An interfaith statement defending marriage, conscience rights and religious liberty models authentic inter religious collaboration. Signed by Southern Baptist, Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, Anglican, Orthodox and Evangelical leaders, it declares:
It is in the best interests of the state to encourage and uphold the family founded on marriage and to afford the union of husband and wife unique legal protection and reinforcement.
The redefinition of legal marriage to include any other type of relationship has serious consequences, especially for religious freedom. It changes every law involving marital status, requiring that other such relationships be treated as if they were the same as the marital relationship of a man and a woman. No person or community, including religious organizations and individuals of faith, should be forced to accept this redefinition. For many people, accepting a redefinition of marriage would be to act against their conscience and to deny their religious beliefs and moral convictions. Government should protect the rights of those with differing views of marriage to express their beliefs and convictions without fear of intimidation, marginalization or unwarranted charges that their values imply hostility, animosity, or hatred of others.
In this and in all that we do, we are motivated by our duty to love God and neighbor. This love extends to all those who disagree with us on this issue. The well-being of men, women, and the children they conceive compels us to stand for marriage as the union of one man and one woman. We call for the preservation of the unique meaning of marriage in the law, and for renewed respect for religious freedom and for the conscience rights of all in accord with the common good.
These principles unite most religionists in America.
An unfortunate counter to this declaration was an appeal by Pennsylvania’s United Methodist bishops, who urged their state to codify against “discrimination” aimed at lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender persons.
These bishops completely ignore that United Methodism officially affirms laws in civil society defining marriage as the union of man and woman. Instead they say:
Religious freedom means we have the right to our own personal beliefs about the moral issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity. Nothing in this proposed law challenges that and the same religious exemptions that have been in the law since 1955 already preserve our freedom to hire and celebrate marriages according to our church teachings.
Question for the bishops: is religious freedom limited to internal church practice and not protected outside religious institutions in commerce and public speech?
They continue:
However, it has never been the case that religious freedom has meant that we can impose our own religious beliefs on others outside of our church or restrict their liberty to live as equals in our communities. We encourage United Methodist business owners and landlords to treat LGBT employees, customers, and tenants with the same love, respect, and hospitality that Jesus offered to all he encountered.
Question for the bishops: If the owners of a bed and breakfast will rent a bedroom only to married male-female couples, should the state shut down their business? If a male employee appears at the workplace wearing a dress, or a female employee insists on being called “he” and using the men’s room, must an employer accept or incur closure or other penalties by the state?
More from the bishops:
We recognize that many of our members and others in society are struggling with changes in our civil laws related to marriage. Many of us understand marriage to be a relationship between one man and one woman bound together by God. Religious freedom allows us to retain that understanding within the context of our religious creeds and rituals.
Question for the bishops: Why do you neglect to share United Methodism’s official stance on marriage? And why do you again imply that conscience rights only are allowed within private “religious creeds and rituals.” Do you think freedom of speech merits protection only a few hours on Sunday mornings?
And more:
The civil contract of marriage, however, is open to all in our society and has been recognized as a human right by the United Nations. Our society has decided to allow same-sex couples to have access to the more than 1000 legal benefits of civil marriage which protect these couples and their children.
Question for the bishops: The United Nations doesn’t recognize same sex marriage as a human right, and even if it did, would the UN for you override Christian teaching?
They add:
Recent events have highlighted the discomfort some religious people experience about providing goods and services to same-sex couples seeking to be married. We believe that the obligation to love our neighbors by treating them with dignity and respect must be the first consideration. This is the core of the teaching of Jesus and is more important than any moral judgment we might make about the behavior of others. It is problematic to consider changing our laws to allow people to turn others away based on moral disapproval. When would such a law allow others to judge us and restrict our own liberty to live as equals in society?
Question for bishops: Do you believe the state should financially destroy persons of conscience who decline to service same sex rites, such as the Oregon baker possibly fined $135,000? By extension, should Orthodox Jews be forced to work Saturdays, Muslims compelled to cater Christian evangelistic rallies, and atheists forced to publish religious paraphernalia?
The bishops conclude:
Brothers and sisters, let us bear with one another in love and freedom. Let us recognize the unjust suffering experienced by our LGBT brothers and sisters when they are marginalized and dehumanized, and act to protect them from harm. Let us pray for our state legislators that they will have the wisdom and courage to do what is just, and let us lift up our voices to them in encouragement – because of our faith in the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Question for bishops: How are “LGBT brothers and sisters” currently suffering in Pennsylvania in terms of employment and public accommodation? Why do you reduce these persons to a modern secular category of sexual focus instead of through the lens and dignity of Christian anthropology? And when will you speak about authentic suffering by Christian brothers and sisters, who are being butchered, tormented and imprisoned in dozens of countries?
