Marriage, the Bible, and All That

Well, the unforgivable has happened: someone published a rational look at the religious -- specifically, Biblical -- context for same-sex marriage. Lisa Miller, in a cover story for Newsweek, noted:

The practice of inclusion, even in defiance of social convention, the reaching out to outcasts, the emphasis on togetherness and community over and against chaos, depravity, indifference—all these biblical values argue for gay marriage. If one is for racial equality and the common nature of humanity, then the values of stability, monogamy and family necessarily follow.

Of course, given sentiments like that, you can imagine what the reaction from the "Christian" right has been:

“I see it as an attempt to caricature and reduce to a cartoon the social conservative belief in the efficacy of traditional marriage, and try to reduce it to some formulaic, scriptural literalism,” said Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition. “There’s more of a practical, sociological foundation for why we seek to affirm marriage as an institution than I think is generally understood by those who want to legalize same-sex marriage.”

Two observations here -- mmm, make that three:

You have to remember that if it's Ralph Reed speaking, he's not really talking about affirming marriage as an institution. That -- and this is going to become a recurring motif here -- is what everyone on both sides of the issue wants to do: reaffirm the importance of marriage. Reed is talking about confirming marriage as an exclusionary device to limit social recognition to those couples he approves of.

Second, the social conservative belief "in the efficacy of traditional marriage" is a caricature and a cartoon, and it is invariably presented by such as Ralph Reed as a formulaic, scriptural literalism. That's the whole point of the article -- a point that Reed's statement doesn't address in any substantive way.

Third, Reed and his ilk keep citing a practical, sociological foundation for "affirming" traditional marriage, but he never seems to be able to say what it is, aside from "children to better with a mother and father," which isn't borne out by the evidence. If he's referring to the somewhat questionable "study" by Child Trends, which opponents of same-sex marriage seem to think is the only study done so far on this question -- and of course, that study doesn't deal with children raised by same-sex couples -- then he's really on thin ice.

Though Reed said he had respect for Newsweek, he said this week’s cover story was based on a “false assumption”: “We’re not trying to take the Bible and put a bill number on it and legislate it.”

If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to talk to you about.

Land pointed to campaigns for anti-same-sex marriage referenda around the country as evidence that biblical instructions were not necessarily the main impetus behind social conservative opposition to same-sex marriage.

“The arguments that are used are often not biblical arguments. They are secular arguments, arguing about marriage as being a civic and a social institution, and that societies have a right to define marriage,” Land said. Broadening the definition of marriage could “shatter” the social role married couples have traditionally played, he said.

There's a major logical backflip here: no one's arguing that marriage is not an important civic and social institution: that's why gays want to get married. I've touched on that one before -- the most telling comment I've found is from Joseph W. Campbell. It's indicative of the sheer closed-off solipsism of the social (read "religious") conservative position that Land can say something like that and not even realize that it not only doesn't support his position, but undercuts it.

Jim Burroway has some very apt insights into the reactions:

But the other part of the outrage also seems clearly aimed at someone who really did intrude onto their home turf. After all, in the same-sex marriage debates, only one small group of Christians are presumed to be allowed to use the Bible — when they think nobody else is looking. Anti-gay activists behave as though the Bible is solely their possession and no one else’s — including other Christians who read the same Bible and come to different conclusions. It’s okay for anti-gay opponents to turn outside their own sphere of authority — science — to make their point. But now that Lisa Miller has taken them on in their own home turf, they’ve let loose with their persecution complex and complained that they– and by extension all of Christianity, since they presume to speak for all Christians – have been “attacked.”

Remember that: any disagreement, no matter how stated, is an "attack," not on the fuzzy, self-referential thinking of the Christianist right, but on Christianity itself, because, after all, only people who agree with the likes of Richard Land and Ralph Reed are real Christians.