MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE, DON WOOD, IS MY PHOTOGRAPH FOR THE DAY. He had nothing to do with my BLOG writing. As a matter of fact, when he called and asked if I could meet him for coffee, I knew a good conversation with one of the best teachers I have ever known was just the tonic I needed to get rid of the gloom I had injected into my day by thinking and writing about what Pat Robertson had to say about the earthquake disaster in Haiti...

THE WRITING:

Here’s the situation:

The average annual cost of keeping an inmate incarcerated in a California State Prison has risen to more than $50,000. The cost of providing health care to inmates in California prisons is more than $2 billion dollars a year. In California, where a majority of voting citizens continue to insist that the state keep the death penalty, the annual cost of keeping an inmate on death row is $90,000. The average inmate stay on death row is 25 years.

I WANT TO KNOW! How are the people of California better served by paying more for the incarceration of one of their criminals for a year by a factor of ten to one than what it costs to educate one of their children for one year? What sense does it make to decline to provide health care for ordinary, law-abiding citizens when we provide complete health care for people in prison? What sense does it make to continue the travesty of serving justice by sentencing people to die... and then keeping them in the most expensive prison situation for up to a quarter of a century... before they are killed?

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Here’s another situation:

Eleven thousand gay married couples live legally in the State of California. Gay couples are no longer allowed to marry, but those who married in the four-month window when it was legal in California to do so may stay legally married. California’s population is just under thirty-seven million people. The divorce rate in the state is high, some statistics show that as many as half of all marriages end in divorce in the state. There were no legal gay marriages before 2009.

I WANT TO KNOW! With no evidence whatsoever that the presence of 11,000 gay married couples living among heterosexual marriages has adversely affected any heterosexual marriages, why are so many people still worked up about the issue. What’s the problem?

One of the arguments being presented in the San Francisco court hearing a case that seeks to overturn Proposition 8 attempts to show that since gay couples have been allowed to marry in the Netherlands, the number of heterosexual marriages has declined. Many Americans, like our former President George W. Bush who had never been to Europe before he became president, don’t have a clue what life is like in Europe nor why it is as it is, and they mostly don't care... and I suspect that most of those who say the institution of marriage in Holland has suffered because there are legally married gays living among them don’t know that in the Netherlands NOBODY who gets married can be legally married unless he/she, he/he, she/she participates also in a civil ceremony. The problems with comparing marriage in California with marriage in the Netherlands is that in order to be fully recognized as married under Dutch law, EVERYONE must have a civil marriage ceremony (at a courthouse or a city hall). You cannot get married in The Netherlands by participating solely in a religious ceremony in a church or synagogue or mosque... Even the crown-prince and princess had two ceremonies, one at Amsterdam City Hall and the other in a protestant church.

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Here’s another situation:

The earth shook in Haiti and it is estimated that two hundred thousand people were killed and thousands more were left in more pain and misery than I have ever experienced in my life. We now know that plate tectonics as the cause of earthquakes is no longer just a theory. We know for sure that an outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, is cool enough to behave most of the time like a rigid shell; but there are cracks, and the pieces separated by the cracks are known as plates. The boundaries between the plates grind against each other, producing most earthquakes. It is very clear that something like that happened to cause the earthquake in Haiti.

I WANT TO KNOW! Why would Pat Robertson say, and I quote, “They (the Haitians) were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal [...] ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” ...the gospel according to Pat Robertson.

How could anyone actually believe this televangelist has anything useful to say about anything going on anywhere in the world... but then why should we be surprised?

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Here’s the situation:

A Christian Education program (with “complete” elementary, middle, and secondary school programs) advertises itself as being “rooted in the historic Christian tenants: that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, that God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that personal salvation is dependent upon personal acceptance, through faith, of Jesus Christ as Savior... We believe in the existence of a personal, malignant being called Satan who acts as a tempter and accuser, for whom the place of eternal punishment was prepared, where all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.”