These Methodist bishops, like most Mainline Protestant officials, cannot be truly ecumenical or even interfaith, unlike the first group cited above, because they are captive to the radical individualism of modern Western culture. Their focus is on rights, entitlement, self-actualization and materialism. They can join with other liberal religionists to demand increased spending for food stamps, or to denounce U.S. military actions. But they cannot speak to the profound moral and spiritual issues that unite most religious believers and especially Christians about human existence.
Most religionists, unlike liberal Mainline Protestants, believe in transcendent truth and God-ordained community, not self-empowered individuals creating their own reality and demanding coerced affirmation. In short, they believe in a “common good” that is constant through time and culture, as cited by the above interfaith statement.
Let’s pray that the confused officials of dying Mainline Protestantism rediscover their spiritual roots, and that some day they return to an ecumenical Christian consensus that sees the individual person as part of a wider God-created cosmos of both rights and responsibilities, undergirded by dignity and liberty.
Comment by James Stagg on April 26, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Excellent! Thank you, Mr. Tooley!
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 26, 2015 at 7:12 pm
What a load of $$$$$. Evangelicals have been harping about liberal demise for 50 years and no ones died. Are they smaller? Yes, but then seeing transcendent truth as you put it is never the province of consensus opinion. Historically it’s quite the opposite. Small is good, kind of like those apostle guys. All I hear is the scream of childs temper tantrum(my way our else!) I’ve heard it all before, the evils of long hair, rock music, pot, , communists, socialists, presbyterians, pope antichrist, on and on. The lyrics change but the songs the same. Everyones wrong except us. Your fighting a war you lost long before I was born(scopes ring a bell?) There is no such thing as a “common good” unchanged through time. America itself is proof of the changing nature of the “common good”. Worrying about civil(not religious) marriage rights for 7 percent of the population is not deeply spiritual or deeply ethical, it is simply petty whining by a priveledged group. Your myopia is stunning and in two generations you will be a footnote like the pro-slavery Christians before you. And by the way, who are you to decide who is a proper Christian. God?
Comment by Namyriah on April 27, 2015 at 7:52 am
Christians are “privileged” in 2015? What alternative reality do you inhabit? We are the ONE group in America that it is Politically Correct to slander and hate. That “privileged” nonsense doesn’t fly on a conservative website because we know it’s a lie.
Btw, you can stop gloating, Christianity will not be a “footnote,” we’ve been going strong for 2000 years, we’re an anvil that has worn out lots of hammers. A gaggle of homosexuals is not going to destroy Christianity.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 27, 2015 at 9:27 am
My reality is being a Methodist in conservative Texas that doesn’t reject orthodoxy and yes, we are privileged. We(800 of us) reject the culture war. It has brought no light, not furthered the Gospel, and been nothing but a corrosive aspect of religion and politics. Christianity is just fine, your own argument demonstrates the point. Gays can’t destroy the church because they were never a threat in the first place. God doesnt need defending. No, I’m something worse than a liberal troll. I’m a Christian whose weary of thirty years of angry people poisoning the well of Christ with rhetoric meant to inflame the gullible. We have too many in need to serve to focus on one small group of sinners when our own sins should be our main concern. 80% of the US is Christian and 22% conservative Christian. Most of us are moving on because your tree bears only bitter fruit and emperor has no clothes. Those who don’t will indeed be footnotes.
Comment by JeffreyRo55 on April 27, 2015 at 10:15 am
LOL
“Your tree bears only bitter fruit and emperor has no clothes.”
Mixed metaphors, neither of which makes any sense at all.
Who exactly is the “tree”?
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 27, 2015 at 10:43 am
The first metaphor is from the Bible and the second from a child’s book, The Emperors New Clothes. I’m sorry neither seems familiar to you.
Comment by JeffreyRo55 on April 28, 2015 at 8:39 am
I’m familiar with both metaphors. However, neither has anything to do with this article. Using metaphors generally requires that the metaphor have a “referrent.”
Your snide, superior tone indicates you are here just to make trouble, not have an adult discussion.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 9:18 am
The “referent” in this case is the original article and this thread. If taken in context there should be no confusion. I try to use fairly neutral language and I haven’t made any derogatory remarks so snide is unfair, and is itself derogatory. Not very adult of you. Superior? It’s true I do come across that way sometimes, but it’s a function of my vocabulary and not a result of some underlying narcissism.
