Marriage–Church and State

Exactly what happens when I officiate at a wedding?  Two things happen simultaneously.  First, there is a legal function on behalf of the State.  The State of Michigan grants me the authority as an ordained clergy person to perform the wedding and sign the license.  At this moment, it has nothing to do with faith or God or religion, rather I am acting on behalf of the State to grant a legal relationship which the State will recognize through the filing of the license.  Second, there is a religious meaning to the wedding.  In preparation for marriage, I always ask the couple why they choose to be married in the church.  There are lots of places to get married, I tell them, but we come to the church to invite God’s blessing and to celebrate the commitment in the light of the Christian faith and tradition. Though we as Protestants don’t call it a “Sacrament”, we use the sacramental words to bless the rings.  They are “the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual commitment.” My ordination as a United Methodist pastor grants me that authority to represent the church and the faith in blessing a marriage in the sight of God.

This simple distinction is important to me in the whole debate about same-sex marriage, which was legal for about 24 hours in Michigan and I predict soon will be not only in Michigan but across the United States.  Just as laws against inter-racial marriage were struck down because they were unjust and unconstitutional, I can find nothing in the US Constitution to justify denying a legal marriage and all that pertains to it for gay and lesbian couples. I think Judge Friedman was right in saying that “equal protection under the law” should extend to same-sex couples as well as heterosexual couples.  If, as our Attorney General tried to argue, it is about children needing both a biological father and mother, he should be fighting for a ban on divorce since that is what undermines the traditional biological family.  Since more than half of  our marriages end in divorce, many of our kids are growing up with a single parent or multiple parents rather than just their biological father and mother.  I have never felt that a gay couple’s commitment threatened my marriage or anyone else’s.  It’s the lack of commitment that threatens traditional marriage…but that is another issue for another day.  The bottom line is that as an American I believe the time has come for the bans on same-sex marriage to go the way of bans on inter-racial marriage and as a representative of the State of Michigan, the time will come when I will be legally authorized to conduct same-sex weddings.

But then you come to the church side, the religious aspect of marriage.  Some people firmly believe that the Bible is clear about what constitutes a Christian marriage. Others argue that there are a variety of ways to interpret Scripture on marriage in much the same way we have re-interpreted Jesus’ teaching on divorce or St. Paul’s instructions on slavery. Any serious (let alone “literal”) reading of Scripture would suggest the teachings on both of these are crystal clear–no divorce or remarriage except for infidelity and the support of slavery.  However, with time and experience we have come to read those passages in a different light. The same thing is happening in regard to our understanding of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. At this time, however, as a United Methodist pastor, I am not authorized to conduct same-sex unions. Though some are challenging that restriction, I feel bound by the covenant I made when I was ordained to live and serve within the Book of Discipline in the same way I agreed to be itinerant and go where I was appointed. In 2016  the General Conference will once again debate our understanding of ordination and marriage, but until then I will respect the tradition into which I was ordained regardless of my personal conviction on the matter.

So if I was a prophet, I would quote the poet-prophet of my 60’s generation…”The times, they are a-changin'” and more specifically, as the song says, “don’t criticize what you can’t understand”.  The times they are a-changin’ in the State of Michigan, perhaps one day the same will be true in the United Methodist Church.

Jack Harnish