It all began in the immediate aftermath of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) bill passing successfully through the House of Lords in mid-July 2013 (about a fortnight ago). I noticed that my old friend - for the purposes of this blog, we shall call him Peter - has posted links on Facebook to quite a few religious writers who were adamantly against the bill. So, I decided to enter into debate by posting this as a comment on one of his links:
"Hi Peter,
You've not been backward about posting your responses to the recent legislation over the last couple of days, so I figured that opened the doors for me to query them.
Could you explain to me, an atheist, why you disagree with this law? Obviously simply stating, as [one of Peter's links] does, that we must follow God's law, isn't going to hold much sway with me. I assume there must be more to your reasoning than that.
This is the first opportunity I've found to discuss this with an ordained person, so would be interested in your response.
Cheers,
Chris."
Genuinely, I wanted to hear his point of view and try to understand his argument. A response soon came [use of links and bold print are my additions throughout]:
The love of a man and woman in marriage expresses itself in the physical act of lovemaking which leads to procreation, and the birth and education of children within a loving Christian family. It is the building block of society. rather than see such things thrown away I seek to live out my faith and proclaim it so that people, yourself included, may come to believe and have life in all its fullness, through Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
You might expect me to respond to this, but in fact I was busy living my life. However, one of Peter's other Facebook friends, who I shall call Ian, chipped in. I have edited his response slightly but the meaning is unchanged:
Peter and I disagree here (if I may put words in his mouth) in a sense he wants to narrow the understanding, to ensure the estate of "covenant promises" is not watered down. I on the other hand, would like to see it broadened to cover a wider understanding of non-biological procreation, having accepted the modern break between sex and birth.
Better even than Ian was the next (presumably) friend of Peter, who I can't help but like. We'll call him Al:
There's no real Biblical support for religious marriage ceremonies at all and until the 18th Century there wasn't seen to be any need in England either.
Peter:
Ah but as Christians we are the
New Israel, and under an New Covenant, Our Lord gives clear teaching on
marriage in the Gospels. Churches were the only place where one could marry.
The Civil Registration of Marriage is a novelty, and a dangerous one at that.
Alarm bells definitely sounding now. Not only is he against same sex marriage (which is not in itself a shock) but now civil marriage, which I'd thought to be thoroughly uncontroversial?
Over to Ian, who ignores Peter and responds to Al:
Al, may I offer a curt
response? The Christian view is not a "Biblical View" per se. The
majority of Christian thinkers happily base their theology on tradition as a
(secondary) source of revelation.
In addition to this, read the whole of the texts, you quickly see that where non one-man-one-woman relationships appear, things go wrong.
NB I am, to an extent playing Devil's Advocate.
In addition to this, read the whole of the texts, you quickly see that where non one-man-one-woman relationships appear, things go wrong.
NB I am, to an extent playing Devil's Advocate.
Al picks up on both their points:
Ian, I would agree that one man, one woman is the ideal. However, no disease, no famine and no death are also ideals, but condemning people because they don't live in ideal circumstances seems rather harsh.
Interesting, I thought, that even the most liberal contributor to this debate thinks heterosexuality is "the ideal" - not "the norm". Peter's next comment confused me a bit, given he's an Anglican, but that may be my atheist ignorance:
The clearest teaching on marriage, its nature, use and good may be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Al, slightly edited to remove redundancy and repetition:
I would
argue that heterosexual relationships might be what God intended, but we have
to deal with reality. We have homosexual people. We can either tell them
"tough luck, God intended you to be single", or we can do something
to help them achieve loving, stable and faithful relationships given the way
that God has actually made them. I believe that marriage is the way to do this,
so I would be more than willing to marry two men, or two women, because I think
that fidelity is more important than gender.
Encouraging. An understanding of homosexuality not being a choice. Peter now brings up the "adultery" argument:
Al responds at once, elaborating on his earlier tack:
Sadly, that argument is circular. You can't have sex outside marriage, but you can't have marriage if you're gay. Ergo, you have a choice between celibacy or sin.
Since the Devil needs advocates, I might ask "Why is God such a lousy creator as to make people gay in the first place? Surely you aren't ignoring all the biological evidence and suggesting that being gay is a choice?" (Note: I accept that for a very small minority of people it may be, but that's not true for most of the gay people I know).
Ian's back, trying to steer the argument onto safer ground and Al's perfectly reasonable response makes it clear that, like Peter, he is a clerk in holy orders:
Al, may I ask, in what actual
way do civil partnerships (or at least, a modified form) not already offer this
legal protection, and celebration?
Ian, the problem with civil partnerships is that
the church fought tooth and nail not to call it marriage. Had we allowed the
term, the fuss would have died down. Thus we made the rod for our own backs.
Annoyingly, it is illegal for me to conduct a gay marriage, because I am
ordained.
Al, I actually agree with you
here.
