Marriage #3: Same-sex marriage

I'd like to come out (as it were..!) and try to present a case for marriage being extended to same-sex relationships... I've been a little saddened by some of the writings coming out trying to lobby the government not to change the law on marriage, and some old and rather tired stereotyping and rejecting of people trying to live a difficult yet honest walk between their faith (usually a choice) and their sexuality (usually not a choice)

I strongly believe that the basis for marriage from a Christian perspective is around the CHARACTERISTICS of such relationships i.e. commitment, fidelity, lasting relationships rather than the NATURE of such relationships...

Jesus was famously completely silent on the subject of same-sex relationships, and yet quite condemning of divorce... This would suggest he was far more concerned with the characteristics of relationships than their nature... It's not like he was silent about relationships in general!!

The Bible gives many examples of marriage being encouraged with which we would have problems from a Christian perspective today... Practices such as polygamy (Exodus 21:10-11), men being required to marry their dead brother's wife (Deut 25:5-6; Gen 38:8) and even worse, a master being able to buy wives for his slaves and then keeping the wives and children produced for himself when the slaves were set free (Exodus 21:2-4).

We would accept that all of these practices (not exactly supportive of one man, one woman for life) are not reflective of a Christian view of marriage today... And yet the few passages which seem to condemn same sex relationships some still believe do apply today... Where is the consistency between what we decide is for all time about marriage, and what we decide was 'of that time'? To differentiate between such passages is at best arbitrary, at worst picking and choosing passages to bolster our own prejudices.

One of the biggest (and most inconsistent) arguments is that intimate relationships must have the possibility of procreation (which clearly same-sex relationships do not)... But yet there is no condemnation of couples who are infertile (and therefore sex can never lead to procreation) or sterile (same) or past the age of childbirth, where sex seems to be perfectly permissible. This suggests that sex is for more than simple procreation, and that applying this 'rule' to some relationships and not others is not just inconsistent, it's contradictory.

I would like to see a debate centred around what makes marriages and relationships healthy ones, and what part Christian marriage plays in this, supporting characteristics of commitment and fidelity, rather than discriminating between the nature that those relationships take.

I actually think the Church would contribute much more to the debate by focussing on these things, and by creating a Christian basis for all marriages, whether man-woman or same sex, than being distracted by arguments which at the end of the day ignore both some of the actual key issues, and are on somewhat shaky ground on the issues they do see as incontrovertible.

Geoff