The Christian Dilemma Over Same-Gender Marriage

This is the first post in my blog series on same-gender marriage. For an outline with links to the whole series, click here. The views expressed in this series are my own and do not represent those of my denomination, conference, or local church.

For a long time, I was conflicted about the moral status of homosexuality. As a Christian who took the Bible seriously and who cared deeply about gay people, I couldn’t reconcile what I read in Scripture with the experiences of the gay people whom I loved. On the one hand, I believed that the Bible’s opposition to homosexuality was unequivocal. After all, the Scriptures explicitly forbid homosexual behavior in the Old Testament and consistently uphold this prohibition in the New Testament. [E1] On the other hand, I couldn’t understand why God would make such a prohibition. Although I was familiar with the abstract arguments about how homosexual behavior inherently violates “the created order” or “God’s will,” I couldn’t think of a single concrete way that a monogamous and loving homosexual relationship caused harm. On the contrary, it seemed to me that there is a tremendous need for loving couples – gay and straight – to share the love of God in this broken and hurting world. [E2]

Among Christians, two sides have emerged around this issue which have come to dominate the conversation. [E3] First, there is the “conservative" side, which believes that God created marriage as an institution for one man and one woman, which implies that same-gender marriage is not part of God’s plan. Conservatives argue that homosexual activity is condemned every time it is mentioned in the Bible, which leaves no room for doubt regarding the Bible’s stance on this issue. Then there is the “progressive” side, which acknowledges that there are Bible verses that forbid homosexual activity but also notes that there are also Biblical passages that take positions on a number of other issues – especially relating to racism and patriarchy – that we have since rejected out of obedience to higher Biblical principles such as love and justice. [E4] They then argue that homosexuality is another one of those issues where faithfulness to love and/or justice ought to lead us to embrace LGBTQ persons as they are, despite the Scripture passages that prohibit homosexual behavior. However, conservatives reply that these appeals to love or justice appeal to secular understandings of love, justice, etc., rather than Biblical ones. But for progressives, the conservative arguments – however sound – must be missing something, because the goodness of same-gender marriages is self-evident to them. As Megan Ramer says, “The Spirit so clearly bears good fruit in the lives of those who identify as gay that who am I to block, deny or limit the Spirit’s work?” [E5]

Mainline denominations have been wrestling with this for years, commissioning studies on human sexuality and hosting various dialogue platforms in the hopes of reaching some consensus or at least some resolution about respectful disagreement. But to my knowledge, none of these denominational efforts have made any progress in bringing the two sides closer together. On the contrary, the longer the conversation continues, the more antagonistic the two sides seem to become toward each other, with more and more people being wounded in the wake. [E6] In the face of this, it’s tempting to give up on conversation and conclude that “the other side” is simply refusing the see the truth, either due to their fear of change or their accommodation to American culture.

But there is another possible explanation. Perhaps we can’t find any good answers because we haven’t been asking the right questions. I believe that we haven’t been able to resolve this debate because we have been approaching this question in the wrong way. We have been approaching questions about same-gender attraction and sexual behavior as a question about sexual ethics, when it is first and foremost it is a question about gender norms. This does not mean that the issues that progressives and conservatives raise are invalid. Progressive Christians are right to point out the fact that LGBTQ people are suffering under the conservative teachings on same-gender attraction and marriage. However, they have by and large misdiagnosed the problem. It is not the church’s teaching on sexual ethics that has caused such harm to the LGBTQ community, but rather, it is the church's enforcement of gender norms: the insistence that men and women ought to act a certain way for no other reason than because of their gender. This is not to say that sexuality is unrelated to same-gender attraction and marriage, but that it is secondary: We will only find clarity about sexual ethics for gay and bisexual people after we have resolved our understanding of how gender is supposed to influence Christian behavior.

In the next several posts, I will make the argument that there is room for same-gender marriage in the kingdom of God because the advancement of the kingdom of God entails a rejection of gender norms. [E7] I suppose that this conclusion puts me on the “progressive” side of the progressive/conservative divide, but I’m not really comfortable there, because there are many moves that progressives make in order to arrive at a stance that affirms same-gender marriage that are threatening to Christian values. Instead, I believe we need to go back to the core issue and re-frame the entire conversation. Therefore, I offer not only a unique argument for the affirmation of same-gender marriage (as though another one was needed), but a new frame, which I hope both progressives and conservatives can embrace in order to move the dialogue forward.

This argument is not a complex or esoteric argument that you must have a PhD in Biblical studies to engage. I can state it simply in a single sentence and cite a clear Scripture to defend it: Two people should not be prevented from marrying each other simply on the basis of their gender because “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [E8] However, as simple as this is, it runs so contrary to the way that we are accustomed to thinking about same-gender attraction and marriage that it will take me an entire series to work it out.

