by Phil Moore, pastor of Everyday Church in London
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Editor's Note: Same-sex marriage continues to be a prominent issue in
our society today. As church leaders, the way we engage the discussion is
critical. In this post, Phil Moore, pastor of Everyday Church in London, offers
insight on how the issue has been wrongly framed. Has the same-sex issue been
hijacked by political lobbyists? How should the church approach the
issue?
If you believe the newspapers then
it’s already been decided. The fight to legalize same-sex marriage has already
been won.
Prime Minister, David Cameron,
introduced a bill to the British Parliament, which will be debated on February
5, that is not being opposed by the opposition.
President Obama has used his second
inauguration speech to signal that he also intends to legalize gay marriage in
the U.S. through federal law.
The French President, Francois
Hollande, has dismissed public protests over his support for same-sex marriage
as the reactionary chattering of the no-longer-radical bourgeoisie.
But while politicians steamroll
their proposals into law, they are ignoring some fundamental questions. Let me
point out just three of the big mistakes that they are making:
Mistake
#1: Everybody Knows That Same-Sex Marriage Should be Legalized.
Suppose we held a
referendum that revealed this statement to be true.
Suppose the majority of Britons and Americans actually did believe that
same-sex marriage should be legalized — would that therefore make it
right?
If the majority of Afghans
voted that women should be barred from education, they wouldn’t therefore be
right. When the majority of British people voted in the early 19th century
that there was nothing wrong with slavery, campaigners didn’t stop arguing that
the majority was wrong.
In fact, the essence of the pro-gay
argument is that majority opinion has been wrong in the past on the issue of
sexuality! Even in the purest of democracies, it is accepted that the majority
opinion should be tested rather than turned into hastily drafted law. Consensus
has long been the refuge of rascals, who attempt to stifle debate by claiming
that the matter has already been decided.
What is becoming clear, anyway, is
that the majority of people do not in fact back this major change to society.
Although the British Chancellor of
the Exchequer, George Osborne, argued in last Sunday’s issue of The Times
that redefining marriage will be a vote-winner for the conservatives, the real
noise at the conservative head office is that of the large numbers of
Tories who feel betrayed that this legislation was not in the party’s election
manifesto. The British Youth Parliament has called on the government to drop
gay marriage as a priority. In scenes reminiscent of the days before the war
with Iraq, we are watching politicians make decisions without consulting those
who elected them, only to regret their hastiness too late afterwards.
Mistake
#2: Sexuality is a Civil Rights Issue.
When Lady Gaga sings, “Baby, I was
born this way,” it makes for good music. When Barack Obama embraces it as a
political philosophy, it makes for bad government.
He used his inauguration speech to
liken the fight for same-sex marriage to the epic struggle won by Abraham
Lincoln against black slavery, and by Martin Luther King Jr. against racial
segregation, saying: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and
sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly
created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as
well.” Barack Obama is a master at rhetoric, but this is lazy at best and
insulting at worst.
Issues of race and of sexuality are
entirely different. To try to twist this is not to carry on the journey started
by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., it is to insult what they stood
for and to try and hijack their legacy.
I have searched in vain for a robust medical study which shows that our
sexuality is written deep into our DNA. It hasn’t been proven that
homosexuality is genetic any more than it has been proven that homosexuality is
caused by our environment. It appears that it is simply one of many sexual preferences that
societies ought to weigh carefully, and then label right or wrong.
A boy who falls in love with his
sister can’t marry her because we have ruled that incest is wrong. A man who
falls in love with a twelve-year-old girl can’t marry her because we have ruled
that child abuse is wrong.
We may decide that a man falling in
love with a man is as equally valid as a man falling in love with a woman,
but we can’t do so by appealing to genetics and civil rights. Men are twice as
likely as women to become addicted to pornography, but their XY chromosomes
don’t mean that their temptation is justified.
It’s entirely right for us to have a free and open debate on whether
homosexuality is right or wrong, but it’s entirely wrong to pretend that this
is a civil rights issue like black slavery or racial segregation.
This is all about moral choices, not
genetics. Barack Obama should be ashamed of himself for insulting the memory of
Lincoln and King by suggesting otherwise.
Mistake
#3: Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage is a Religious Issue.
In the U.K., David Cameron and Nick
Clegg have tried to frame the issue of same-sex marriage as a battle between
free-thinking reformers and religious reactionaries.
They have shouted down opposition to
their bill by promising that churches and mosques will be protected from being
forced to conduct same-sex marriages on their premises, and the Church of
England has been flattered into playing along in exchange for a seat at the
discussion table. Even if we believe Cameron and Clegg (and let’s face it, it’s
hard to do so when Cameron has just warned the church on another issue to “get
with the programme” or face the consequences), it is missing the point
entirely.
It isn’t just Christians, Jews and
Muslims who want to have a say in this issue. Marriages make families and
families make society. How we define marriage affects all of us. To deny this
is ridiculous.
I received a letter from David Cameron a few weeks ago when I corresponded with
him about same-sex marriage. He told me that he thinks marriage is so important
that he wants to open it up to same-sex couples as well, which is about as
logical as me saying that I like Italian food so much that I want to declare
that every cuisine in the world be Italian. It isn’t just an issue for
religious people when our governments start redefining marriage with political
double-speak which wouldn’t be out of place in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Even in decadent Rome, when Emperor
Nero briefly legalized same-sex marriage, his pagan Roman subjects opposed his
law. The historian, Tacitus, complained that Nero “went through a formal
wedding ceremony with one of the perverts named Pythagorus,” and implies that
this added to the general public disgust with Nero which eventually led to his
forced suicide (Annals 15.37). If the most anti-Christian city in the
world opposed gay marriage (remember, these were the people who threw
Christians to the lions), then let’s not pretend that opposition to same-sex
marriage is a religious issue.
Besides, when Barack Obama refers six times in his inauguration speech to
God and four times to the Creator or to Creation, it reminds us that
religious people have always had an important role in shaping public policy for
good. Not least among them were Abraham Lincoln (a devout Christian) and Martin
Luther King Jr. (a Christian pastor). Politicians can’t have it both ways:
either they want to associate themselves with God and with the great religious
thinkers of the past, or they should come clean and say that they don’t want
to.
The reason Barack Obama referred so much to God and to the great religious
thinkers of the past is that every U.S. President knows he needs to stand on
the shoulders of the founding fathers — who were religious thinkers —
thus, to dismiss religious thinkers as nothing more than a group of political
lobbyists is an act of insanity. They are those who have routinely submitted
their own generation’s thinking to the scrutiny of the wise men and women of
old, and who have learned to speak up for what they have learned.
The true political lobbyists are the pro-gay activists who have filled the
staff roles in 10 Downing Street and in the West Wing. It is this small, but
powerful, clique that has so influenced the politicians that they can’t see
the three big mistakes which they are making. Same-sex marriage isn’t a
religious issue any more than it is a civil rights issue. It is the coveted
ambition of a group of powerful lobbyists who want to stifle debate by claiming
the debate is already over.
We mustn’t let them succeed in
rushing through this piece of hasty legislation.
Phil Moore leads Queens Road Church in
Wimbledon. He also serves as a Bible teacher and evangelist within the
Newfrontiers family of churches. He is the author of the “Straight to the
Heart” series of devotional commentaries. Phil is married to Ruth and they have
three young children. Together, they love eating strange and exotic food,
watching movies with lots of popcorn, and reading books by Roald Dahl.
