To clarifiy–
The entry below is in response to a heterosexual friend of mine truly trying to understand why the defeat of Prop 8 in CA drew such notice. He asked in all sincerity, “Why do they want to be married?” He mentioned that even he wasn’t so sure if this marriage thing, esp. via the church was truly a valid idea. Especially since most Prostestant churches reject marriage as a sacrament (the only two being communion and baptism.).  After an initial conversation, these thoughts ensued.  Peace

Answer to “Why do they want to marry?” 11/21/08

As I said, just wanted to pass along a few thoughts about this marriage thing.
I think the very real need to be “married” goes beyond the concept of  ”equal rights under the law or from another perspective forcing same sex marriages on a society that might not be ready for it” (his words). Your question was why do some feel they want or even need this so badly? Dealing with the politics and church political ramifications of it are very real but I feel they are a smoke screen for the real discussion as to “why?”

I can tell you that in realizing and/or coming into one’s “orientation” there is a struggle no matter who you are. It is a psychological process that isolates and one cannot imagine that anyone else has ever gone through what you are going through at that moment. Things to face are rejection of friends and family-either lovingly or violently (lovingly=”we understand and love you but what did we do wrong, we will never have grandkids, our lives are forever changed now, etc.” while violently=how could you do this to us, if you can live the right way get out, why did God have this abomination come from me, that is a disgusting, depraved community and deserve whatever it gives you, etc”.)

Despite the ultimate reactions, the truth of the matter is that the training and ideals of family (mostly heteronormative ideals) are ingrained into LGBTQ folk just as they are into hetero folk. We’ve all been groomed to find partnership in life, become family with that person and that the final true public/spiritual testament to that love is to be married in the eyes of God and a company assembled. Heterosexuals have a choice of whether or not this is necessary for their lives. Heteros have the privilege (damn Union word slipped out, a liberal seminary inside joke) of whether or not to be married, whether or whether or not to have children, etc. The point is that the common starting point for us all is that ideal ingrained into us from childhood-marriage.

LGBTQ life at least in regards to these proscribed ideals, is full of personal loss. Identity has to be reformed and all of those cultural/religious aspirations either must be given up or somehow redefined to match the identity that has been shaped for you with the identity that has been shaped by you in no small part by your sexual affinity. It is here where I think the question “why marriage” can be answered. It seems to me that identity is, especially once we realize that we have some say in our own identity formation, something we cling to for dear psychological and spiritual life. The less we have to shed from those core years of identity formation the more secure we are in growing into our own person. Our choices become clearer because our foundation stronger.

In LGBTQ identity formation, those building blocks that are cultural, familial, and societal are the hardest to reframe because our input on their importance in our lives has been so limited. It is like the game Jenga-trying to build an identity while with each round of life you realize the pieces of your identity that culture and society takes away is from your foundation. You can still grow and be strong and find where the new pieces fit but you are forever aware of the precarious nature of your identity because those foundational pieces like marriage, civil rights, human rights-all the things we grow up expecting– are slowly being removed because of your sexual affinity/orientation. It’s not even that it is a malicious thing. It’s just the way things are set up. I think marriage represents much of this foundational identity formation. Now that there is even the remotest of possibilities of putting this foundational piece of identity formation (marriage) back in place, people are reclaiming the piece.

Of course, there is the issue of whether or not these social constructs cause more damage than good. But at this stage of the game it doesn’t matter, that debate will go on much ad infinitum. The fact is that these constructs are in place and until equality exists the place of conversation is not a level playing field. Strangely enough it seems to me the fight for marriage equality is more of a fight for a place of privilege from which one can choose whether or not to marry. That’s my personal opinion, but it seems to me a perverse use of luxury. But then again, isn’t so much of what we fight for a perverse pursuit of luxury?
Posted by D’Rock’s House

Tell Somebody!

Even civil unions do nothing more than bring a legal status to the relationship between two people.  Marriage it seems is more culturally privileged, at least in the United States, seems to be a pronouncement of God’s sanction of a relationship.  There is an entire historical understanding of marriage as a property transaction, not just person (usually the woman to man) to person, but also of joining families, making political alliances, etc.  That carryover is still very much present in modern marriage whether we like it or not.  The church has been complicit in this aspect of marriage by declaring this very secular purpose of two persons joining in matrimony as blessed by God.  It has always been a subjective blessing given by those who profess to have in inside track on the will of God.

It is very encouraging that we place such a value on finding “true love”.  The romantic in me is grateful that this is so.  It seems much more likely that the mystery of God is realized in the random meeting of two souls who can no longer picture their lives as a singular thing.  But as a life that one can no longer imagine living single.  I truly believe that is the act of God, that is the blessing of God on we mere humans, an invitation to a piece of the divine that is love expressed in our yearning to be with another; our only way of physically satiating our intense and spiritual desire to be with God.