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW! Where does the God who is Love fit into the picture? The Calvary Academy takes little kids into it’s spiritual bosom at age five and keeps them there, if their parents pay the tuition, until they are finished with their junior college program. Why would people want to scare the hell of little kids (and big kids, for that matter) by asking them to believe a personal, malignant tempter called Satan is loose in the world, and presumably doing what the Reverend Pat Robertson says he has just done to Haiti... Oh, wait a minute... was it the loving God pissed over the deal with the Satan who did it to Haiti? I guess I just don't understand. Isn't it enough already that they’ve got things like earthquakes and hurricanes to worry about. I also want to know what kinds of adults these children grow up to be.

Oh, yeah. I think I know. They become the folks who hold the line and insist that gay people shouldn’t have the same rights and privileges of citizenship that “straight” citizens enjoy. Never mind that many gay people say they are Christians. Maybe some gays even believe in the personal, malignant tempter called Satan and the “place of eternal punishment, prepared for all who die outside of Christ, confined in conscious, (don’t overlook the emphasis on the word conscious...) torment for eternity. The god the Calvary folks want their children to “accept” apparently doesn’t want the outsiders, "whose who die outside," to escape even into sleep during their confinement in hell for eternity. Oh, yeah. It really doesn’t matter if gays believe any of the other stuff. If they’re gay and have the audacity to love somebody who is also gay and want to marry and settle with them into something called a shared home, Pat Robertson and his group believe they’re out of luck. It wouldn’t solve the “conscious torment for eternity” problem, but I guess they could always move to Amsterdam... Is that spelled “Amsterdamn”?

WHERE THE CHURCH GETS IT TERRIBLY WRONG

In spite of dramatic shifts in cultural patterns, the church goes on pretending that the wedding ceremony, which it calls a sacred rite, a sacrament, is a signal to the couple being married that they can now sleep together, they can “do it.” In the not-too-distant past, whether or not a couple waited until after the wedding ceremony to consummate their marriage was beside the point. The church “blessed” the marriage whether or not they had already consummated their union. Nobody asked. Nobody told. The bride and groom, the minister, and the attending guests all pretended that the white gown ensured that the bride was “pure,” and even if the groom, as men will do, had slept around, at least she had not yet had sexual experience. So churches and congregations developed a firmly fixed attitude about marriage, that it was primarily about sex. If you are married, you can “do it.” If you are not married, it’s a sin.

The policy of the United Methodist church regarding same-gender marriage is a good example of confusion about weddings and what they mean. Many people who have long ago given up participation in “church” in any regular, meaningful way still want to have their weddings in church; and it’s as easy to arrange as buying bread if the couple asking for the church’s participation and blessing are a man and a woman.

After the California Supreme Court ruled recently that marriage is a civil right in the State of California whatever the gender of Party A and Party B, a couple of people who have been a family for at least twenty years of domestic partnership, decided to get married. Besides being long-time domestic partners, they have been long-time members of First United Methodist Church in San Diego. FUMCSD is the one perched like a cathedral above Interstate 8 in Mission Valley. The couple, Party A and Party B, have long been considered “family” by clergy and lay members. In a colorful, dignified Church Directory their photograph appears in the “Family” division of the book. For years they have given freely of their time and their money to the church. They have never been known to cause trouble in the community or in the church. They are an ideal couple. As far as I know, there has never been any wonderment or any talk about how, when, and under what circumstances they “do it.” It hasn’t been an issue.

Now that they want to be married it is an issue. Party A telephoned the senior pastor to tell him the good news. He and Party B were getting married... and guess what? “We’d like to have our wedding in the church we love, and we’d like you to perform the ceremony.” Silence. Then the bad news came like a rock thrown onto tender tissue. “I’m sorry,” the Pastor said, “You can’t be married in the church, and none of the clergy will be allowed to participate no matter where the wedding takes place.”

Reeling from that bit of bad news, Party A asked for the next best thing. The church has a great social hall. He asked, “May we have our reception in Linder Hall?”

