(HOST) Eight years after Vermont passed its landmark Civil Unions
law, advocates and detractors are lining up to tackle the issue of same sex
marriage. It’s only natural that VPR’s
Willem Lange would want to add his two cents.
(LANGE) "The United States has to rank among the strangest of nations. We enjoy a priceless gift of democratic
government and a brilliant national constitution; yet fewer than half of us
vote at most opportunities. We’ve been
conditioned to deplore the specter of government-administered health care, even
though it’s more efficient than the bureaucratic mess created by private,
for-profit health insurance, and inferior to that enjoyed by our fellow
industrialized nations. We want the
government "out of our lives," yet, curiously, seem to want it to get
into our fellow citizens’ lives.
Many states are currently debating same-sex marriage. The movement toward it has been at the same
evolutionary pace at which women were given the franchise, African-Americans
were granted civil rights, and homosexual relations between consenting adults
were ruled not illegal. But it’s as
inevitable during this century as rising sea levels.
Predictably, the east- and west-coast states have led the way,
while the heartland has been passing Defense of Marriage acts and
constitutional amendments defining marriage as the legal union of one man and
one woman (well, temporarily, at least, divorce rates being significantly
higher in the Bible Belt than in godless, liberal Massachusetts and Vermont).
One argument we never hear in these debates is that homosexual
behavior is basically an ancient, pre-Enlightenment taboo. An argument we don’t hear much anymore, now
that evidence to the contrary is accumulating, is that gay marriage will
destroy the traditional institution.
The argument we do hear is the "religious" one: that
it’s an abomination before God – like eating shellfish and pork, committing
adultery, and wearing clothes of mixed fabrics.
Its corollary is that God decreed marriage to be between one man and one
woman; that’s the way it’s always been, and the way it always should be.
Actually, that’s not true, in either secular or religious
traditions. I refer you to a fascinating
book, First Comes Love? – The Ever-Changing Face of Marriage, by John
Morris. An Episcopal priest in the
parish of Fairlee, Vermont, Morris has investigated the history of marriage from legendary
early Hebrew times to the present.
The patriarchs of Israel engaged in polygamy and concubinage, with the apparent blessing
of the Almighty, who promised their progeny, would be as numerous as the
stars. Common folks historically have
married because their fathers arranged it; because it perpetuated the family
name, fortune, or purity; because it was a wise political move; and sometimes
because they fell in love.
Morris finds it irritating – even unconstitutional – that the
state requires clergymen to be licensed to perform civil ceremonies. It thus seems logical to me to require every
couple, no matter their personal persuasion, to be licensed and married in a
civil ceremony. Before or after that, if
they wish, they may be married by a clergyperson who will not ask for a
license. The couple will be married
legally in the eyes of the state and spiritually in the eye of their god."
Note: Willem Lange is a contractor,
writer and storyteller who now lives in East Montpelier.