I am happy for the passage of the Marriage Equality Bill in New York State.  But the fact is that many clergy can still be tried and defrocked for performing marriage ceremonies or ceremonies that in any way resemble “traditional” marriage ceremonies.  The church has said that God does not bless and make sacred any relationship other than a male/female partnering, no matter how the gender expression in the pair is realized.  But that’s a whole other issue.

I think of these things and must also share my understanding as an African American Black Man.  I can’t help but go back into the history of my people, American people of color enslaved for so many centuries.  The same church that is doling out marriage blessings, the same church that is withholding marriage blessings, is the same church that refused to recognize the sanctity of the Black family during slavery. There were many reasons to be sure—we were property, we were only a percentage human, we were savages who could not understand or were not worthy of the sanctity of a blessed by God bond of matrimony.  Ugly reality to be sure…But is it really so different than what church and society is telling the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, Queer communities?

Queer and Black are communities understand Shakespeare’s Shylock.  We substitute ourselves for the word Jew when he says,

“I am LGBTQ. Hath not a Queer eyes?

Hath not a Gay hands, organs, dimensions,

senses, affections, passions?

Are not Lesbians fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,

subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means?

Are not Transgendered warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,

as a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die?

and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (III,i,50ff)

But we don’t want revenge, we just want to, if we so choose, to get married.  Some of us want to get married in a church where we have experienced God in our lives.  Some of us want to get married in a church that has shared all of our major life events.

Some of us just want to fit into our tuxes and gowns and experience that one day that just belongs to us.  And…some of us don’t.

But when my ancestors were told they could marry what did they do?  They found something from the motherland that had meaning and incorporated that into their ritual.  Jumping the broom is still done at many African American weddings.  If you are interested in reading more about the history of jumping the broom I suggest you read “Broom Jumping: A Celebration of Love” by Danita Rountree Green.

Marriage is legal in the state of New York.  All historical, proprietary, monetary assurances can now be claimed.  But many churches still won’t dole out God’s blessing.  Well, that’s quite alright.  What God has brought together let no one tear asunder.  I say I will jump the broom when the time is right.  I will invite God to carry us into our household and future lives together.  You if God decides to bring love into my life, there are very few who hold more sway for me that God God’s self when it comes to blessing me and the one who just might come to love me.

Tell Somebody!

And then I saw this:

Right there sitting on my counter next to my coffee, right there on the front of the New York Times the heading, “Foe of Gay Marriage Says Its Nothing Personal,” with a picture of Ruben Diaz Sr., a New York State Senator and Pentecostal minister in the Bronx. Right up in my face at 7:30 a.m. All that incredible hypocrisy right up in my face as I sit next to my 6-year-old daughter while she eats pancakes.

Another man with a platform, this one on the front page of the Times.  A man who tells the reporter that of the two brothers and a granddaughter and the various other folks in his life who are gay, “I love them. I love them…but I don’t believe in what they are doing.” “I love them. I love them,” he says as he actively tries to bar same sex marriage from getting to the floor of the Legislature.  And I think, no, no, that’s not love, honey, that’s greed. You want what you want from them. You want what they give to you and how they enhance your life, but you don’t want what makes them happy for themselves.

No, preacher, that’s not what we do – we don’t just get to take what we want from folks and ditch the rest. No, in love, we don’t decide that when we’re uncomfortable with what makes that person tick — what is their soul’s essence – we don’t  decide that we’re going to deny it. In love, we don’t pretend that sexuality, the very fiber of what makes us human, is superfluous to our relationship and that our efforts to limit that aren’t “personal.” No, no Mr. Senator, that is not love, that’s greed. That’s taking what’s not yours to have.

“I love them. I love them…but I don’t believe in what they are doing.” What are we doing?

This is what I’m doing: I’m sitting next to my daughter while she eats pancakes.

And I’m going to seminary. I’m sitting in classes and working at a church and trying my best to figure out what God has in store for me.

This is what I’m doing: I’m working hard at reading scripture, praying scripture, doing research in the library and then confronting the reality of the congregation seated in front of me. Folks of all different ethnicities, shades, and sexualities; some folks who are barely making ends meet, folks who have lost jobs and countless hours of sleep, others who are sitting in the lap of luxury; some riddled with health problems, others living in difficult, loveless marriages; folks whose lives are full and those whose are broken; folks who come to church to hear some good news, others to be in company; folks who need more time in their lives, more time and less to do. I’m standing periodically before folks from all different walks of life with all different reasons to both praise and curse God and I’m doing my best to minister to them. That’s what I’m doing.

Then I’m going home to a partner whom I’ve shared a bed with for 12 years and with whom I have two amazing children. I’m going home to love her. I’m going home to work out all the stuff of this difficult world, to find solace and relief and comfort and…did I mention the love part? I’m going home to her to refresh my spirit so that I can go back out into the world and do what God continues, despite myself, to call me to do.

Tell Somebody!