It's all quite civilised. Then Peter drops the big one:
Holy crap. I remind you that I used to know this guy, I went to school with him. I had no idea, when I posted my original question, that the debate would end up here! It's over to Al:
That was perhaps a defensible stance in the Middle Ages when we knew nothing much about human biology. A little reading around the genetics and perinatal studies of homosexuality shows it to be woefully inadequate now. Are you aware of intersex people, for example? The Bible isn't and nor is the blessed catechism, but they exist and always have.
I think Al is being optimistic here. Trying to get someone who thinks homosexuality should be illegal to accept the validity of intersex people is like trying to get someone who dislikes reading to tackle James Joyce. Peter now gets rather snotty with his colleague:
You are entirely wrong, Al, and have espoused the classic liberal heresy of privileging reason over scripture and tradition, you have conformed yourself to the world, your views are worthless, sewage.
I admire Al for his restraint here:
I think that the same things were probably said about those who wanted to abolish slavery, which had rather a lot of warrant from scripture and tradition. I'll have to take my chances with being on the side of valuing all people as equal. I hope it's God's side, but thankfully I'm confident that he'll be merciful with me if I'm wrong.
All of the above occurred within two hours. Finally, I switched on my phone and read all this. My lengthy response spent some time recapping on everything that had been said, so I will edit it here to avoid repeating what's already in the blog:
Wow. So hi, I'm back.
First of all, I do enjoy seeing believers argue between themselves - no, not
schadenfreude, simply because it shows up the breadth of views between people
who are supposed to stand for the same thing. Ian and Al seem like people
who are useful in a debate and I have enjoyed their points.
Peter, your initial response sent me scurrying to read Mark 10:6-9, which I note doesn't contain the word "marriage". I was going to give a response along those lines. Then [...] your friends/colleagues chipped in and did a better job than I could have done as I am not learned in theology.
But then your own messages became more and more alarmingly bigoted. [...] You're an intelligent man. I remember you as a very intelligent boy. You have qualifications coming out of your ears. And yet your arguments are infantile, insulting and patronising. Read this thread back and see who is trying to debate and who is just cutting everyone dead with an "I'm right, you must be wrong" attitude. I am so disappointed.
It's beyond me why the various churches are so uptight about this issue. Any reading of the New Testament must surely take away Jesus's antipathy to hypocrites, money-hoarders and those who oppress the needy, probably entirely overlooking the tiny handful of oblique references to homosexuality. And yet, anyone reading all the headlines about Christianity for the past 5 years or more would assume all you guys care about is what women and/or gay people should be allowed to do.
Oh, one final point. Al has "espoused the classic liberal heresy of privileging reason over scripture and tradition", has he? So...REASON is a heresy? Using our own reasoning intelligence to try to understand the world rather than blindly accepting what we're told? Seriously, this is frightening.
I didn't get into this for a fight. But then, I didn't know what you were going to say.
Do you think I was too harsh here? I can't make up my mind. But this was several days ago now and reading it back, I can't find anything I regret typing. Anyway, the thread ended at this point. The next thing that happened was that I received a series of private messages from Peter. I won't share most of them, because they were of a personal nature. Indeed, some of what he said fed my reluctance to unfriend him and write this blog. In the end, though...well, you'll see. Here is the portion of Peter's private communication that I feel comfortable sharing:
If you want to talk about it, give me a ring, I'll give you my number
I would genuinely like to talk to you about it
and apologies for calling you a pillock, you weren't being one, it just sounded like it
the problem is that conservative views on sex and gender are where Christians find themselves in disagreement, and the media, who are generally pro liberal and pro-atheist and anti-Christian stir everything up, and say 'ooh look at you - you lot are backward or bickering, unlike us enlightened types' which is deeply patronising. I have to admit that my ranting earlier did not exactly show my position in a good light, for which I apologise wholeheartedly and profoundly
I appreciate the apology offered here, although he hadn't really done anything to me for which he ought to apologise. I hope he apologised to Al, but I'm willing to bet he hasn't apologised to the entire non-heterosexual community.
What he did do at about this point is delete the thread. I had had the foresight to copy the entire thing onto a Word document once I saw where it was going (specifically for the purpose of writing something like this blog).
So, here's the key part of my response via private message:
In fact - let's get to the heart of it - do you stand by what you said earlier? Namely, that homosexuality should be re-criminalised?
Apologies and excuses are all very well, but I wanted him to confirm his position. His apology had muddied the issue. What about his rant did he feel had shown him in a poor light - the argument or the way he conducted it?
I was not to find out. This was 10 days ago and he has not responded. He has continued to post links on Facebook, but my question went unanswered.
I think it's healthy to have Facebook friends and follow people on Twitter (and even, who knows, to know people in real life) who disagree with you politically. Outright bigotry, however, is another matter. I'm grateful to Ian and especially Al for showing that Peter doesn't speak for their whole faith. But, when it comes down to it, who represents the stance of the Bishops and Archbishops, the Anglican orthodoxy, most accurately - Al? Ian? Or Peter?