Now, I realize that this is a lot to consider, and you’ll likely have several questions and critiques to offer. I invite your respectful feedback to this subject, whether in the form of questions, affirmations, or criticisms. Most importantly, before you react logically or emotionally to this proposal, I’d ask you to react prayerfully. May the Holy Spirit – and not my own fallible thoughts – be the guiding force of your discernment.

End Notes

[E1] The five Biblical passages that prohibit same-gender sex are Lev 18:22; Lev. 20:13, Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:9-11, and 1 Tim 1:9-10. Other passages allude to same-gender sex as well, but not as directly. Given the controversy over homosexuality in the past five decades, these passages have received a lot of attention from Biblical scholars, and several articles have been published that argue that these verses do not prohibit homosexuality in general, but to a specific subset of homosexual behavior, such as pederasty (sex between adult men and prepubescent boys), male prostitution, or experimental sex between heterosexuals. These arguments are usually followed by the claim that these types of homosexual behaviors are rightly condemned, but they do not represent the same kind of healthy same-gender relationships between adults that progressives defend today. However, few of these arguments have withstood scholarly scrutiny, as there seems to be evidence of a variety of types of homosexual behavior in the ancient world – including both healthy and unhealthy forms – that the Biblical authors would have known about. Moreover, even if the Biblical authors did have a specific subset of homosexual behavior in mind, they didn’t express that in the texts. The texts themselves make blanket prohibitions that seem to condemn all homosexual behavior.

[E2] One example that comes to mind is the need for adoption. There are hundreds of thousands of children in the world who need to be adopted, and there are many gay people who want to adopt these children and raise them with a partner of the same gender. However, prior to a series of Supreme Court rulings from 2015 to 2017, gay couples were prohibited from adopting children in several states. These prohibitions not only hurt the gay couples themselves, but also the children who were not able to grow up in loving homes due to them. All of this despite the fact that studies have shown that homosexual couples are just as effective at raising healthy children as heterosexual couples. http://www.apa.org/news/press/response/gay-parents.aspx

[E3] To some extent, this debate about homosexuality centers around a yes-or-no question, “Are marriages between two Christian partners of the same gender valid?” and so we should not be surprised to find that there are two sides – one that says “yes” and the other that says “no.” Within those sides, there is a wide range of views, from some who hate homosexuals, to others who “hate the sin but love the sinner,” to those who argue for monogamous same-sex unions, to those who believe that all sexual activity is good so long as it occurs between consenting adults. Although these differences are important, the basic structure of the “yes” and “no” sides of the argument remain surprisingly similar, as I detail in the above paragraph. There isn’t really a good way to label each of the two sides, so I have used the labels that these groups most commonly call themselves: progressives and conservatives.

[E4] Love and justice are the two most common higher principles cited by progressives, but they are by no means the only ones. People have also cited Christian freedom, hospitality, mercy, inclusion, welcome, non-judgment, non-discrimination, and several other values as Biblical principles that should compel us to embrace same-gender marriage despite the verses that prohibit it.

[E5] https://www.bmclgbt.org/single-post/2013/10/10/Fashioned-in-Love-Biblical-and-Theological-Foundations-for-Inclusion

[E6] This is particularly painful to see in the Mennonite Church, since Mennonites are a part of tradition that highly values dialogue, reconciliation, and peacemaking. Many of the early Mennonite resolutions on this subject committed "to mutually bear the burden of remaining in loving dialogue with each other in the body of Christ" (1987, "A Call to Affirmation, Confession, and Covenant Regarding Human Sexuality.") However, as time moved on and hopes of achieving consensus dwindled, the church let go of the pursuit of consensus and instead sought to establish forbearance as a principle to at least keep us together (2015, "Forbearance in the Midst of Differences." Even this did not work, as the largest Mennonite conference - Lancaster Conference - left shortly thereafter. Moreover, the rhetoric even among people who have long engaged in dialogue is starting to become more hostile.) 

[E7] The Bible calls for a rejection of gender norms, not a rejection of gender itself. Unfortunately, there are several progressives who have had some exposure to queer theory and who, upon encountering the argument that gender is socially constructed, come to the conclusion that gender is inherently oppressive and the entire construct should be rejected. Hence, they may only use gender-neutral names, pronouns, or identity markers, both for God and for people. But this is comparable to responding to racism with colorblindness. It is unrealistic, it actually harms some of the people in the LGBTQ community (especially people who are transgender, for whom the concept of gender is very important), and it misses the point. There is nothing inherently wrong with girly girls or macho guys. The problem emerges when those tendencies become ideals or norms that are imposed on people who don't happen to have them. We must learn how to celebrate gender, but reject gender norms.

[E8] Galatians 3:28. This is the most important verse that speaks to this subject, but as I shall show in future posts, it is by no means the only one.