Comment by Neil Bragg on April 28, 2015 at 4:43 pm
“God doesn’t need defending”?
So, Elijah and all the prophets were just, to use your own words, engaging in “temper tantrums”? John the Baptist could have kept his mouth shut, he’d have lived much longer.
Courage is an indispensable Christian virtue, without which the others are meaningless. The culture war is worth fighting. God told us to be on the right side, not the winning side.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 5:18 pm
If you believe God shapes history according to his plan and speaks to each generation through prophets then current trends in history should give you pause. The Bible traces a six thousand year history of God changing his mind from Noah to Jesus. If God is still speaking, you should acknowledge the possibility that he’s not speaking to you.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 6:40 pm
But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life. He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways. For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like heads of grain. (Job 24:22-24 NIV)
Comment by yolo on April 27, 2015 at 7:45 pm
You must be really proud of all of the activities in that list. The truth is, you want approval of those activities. Why do you yearn for approval when you “know” that those activities are good? Because deep down you know that they’re wrong.
Comment by yolo on April 27, 2015 at 7:48 pm
Whose approval is it that you seek? The people who would say that you’re wrong and point it out with examples.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 8:55 am
What silly psychobabble. I’m retired. My activities are gardening, spending time with my wife, and helping lead worship at my church three times on Sunday. The only thing I feel deep down is acid reflux. That said, I’m called not to judge people I don’t approve of and treat them with dignity and respect. That includes you. Your mistake is to reduce religion to rules and punishment, approval and disapproval, just like the Pharisees. As a Christian you are not required to approve of behavior but you must treat human beings well in spite of their actions. Conservative Christians have utterly failed to live up to the name “Christ Follower”.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 10:19 am
Let’s recap. We have some warmed over talking points, some incorrect assumptions coupled with bad psychology, and a prose criticism. Does anyone have anything salient to say about the points in my post or the article?
Comment by abinboothbay on April 28, 2015 at 12:07 pm
There is a line between being “in” the world and “of” the world. I left the Methodist Church because it crossed that line. It is no longer Bible believing, or even Wesleyan.
About 15 years ago, I was a fly on the wall at a gathering of Methodist pastors, one of which expressed the opinion that if the values of the Methodist Church became indistinguishable from worldly values, it would become irrelevant as an arm of Christ’s Church. Prophetic…
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 1:45 pm
And what does parroting an old evangelical talking point have to do with my post?
Comment by abinboothbay on April 28, 2015 at 3:20 pm
Ahem…not just evangelical talking point, it’s straight out of scripture. If scripture isn’t relevant as your guide, what is?
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 28, 2015 at 5:12 pm
“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. (John 12:47 NIV)
Comment by Fran Brunson on April 28, 2015 at 9:47 pm
Nothing wrong with “an old evangelical talking point” if the point is correct. My church has lots of people who left the UM and other mainlines because they didn’t find God there.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 29, 2015 at 9:29 am
About half of our membership are refugees from conservative churchs. So you’ve divided everyone into separate warring camps and weakened the Christian family further. Good for you.
Comment by Benjamin Wortham on April 29, 2015 at 9:41 am
If you don’t find God in every church, synagogue, mosque, and prison cell, your not looking for God. Your looking for something else.
Comment by Phil Mitchell on April 26, 2015 at 7:53 pm
Good questions, Mark. Now one more; in what sense are these Bishops distinctively Christian? They have capitulated to the cultural elite and now carry water for the New York Times, Harvard, etc. I can assure you that these latter two represent a world that hates Christians. So the bishops now defend those who hate Christianity and do not defend Christian conscience. So whose side are they on?
Comment by Namyriah on April 27, 2015 at 8:04 am
Sorry, but having worked for one of the Mainlines (who are now outnumbered by Evangelicals), my advice would be not to pray for them but to leave the sinking ships, as thousands of people have and will continue to do. Christianity is too big to be limited to some institution (just as it was too big to be just a sect of Judaism). I don’t admire people trying “stay and reform our church,” frankly, because that directs too much time and energy away from more important tasks, like evangelism and Christian nurture. The apostles were not a reform movement within Judaism, they blazed a new path, and the Reformation (despite its name) was also a new path.
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm
I’ve still never heard a sound argument as to how Same-Sex marriages will in any way diminish the Heterosexual marriages.
Seriously, being upset about a Gay couple getting married is like being on a diet, and being upset that someone near you is eating a fattening doughnut!
No sense whatsoever!