The pastor said that he was sorry, but that they wouldn't be allowed to use any part of the church campus. "It’s not my decision. The Book of Discipline forbids it," he said. Why? Because somebody a long time ago misunderstood. A whole bunch of somebodys misunderstood. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, they thought being married was about sex, which would make being family about sex. Wrong.

A favorite response of fundamentalist Christians, the church people who insist that the Bible is the absolute, word-for-word, out of the mouth of the Head Person of the Trinity Himself truth about everything, is that “marriage is for a man and a woman.” Another version, “marriage is between a man and a woman,” is probably closer to actual fact if “between” is the significant word. Presently, 57 percent of marriages in America end in divorce. In the Bible the brief mention of sex between persons of the same gender, “a man may not sleep with a man as with a woman,” is found in what is called “The Levitical Code.” It is sometimes called “The Holiness Code.” The code developed as a way of ensuring the long-term survival and welfare of a small group of nomadic desert people.

Almost everything in tribal codes and rules was about property or about the propagation, health, and safety of the tribe. Then as now, relationships between persons were complicated, and it was necessary to anticipate all the kinds of interpersonal relations that could be harmful to the group. Tribal people had no permanent land, so it was necessary for them to include in their codes the definition of property and its distribution in the tribe, everything from tents to camels to cooking pots to women. Because practically everything was about property, marriage was a matter of property. Looking back thousands of years before the time of Abraham and Moses, we can guess that their ancestors probably existed together without having a formal marriage arrangement. When the earliest people mentioned in the Bible began to make codes, the codes addressed basic issues. It was important to know specifically which of possibly many sons was to inherit the tents, and sheep and camels. It became necessary to have some kind of business arrangement, which marriage most surely was in earliest times, to make clear which of the several, perhaps many, women with whom a man might have intercourse was to be the one to bear the son who would inherit property and responsibility. The contract of marriage, the wedding enacted as a public ceremony, was a transfer of property. The ownership of the woman was the issue. She had belonged to her father, and from the time of the ceremony she was henceforth the property of her husband. In some of the stories and myths from the period there are indications that sometimes the wife didn’t leave her father’s group; the husband came to her there, often or not often, for sexual intercourse with the hope of producing a son who would inherit his property. Sometimes the wife joined his little wandering group which included lesser wives and concubines and slaves; sometimes she did not. Legally under the code, he might have sexual intercourse with any number of women. The point is this: Marriage was not primarily about sex; it was about property. The stories of Jacob and Essau, recently included in the Lectionary, were powerful reminders of the great importance of family relationships and property.

Sexual intercourse! What did all those rules dealing with that activity have to do with the welfare of the tribe. That’s simple enough. Because a man, the husband, might wander in and out of his father-in-law’s group to be with his wife, it was apparently necessary to remind him that he could not have sexual relations with his wife’s sisters, with her mother, nor with any of her daughters, which, of course, were presumed to be his daughters. They were all women. They were property. But decisions had to be made about sexual relations with them. In the first place, the sisters and mother of his wife belonged to another man, his father-in-law, or in the case of his wife’s married sisters to his brothers-in-law. It would have been a grave offense to have used them sexually. The offense and the penalty had to be made clear in the Code.

There was another purpose for sexual intercourse that had to be considered in the Code. Obviously the sex drive in humans, as it is in other animals, is powerful. Because it was presumed that sexual encounters could be initiated only by the man, the Code addressed the matter of whom a man might consider “lawful” sexual partners. The Code’s property laws were specific and clear about the matter of sexual relations with women who were in-laws and women who belonged to other men. The Code allowed, even encouraged, the man to have sex with females who were his own property (concubines and slaves) because children from those encounters gave him more property and ensured the stability of the population of the tribe. Diseases were wicked and could wipe many people out quickly. The more children, the more people, the better.

It made sense to include specific rules in the code regarding sexual relations between men. It’s not surprising that the Code forbade the practice of men being with men to relieve their sexual tensions, obviously a common practice or it wouldn’t have been mentioned. The powerful sex drive had to be directed toward reproduction, producing more people in a scarcely populated world. Man to man sex or masturbation, “spilling the seed upon the ground,” didn’t meet that criterion, so both practices were banned. There is nothing in historical records or in literature to indicate that homosexuality is a modern phenomenon. We may excuse those early leaders of a primitive tribe in their critically under-populated world for including in their code a prohibition against men sleeping with men instead of with women. Sex with a man wasn’t going to help with the population problem. The world no longer has that particular worry. With a rapidly growing population that is now over six billion people, the world today has exactly the opposite problem. The church in the twenty-first century knows better; so it cannot be excused for doggedly holding onto a four-thousand-year-old prohibition that no longer makes sense.

The Code also addressed sexual relations between people of different tribes. The Leviticus Code, as does the Code of Hammurabi, emphasizes the importance of keeping the tribe distinct from other tribal groups. Until relatively recently, civil laws forbidding sexual relations, hence marriage, between people of different races were common in many countries of the world, including the United States. Those civil laws, made with a polite nod to the church, were based on the Leviticus Code. We are now officially enlightened. We no longer have provisions in the law that make it illegal for Party A and Party B in a marriage to be of different races or ethnic groups. Civil law has finally been adjusted to allow people from different races who love each other to marry.

In the matter of “allowing” same gender marriage, people are more reluctant and slower; but we’re getting there. Civil governments are finally, slowly catching up. The United Methodist church and other fundamentalist (our church leaders have chosen to be in that larger Christian tribe) groups aren’t willing to affirm the love relationships between two people of the same gender. The church allows them to be listed among the families in the directory, and the church allows them to contribute time and money; but marriage is obviously going too far. Pity.

It’s a paradox. Church leaders are charged with the responsibility of setting the standard and the example of what is right and just behavior; yet they are being directed to take a stand behind a policy which most of them know is flawed, perhaps even evil because it does harm. That stand ultimately weakens the church rather than strengthens it. One of California’s Bishops has reminded clergy that there are “consequences” for disobeying denominational policy. It isn’t clear if a “consequence” would be loss of a specific job or perhaps revocation of credentials; or maybe the consequence the Bishop has in mind is that powerful, influential church members might stop contributing their money and their time.

What’s a minister to do? Preach and teach. A good start would be to remind people that marriage is much less about sex than it is about family. When two people marry they form a family. The officiant at a same-gender marriage is surely not thinking he is giving the couple permission to engage in sexual activity. That is also not what traditional, opposite gender marriage does. If the wedding takes place in a church, privileged guests participate in the legal formation of a family which has the blessing of the state as well as of the church. Already First United Methodist Church has affirmed the family status of Party A and Party B by including them in the Family section of the church directory. The church has welcomed their participation by accepting their gifts of time and of money. It is unbearably cruel for the church, in spite of all its language of acceptance, to deny same gender couples the right to participate in the important sacrament of marriage. In the case of my friend, Party A, and his partner, Party B, they have chosen to respond to that cruelty by abandoning the church altogether.

The next larger Church General Conference (perhaps not the exact title) will take place in 2012. While leaders continue to insist that the church is “inclusive,” they will have four more years in which they inflict humiliation and pain on some of the very people they say they include in church fellowship. For enlightened people who stay with the church, it will be four more years of embarrassment that their church continues to be wrong in this important matter. The church's motto, "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors," will continue to be a hollow promise.

The Ritual of Marriage
Clyde Yoshida and Dave Andrews
Sunday, June 29, 2008

THE CEREMONY

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: This morning all of us here have the privilege of participating in the marriage of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. Dave and Clyde have made clear to me the importance of your participation in their ceremony of marriage. You are more than witnesses. You will be asked to pledge to give your assent to and your support of the marriage that will be established today, a marriage that was forbidden by law until a couple of weeks ago. Today, then, is an historic celebration. All of us here, and thousands of other couples who are getting married in the next few months are making history. A domestic partnership is one thing...actually, a good thing; but it is not marriage. Domestic partnership is separate from, and not equal to marriage. What we are doing here today is marriage. The ritual that we are enacting together this morning is a serious and sacred ceremony. Cultures from the earliest times in the history of mankind have performed rituals of marriage to strengthen and support relationships between two people, joining two families. The community is made stronger and better for it. It is expected that this marriage will make stronger and better both the community and the household of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. So, Let’s begin.

Richard Bach, in The Bridge Across Forever, has a statement that sums up beautifully why commitment and marriage are important.

“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can e loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.”

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: Years ago Dave and Clyde became partners, established a home together. They weren’t allowed to be married. Today that changes. They are about to become legally wedded spouses. We have agreed that the ritual of marriage should begin with a saying of vows. We are privileged to listen as Clyde and Dave exchange their vows. Years ago they exchanged rings, but today is a recommitment, so I’m asking them now to give back, just for the moment, the rings they exchanged. These are precious rings, the perfect symbols of their unending love.

TO CLYDE AND DAVE: Clyde, you will end your statement of vows with the words with, “Dave, I give you back this ring today as a token of my unending love for you,” and you will place the ring on his finger. And, Dave, after you have said your vows, you will make the same statement to Clyde and place the ring on his finger.

Clyde: Dave,

You are my teacher. You’ve taught me to be less materialistic and to stand up for myself. You’ve taught me that we can use the example of our commitment to each other to teach the skeptical that love is an enduring force. It is prevalent, grand and defies a narrow definition. Love is not a commodity to be owned by a few and limited by hate or ignorance.

You are my clown. You make me laugh. You protect the inner child in me. I can be silly, a goof and moody—I can be myself around you with absolutely no judgment. I love to look into those beautiful, innocent and wise Aquarius eyes and in return, you see me, love me and take me with you on this life adventure. You are also always full of surprise.

You are my joy. Combined with chocolate, you give me so much happiness that I am bursting at the seams. I love the morning. Waking with you and sharing all that is between the sunrise and the next sunrise. I will always be there for you. We are, since we have in the beginning, entwined in life together just as the ribbons connect our friends and family today.

You are ours. You give yourself to others and they are richer for it too. I am willing to share because the joy that abounds creates a loving cradle for our infant souls to thrive.

Dave: Clyde. I love you.

You prove to me every single day how lucky I am to share my life with you. Thank you so much.

During the 15 years we have already shared, you have filled my life with an almost overwhelming sense of joy and happiness. We have enjoyed a storybook love affair that begins a new chapter today.

How many people, for example, tell their sweet one they will be missed even during the shortest absence? When we are apart, I can’t wait to be together again. And when we are together, I think my heart beats a little stronger.

I’m very proud of all we have accomplished together. We have a wonderful network of friends and family. Our home is full of whimsy, happiness, peace, and love.

I respect and admire you and am improved by your presence in my life. Your kindness makes me kinder. Your creativity makes me more creative. As you achieve wonderful things in your profession, you inspire me to grow in mine.

You inspire me to believe in hope and peace. Because of you I look for and find the best in other people.

I love being part of you and knowing that you are part of me. You are the best partner in life that anybody could ask for. You are my love, and my heart will be yours always.

Thank you for marrying me today and for sharing your world with me. I love you.

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Commitment: If you truly commit to each other you will answer, “I do.”

Dave, Do you take Clyde to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?

Clyde, Do you take Dave to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?


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TO THE GUESTS:

This is your part, besides being witnesses to this marriage: Do you, friends and family, promise to stand by these two with your support and encouragement, to celebrate with them the good times and to be ready always with compassion and help in challenging times, for as long as you are able?

Answer: We Will.

We have done together everything that is necessary for Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida to become a lawfully married couple. All that’s left to do is for me to make the familiar official pronouncement.

Ladies and Gentlemen, by the authority vested in me by the State of California, it is now my honor and privilege to declare that you are married, that you are now lawfully wedded spouses.

Congratulations... You should now signal with a kiss the beginning of your married life together and the beginning of our after-the-wedding celebration.