Cardinal Keith O’Brien argued recently that gay marriage violated Article 16 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights which states: “men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”. In this sense, he argued, gay marriage is equivalent to “legalising slavery”.

The debate raises a number of issues:

How should we interpret biblical texts on marriage, such as Ephesians 5?

What exactly do we mean by “the sanctity of marriage”? Is marriage a static concept, or does it change over time and between cultures?

Is this a justice issue or an issue of natural complementarity?

For an interesting introduction, watch this You tube clip, where a US female senator defends gay marriage in the state of New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=q08Ggd-OlCM&NR=1

contd.

He went on to argue that the change advocated in marriage law to allow same sex marriage is “an attempt to redefine marriage” in a way that would “eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and father for every child” and “deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a father or a mother”.

The Roman Catholic Catechism itself reflects a tension between two ideas (as does the Bible): the equality of all human beings, male, female, gay, heterosexual) and the complementarity and difference between male and female (and also inequality as in the old vow of a wife to submit to and obey her husband).

Of course, marriage is not a static concept. The view of marriage which applied until recently meant the woman was the property of the man. So wives surrendered all their property to their husbands until 1870; women could not prosecute for marital rape until 1991; a husband could not be prosecuted for marital violence until 1860. Do we want to return to the sanctity of this type of marriage? I don’t think so.

In disentangling the issues in the debate about gay marriage we need to make a choice between three pairs of concepts. Which we we decide will determine, I suggest, our conclusion about the permissibility of gay marriage.

1. Value or rule? Marriage is a covenant. A covenant is an unconditional commitment as reflected in the OT covenants between God and Moses or Abraham. This covenant is sealed or guaranteed by the very character of God, by hesed and emeth. Hesed means loving kindness, commitment, loyalty, “for better, for worse”. It is sealed by a ring because it is a public commitment and a legal state. If we elevate values (loyalty, commitment) then there can be no argument against committed gay marriage.

2. Equality or obedience? Marriage reflects the relationship between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5) where husband loves the wife, and the wife obeys the husband. In this relationship we forget ourselves and pursue the best interest and welfare of the other person. Clearly this love and obey relationship is unequal, as is our relationship with Christ, our “Lord” as well as “brother”, hence the word “obey” has dropped off the marriage service as equality between sexes has become a legal right. In its place we both stress “with my body I worship you, all that I have I give to you, all that I am I share with you”. We tend to reject the idea of inequality today asa primary source of injustice, and hence argue for equality between wife and husband and between gay and heterosexual.

3. Difference or dignity? Marriage is the expression of the character and image of God, “male and female he created them”, “so a man is united with his wife and they become one flesh”. But is God male and female? The answer is “no”, God is beyond gender. So perhaps we should interpret this as meaning that only in relationships that are committed can we truly reflected the giving and forgiving nature of God. The image of God idea, as the Catechism also suggests (click here for the relevant clauses 2333 – 6), gives humankind a personal dignity. So which do we elevate, the equal dignity of man and woman (and man and man) or the essential difference between man and woman?

To conclude: if we stress the primacy of values in marriage, and equality and dignity of persons (all Biblical themes) then we argue for gay marriage.

But if we stress the rules inherent in deontology and divine command theory, and obedience and difference between the sexes (a different view of complementarity perhaps, based on biological differences), then we will argue that gay marriage is undesirable or even logically impossible.

The Roman Catholic Catechism:

Source: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm