Gay Marriage - Rev. Marlin Lavanhar

if you haven't figured it out yet my topic this morning is gay marriage and it's being talked about all over the airwaves and people are having conversations all around it's important and I realized that it's a subject that makes some people uncomfortable you know because talk of gay marriage makes people think of gay sex and thinking of gay sex make some people very uncomfortable now to be honest if I think or try to imagine most of you married people having sex that makes me really uncomfortable it makes me very uncomfortable but I still support your right to be married this is an enormous ly important issue and it should not be driven by anyone's discomfort about what to people do in the privacy of their own home this is not ultimately about sex this is about family and love and what is best for the children and society and what is best for the institution of marriage itself now if I thought that same-sex marriage would harm marriage children or society I would be the first in line to get up into this pulpit and speak out against it and so I ask especially to those who have these concerns that I just asked you to seriously consider the points that I have to bring forward on this subject this morning first of all let's start with the most basic same gender loving people are not going away all right no matter how much same gender loving people are not going away no matter how much some people wish for it we will never return back to the 1940s and 50s when gay people lived hidden in the shadows of society nobody's going back into those closets it's not gonna happen the science and the research has shown us again and again that a small percentage of society is homosexual and there is nothing that they can do about it even if they wanted to and many have tried people who are attracted to people of the same gender will continue to fall in love will continue to form couples and will continue to do so more and more openly in our society homosexuality is a fact of life and it always has been do you realize that same-sex marriage is now legal in Spain Argentina Iceland Brazil Belgium Norway Sweden South Africa Portugal the Netherlands Mexico and Canada it's also legal in seven states in the united states plus the District of Columbia it's legal in Iowa so plus municipalities even in states where same-sex marriage is not a marriage equality is it does not happen there's still those government's have found ways to support many have to support partner benefits and legal rights for gay and lesbian people and bisexual and transgender people and so have almost every major corporation in this country and a growing majority of Americans say that they support equality for gay and lesbian people so LGBT people lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people are our neighbors our friends our brothers and sisters our children our fathers our mothers our doctors our police officers our lawyers our politicians and yes even our ministers and the truth is they always have been we just didn't know it or didn't want to talk about it people in denial need to realize the fact that gay Americans are here to stay and our one small part of the beautiful and ornate human mosaic of life and like all people LGBT people are worthy of love and support and free and full equality and freedom now when we realize that from now on there will always be gay couples and families taking part in our communities and societies the question becomes how best can we support all individuals and all families to live healthy and productive likes lives like we all want to do and we all want our children to be able to do now this is personal for me as a minister because I've been with same-sex couples at births and deaths and celebrations and sorrows in their lives just as I have been with heterosexual couples my experience has made the discrimination against these families much more real and painful I've not only seen the families hurt financially by unfair tax and inheritance laws but I've talked with partners who've been denied access to to his loved one during a medical emergency because he was not considered legally to be family I've watched the family of a female partner of over 20 years who cared for her lover every day through a debilitating illness and the family did not want to mention her in the memorial service or let her sit with the family at the funeral not in this church though I'll tell you never in this church would that happen I've seen this injustice and Prejudice up close and I am outraged it's time to support the legal and equal rights of LGBT people and one of those rights is marriage so let's talk about marriage for a minute it's both a religious and a civil institution as a religious institution it has various rituals and rules and restrictions depending on what tradition you come from it's also very much a civil institution and while the religious rules might vary all marriages in this country are governed by the civil laws of the land which are the same for all now let's take an example the Catholic Church's rules about marriage do not permit contraception or divorce okay if you're Roman Catholic you can follow those doctrinal rules by personal conscience but no one is legally bound by our government to follow those rules in fact we are probably the most religiously pluralistic country in the world right now and yet some clergy and politicians try to argue that we are and should be a Christian nation and I ask if so which Christian doctrines should we use to create our laws now there are over 70 million Roman Catholics in America they are not only the largest group of Christians in this country by far but they are also the largest single faith group in America so does that mean that the doctrine of no divorce and no contraception should be the law of this land most Americans would disagree including the millions of Catholics who've gotten divorced and used contraception in this country the point is that what makes our democracy so strong and our religion so free is that no one is forced by our government to follow anyone else's religion and our religions are free to practice their faith within the vast freedoms of the law the government is here to provide equality under the law to all of our citizens it doesn't matter what religion the most of the members of our country come from whether it's Catholic or Mormon or Muslim we must never let religious doctrines dictate the laws and restrict the freedoms of our citizens it doesn't matter which religion has the most members in this country whether it's Catholic or Mormon or Muslim we must never let religious doctrines dictate our laws and restrict our freedoms what this means is that no religion could be compelled by our government to marry same gender loving people if it conflicts with their beliefs but at the same time if it becomes laws those religions that agree can marry same gender couples now right now in Oklahoma it's a felony to officiate a same-sex wedding now every time our ministers perform one we can be fined $500 and be subjected to no less than one year in prison but we've been performing them for almost 30 years in this congregation but these couples do not receive any legal rights as a married couple in this state or country but so far no one's gone to jail with the recent vote against marriage equality in North Carolina there been a lot of Christian leaders including Billy Graham saying that the Bible is clear that the message about marriage is that marriage is between one man and one woman the Bible is clear now