quickly or too superficially to the pope's reported remarks, we often underestimate his thinking, which is substantially more nuanced than we usually recognize. In his position, he argues, Benedict cannot do other than repeat the well-worn, established magisterial positions on topical issues.

The really interesting questions surrounding what a pope is doing are never the politically immediate headline grabbers, but always the small, apparently insignificant tinkerings around the edges which are either going to make change possible over time, or try to block it.

When I read these words, they brought into focus for me the speech that Benedict  gave to a group of Italian politicians and public officials last Friday, which has been widely interpreted as an attack on gay marriage. This is not the way I interpreted the speech: instead, I wrote (in the post below) that the reference to "marriage between a man and a woman", and to the forces undermining it, were curiously minor. The main thrust of the speech was more usefully seen as in praise of strong families - which could equally well apply to the families of same sex parents as to any other.   After reading James Alison, I thought how perfectly his warning applies to the present case: well, of course he made the obligatory noises about marriage between a man and a woman (how could he not?) - but the headline writers have missed the main points. With just a little "apparently insignificant tinkerings around the edges", this attack on gay marriage can instead be read as a statement in praise of all families - including those which are queer. 

I submit my original post below, just as I wrote it Sunday -- with profound apologies to my colleague Bart, who very generously responded to my request for preliminary comment with some very useful and helpful suggestions, which I have duly ignored. This is not in any way a reflection on his contribution - but just on my acute lack of time this week.  (I am writing this close to midnight, as it is). I will revise and refine this text later, to incorporate the additional links, Bart's contribution - and possibly later thought as well (both my own and that of readers' comments).

Gay Adoption, Gay Marriage as Moral Obligations: Two Jewish Views (and one Christian)

Here's a refreshing change: instead of the spurious, religious arguments against gay adoption and gay marriage, two more voices (this time, from Jewish perspectives)  speaking out on the positive faith-based reasons in favour of each.

In the first of these, at the Jerusalem Post, the orthodox Rabbi, television host and author of religious books on relationships Shmuley Boteach argues strongly in favour of gay adoption. Last month, he participated with Rosie O'Donnell in a New Jersey public discussion on the subject. In an article published before this event, he reflected on these issues, and especially on an aspect that I see as the most important of all. When a friend he spoke to expressed regret that Rosie's four adopted children would never have a father (the standard, theoretical argument against gay adoption), Rabbi Shmuley replied with the obvious and important, reality-based response:

that without Rosie they wouldn’t have a mother either.

DC Bishop's Christian Case for Gay Marriage.

In the ongoing brouhaha in DC over the forthcoming recognition of same gender marriages, with the rather odd position of the Catholic archdiocese that this will somehow force them to either become ineligible for the city’s contracts, or to compromise on their religious principles, it is great to see one bishop arguing from Christian principles and history that the archdiocese is, quite simply, dead wrong. The bishop in question is of the Episcopal  Diocese of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane (pictured below), who has a powerful commentary in the Washington Post.

Bishop John Chane of Washington

Here are some extracts, followed by my commentary:

"Adultery", and the Problem of Heterosexuality, Revisited

My recent post, "The Problem Of Heterosexuality", has drawn a comment from my reader David, who refers to the desire of the pope and bishops to protect the sanctity of sacramental marriage. In his response, he raises two important questions. The first, I think goes right to the heart of the matter:

"..how can the beauty and sacredness of the sexual relationship within the context of marriage, and the ability to produce children be promoted, and sex outside of a sacramental relationship be promoted without appearing to judge those outside of the relationship?"

How, indeed? Orthodox Catholic doctrine simply avoids this challenge entirely by falling into the binary trap of insisting that "sacramental marriage+ children = good" implies that "any other erotic relationships = bad", which is a complete logical fallacy. The problem is that this simplistic thinking is not based on Scripture, which in fact contradicts it, as does the practice and teaching of the Church in history.

Blessing Same Sex Unions in Toronto

There is no longer any doubt in my mind that widepread, formal recognition by Christian churches of same-sex unions, by liturgical rites in church, is on the way - one small step at a time.

One of these small steps is in the diocese of Toronto, where the local archbishop has given pastoral guidelines for blessing same sex unions. Technically, the impact will be only local, in his own archdiocese, and limited to a simple blessing, not full marriage. Effectively, though, this one of those small steps that makes subsequent strides that much easier. Civil marriage for same sex couples is already a well-established fact of life in Canada. Church blessings in Toronto will soon spread across the nation, just as civil marriage did after a purely local introduction. From country-wide blessing of civil unions, to blessing civil marriages, to full church weddings, will be easy steps. Sweden already has gay and lesbian church weddings in the Lutheran church, with which Anglicans and Episcopalians are in communion. Other Scandinavian churches will soon follow suit - as will Canadian Anglicans, just a little later.

Archbishop Johnson with Queen Elizabeth, 2010

Church Idiocy in Minnesota.

Dunces and Scholars: Which Cap Fits Archbishop Nienstedt?

I've been wanting to write about the misdirected Catholic expenditure, by the Knights of Columbus and now by the diocese of Minneapolis St Paul, to fight gay marriage. Michael J. Bayly (who is right there in the Twin Cities) at The Wild Reed has correctly called the Minnesota campaign a scandal: