“CHRISTIANITY – THE BIGGEST ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE”

Countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany and Brazil all offer substantial or complete marital rights to gay couples. And they may have Christianity to thank for it, says Mario Gerada

Societies that have moved most forward on gay marriage have deep Christian roots.

Take Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Colombia, Brazil… all offer substantial or total marriage equality to gay couples. All are made up of predominantly Christian populations.

Conservatives would say this is because they have drifted too far from their roots – swept along with the secular tide. Mario Gerada says that the opposite is the case. A freelance social activist focusing on marginalized and minority groups, over the last few years Mario has been working to build bridges between the Roman Catholic Church and the gay community. He argues that it is precisely because of their deep Christian roots that these countries have accepted gay marriage.

That’s not to say other religions would be an obstacle. Indeed Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism have an official line which is actually far more open to gay marriage than the Orthodox Christian – particularly Catholic – view. Both Buddhism and Hinduism lack an official position on homosexuality – making them automatically more liberal, while in the case of Judaism – even the conservative movement which is opposed to gay marriage allows individual rabbis the freedom to recognize and preside over same-sex unions. Islam opposes homosexuality yet there are reinterpretations – like the South African Muhsin Hendricks – an Islamic openly gay cleric who heads The Inner Circle – a foundation established to support Muslims coming to terms with their sexuality.

Christianity – Same-sex marriage

But the reason that Mario insists there is a direct link between Christianity and tolerance toward homosexuality to the point of accepting same-sex marriage is that “Christianity is OK with upsetting the status quo.” In the long tradition of being an Empire, Christianity may have lost some perspective – shifting its focus to self-preservation, to defending tradition, even to the extent of moving away from its core message, says Mario.

That core message, he says, is of Jesus Christ as a marginalised, oppressed victim. “Christianity reverses the idea of one person being sacrificed for the common good – in Christianity that one person is found to be the son of God. As Catholic theologian James Alison elaborates,” says Mario, “the Christian idea is about the centrality of the human person especially the oppressed person.” It’s this inclusiveness that Mario says makes Christianity open to the possibility of marriage equality. It’s why he argues that “the whole marriage equality debate is good news for all of us because it forces us to rethink” the core values of the Christian faith.

The official view

Mario’s argument might sit well with Christian denominations like the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran and the Presbyterian Churches in the U.S, the United Church of Christ and others who have gone some or a long way toward providing recognition to same-sex unions. Yet his voice seems to find little echo in the Catholic hierarchy.

Take the document put forward by Joseph Card. Ratzinger and approved by then Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II in 2003. For those hoping to see a softening of the Catholic Church’s hard line position on gay marriage, the document does not make for happy reading.

“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” says the document. “Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts ‘close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved’.” In a recent poll carried out by the Pew Research Centre which aimed to track the US public’s attitude toward same-sex unions over time – it was found that while there was a notable increase in support amongst white Catholics – “virtually all” of that increase was amongst Catholics who were attending mass “infrequently.” The opinions of regular church goers remained fixed.

So you’d be forgiven for questioning the reconcilability of Christianity and gay marriage let alone the idea that they are mutually reinforcing.

Same-sex unions 600 years ago

You might not have felt that way if you were born somewhere between the ninth and 15th century. The late Harvard-educated historian and Yale Professor John Boswell has written a controversial book called “The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” where he details historical evidence of the occasional blessing of same-sex unions by pre-modern Christians.

Yet the reaction provoked by Boswell’s book underlines the extent to which the Church’s opposition to gay marriage has now come to be seen as fundamental and unequivocal.

“When the hierarchy speaks about marriage it is not understood and the gay community is not listened to,” says Mario.

The crux of the problem, he says, is that the Church and gay community are speaking in two different languages. While the hierarchy is taking a theological perspective – the gay community is taking a human rights one. “Gay relationships are often seen as the fulfillment of lust – some of course are but many are love-giving – life-giving in the widest sense.”

A more helpful way of starting a discussion between the Clerical hierarchy and gay community, which Mario says to a large extent “speak about each other but don’t talk to each other” is what Mario refers to as the “theology of friendship” – which refers to deep, committed and exclusive love. “Theologically the Church is more comfortable talking about it as friendship.”

He says that marriage incorporates both form and content. “The hierarchy gives form a lot of importance.” Mario says he agrees that God’s design is for a man and woman to come together and have children but not only. “What about content?” he asks. “What makes a Christian marriage Christian?” Christianity, says Mario, “can help us understand love in its widest sense.”

St Perpetua and St Felicity

And a good place to start is to look at a few biblical stories. The book “Homosexuality: A Positive Catholic Perspective” by the New Ways Ministry – a US-based “gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for LGBT Catholics”, lists a host of examples of “devoted same-sex relationships”. They include St Sergius and St. Bacchus, St. Brigid of Ireland and St. Darlugdach, St. Anselm of Canterbury and Gilbert Crispin, St Bernard of Clairvaux and William Thierry, St. Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis von Stade.

Another example which the book mentions and Mario is particularly fond of is that of St Perpetua and St Felicity. Perpetua is a noble woman and Felicity her slave. Both are married and, having refused to worship pagan gods, they are imprisoned and sentenced to death.

Felicity is pregnant at the time. Her husband, like Pereptua’s, shows no sympathy or interest. Her father tries to convince her to renounce Christianity – to the point of visiting her in prison and being physically aggressive towards her.

Perpetua is Felicity’s backbone – and so strong is the love between the two women that they seem to almost merge into one another. Felicity prays that she will give birth a month earlier in order to be able to die with Perpetua. Her prayer is answered – she has her child a month earlier – and the two are killed together: thrown to animals and then beheaded.

“They may have been lesbian, they may have been bisexual… we cannot classify them using the terms by which we understand sexuality today,” says Mario. “The point is that out of all the relationships they had: husband-wife, father-daughter – this was the most meaningful. This was the example of Christian love. The Christian idea of love,” says Mario, “is that God is found within relationships and not in spite of them.” An understanding of love which Mario says is also very much needed in the context of the male-female relationship. “Many of them are still based on possession – on the idea of the woman as property.”

Meeting half way

And that’s the very heart of Mario’s argument: the positions of the Catholic hierarchy and gay community on the issue of same-sex unions have become entrenched in opposing positions because the two are speaking separate languages, making dialogue near impossible. But there is still the possibility of a common currency – says Mario – and that is the currency of Christian love.

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Posted by Louisa Bartolo on December 2, 2011. Filed under Under the Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.