If anything, Christians should try to restrict Hollywood/Celebrity marriages if they’re truly concerned about the sanctity of the institution.
Comment by jjgrndisland on April 27, 2015 at 9:29 pm
Give it a rest, old thing.
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 29, 2015 at 8:35 am
I’m probably younger than you, jjgrndisland!?
So what is your opinion on this subject?
Comment by abinboothbay on April 28, 2015 at 12:22 pm
To me, it’s silly to use the word “marriage” to describe the relationship between two guys or two women.
If you and I invented badminton today, would we engage in a big fight to have it called tennis? No. It would distort the language.
Why didn’t gay people go after a name like life-partners or some other suitable tag for their relationship? My guess is POWER. They want to force acceptance of their lifestyle.
So, in a gay marriage, who’s the bride and who’s the groom? Who are the bridesmaids and best man? Who is the husband and wife? The bullying gay movement has now polluted the meaning of those words as well.
Language, over time, matures by becoming more and more precise. Forcing confusion into word definitions defeats that progression. Confused about their sexual identity, a small group of politically powerful people has forced confusion into our language.
Shame on us…
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 28, 2015 at 1:22 pm
I can appreciate your point, abinboothbay.
Although, I don’t think it boils down to semantics, or more definitive language as much as the Institution of Marriage is a social construct that should (for free societies at least) mean the same thing for all it’s participants.
In a same-sex marriage the “Bride” or “Groom” is merely doubled. No cumbersome word play or doubt as to who the participants are, just people making serious, loving, dedicated commitments to one another.
There is no pollution of the tenets of the ceremony, or it’s intent. Just the unavoidable awkwardness of a society trying to evolve.
There will be creaks and groans, but the glee of elation for those who marry their soul-mate will hopefully drown out the detractors shrieks!
Comment by abinboothbay on April 28, 2015 at 3:30 pm
When something new is created, as “gay marriage” is new, why hi-jack an existing word? New game, new name.
Why not name it Darriage instead of marriage.
Softball is not baseball, hockey is not soccer, and badminton is not tennis. If blacks followed the same logic as gays, they’d demand to be called white. Does that make any sense? Does it clarify, or create fogginess?
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 29, 2015 at 8:33 am
There is some common sense to your suggestion, but by calling Marriage by any other name, suggests that there are differences between Straight-marriage, and Gay-marriage.
Separate but Equal comes to mind, and we all know that wasn’t fair.
The institution of marriage is marked by a ceremony that publicly ties two individuals
to a faithful commitment to one another.
Why should it be called something different if it’s intent is the same?
Comment by abinboothbay on April 29, 2015 at 12:12 pm
I don’t see it as the same at all. When God invented “marriage” in Genesis, it involved a man and woman. That’s His invention, and He patented it under the name Marriage. If man invents a similar, but new invention, it needs its own name. Why try to justify confusing our language?
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 29, 2015 at 5:57 pm
Firstly, not everybody considers the Bible to be the Authority that YOU do!
If you chose to believe the Adam and Eve narrative, that’s fine, but it doesn’t address the reality of humankind and our evolution among the species.
“Marriage” has constantly undergone changes.
Consider just a little over two-hundred years ago, Coverture Laws restricted the equality of married partners.
So Marriage didn’t hold the same entitlement to the female participant, but exclusively for the male/Groom.
Just keep in mind, this is a civil issue, and not a religious one for those of us who believe in the Constitution’s promise of living Happy and Healthy lives!
The term Marriage serves it’s purpose quite accurately for all who wish to tie the knot. No name change required!
Comment by MarcoPolo on April 29, 2015 at 6:01 pm
Marriage isn’t new, and Gays and Lesbians are not seeking to change it… but just join into the institution as it stands.
There is no distinction between Heterosexual-Marriage, and Gay-Marriage! It’s just MARRIAGE!
Get used to it!
Comment by Fran Brunson on April 28, 2015 at 9:49 pm
I think the sad truth is that the heterosexuals who support homosexual “marriage” don’t have a high opinion of marriage themselves. There are plenty of liberal clergy who are serial adulterers, so they are consistent in their tolerance for sexual immorality. Marriage doesn’t mean much to them, so naturally they can claim to be generous in extending it to as many people as possible.
Comment by abinboothbay on April 29, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Amen to that!
Comment by Rev, Vaughan Hayden on July 31, 2015 at 1:20 pm
Mark, did you forward these questions to those bishops and did you get a response? Are they on your mailing lists or subscribe to your blog? It appears they are listening to other voices, so what do we do for them to hear your voice as well?