Mitt Romney has weighed in saying that he is sticking with 3,000 years of tradition that marriage is between one man and one woman now I don't know what Bible these men are reading and Mitt Romney needs a history lesson let's look at the Bible and 3,000 years of marriage now Jacob in the Bible had two wives Leah and Rachel and two concubines Bilhah and Zilpah he has 12 sons by these four women who became the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel now according to the Bible God approved of an ordained Jacobs family because he was eventually renamed Israel and made the father of his nation now the most revered King in the Bible David had 14 wives he also slept with Uriah's wife sometimes you never have enough and then and then David had Uriah killed so that he could marry her now according to the Bible God so clearly approved of this biblical family that it says the Messiah shall come from David's family and Christians believe the Messiah did come from this family the Bible says King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines now he's known as the wisest man I just wonder how he had time to do anything the Bible also says that if a man dies without airs his brother is required to marry the widow and produce offspring that's Genesis chapter 38 according to the Bible law according to God's law in the Bible in Deuteronomy chapter 21 women could be kidnapped during war and forced into marriage that's part of biblical traditional laws about marriage not to mention that an unmarried woman who had been raped was required to marry her attacker that's Deuteronomy chapter 22 another traditional biblical marriage Jesus of course took his disciples away from their families never married most of them never married but so many Christian clergy today say the Bible is clear about traditional marriage and it's between one man and one woman now as for mr. Romney sticking with 3,000 years of history for most of European history marriage was primarily a business arrangement between two families who arranged the marriage of their children here in the United States before the 1850s it was illegal in most states for slaves to marry it also used to be legal for a husband to beat and rape his wife in the court ruling in Virginia barely fifty years ago the judge denied a couple an interracial marriage which was illegal in most states at the time we're talking 50 years ago in his ruling he like many today claimed to know what God intended about marriage he stated in this official court document Almighty God created the races white black yellow Malay and red and he placed them on separate continents and but for the interference with this arrangement there'd be no cause for such marriage the fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix I'm glad to say that the Supreme Court later unanimously throughout that ruling and it was in 1967 that interracial marriage became legal in the United States of America the point is that we have redefined marriage many many times in many many significant ways over the past three thousand years and even over the past 50 years and most of us would agree that it was a good thing and it's time once again for us to redefine it to make the laws of marriage more fair and equal as we have been doing decade after decade in this nation and there is nothing at all unprecedented about it I heard one legislator recently on the news I hear this kind of stuff all the time saying what's next are we gonna let people marry their pet turtles too if they love them right same-gender loving people are asking are not asking for any rights that heterosexual people don't already have and heterosexual couples if you haven't heard can't marry their pets or children for that matter and same gender loving couples don't want to either the issue is whether to legally consenting adults can choose to be married in this country and whether their relationships and their families deserve the same support and protections that every other family has now I used to think that as long as we came up with something like civil unions and gave the same protections to same gender couples that that married couples have that that would be okay and that we could preserve the word marriage and the title marriage for others but my viewpoint on this has evolved and here's why I've realized that allowing same-sex marriage is actually the best way to protect the institution of marriage itself in his book called gay marriage author Jonathan Roush makes a salient argument that if we start to create new types of legal arrangements for gay couples what he calls marriage light then these legal arrangements civil unions etc cannot be denied to heterosexual couples as well who want them in this country so guess what already there is a precipitous drop in marriage rates in the United States as more and more couples decide to live together and not get married now if couples are given options that give them the rights and the protections of marriage without the full responsibilities and obligations it's likely that more and more heterosexual couples will prefer that option as well instead of American children growing up with the expectation of marriage they would grow up with an assortment of non marriage options and legal arrangements that they might choose from now how long before young people start to say oh you have a traditional marriage how quaint the best way to preserve and to protect marriage and all that it means and that it offers to our society is to create not is not to create new legal forms but to open up marriage the same gender loving couples marriage is an extremely important institution in our society for the care of one another in sickness and in health if people don't have a family who takes care of them it falls to their neighbors or their co-workers or the state who else besides a spouse is legally and morally emotionally and economically there when a person has a stroke or a debilitating illness or a breakdown or loses their job marriage offers one of society's most fundamental units of care and support that's why it's an enormous obligation it's an enormous commitment and it's an enormous challenge and that's why rightfully in this country we offer married couples so much support in our laws in our tax codes and in so many different ways socially and culturally so that they will be successful because society relies on those strong units of support our communities and future generations depend heavily on strong families and supporting marriage equality is the only way to ensure a strong future for the institution of marriage in this country now what's interesting and John rauch points this out is that LGBT people have gone from advocating for LGBT rights to advocating for LGBT responsibilities right at first LGBT folks simply wanted the legal right to be able to have sex to walk down the street and safety and to hold a job and now their focus is on taking responsibilities such as marriage military service and rearing and mentoring the young we should be supporting this movement for responsibility for those of us who are in this congregation this is not an abstract issue because our beloved Associate Minister Reverend Tamara loboc and her wife Jill have been together for more years than my wife and I have been together they're going on 17 years they they have they have a home and a child and so much more they both have service-oriented jobs they are active parts of our church and our wider community but they cannot be legally married now fortunately our church's health coverage is through our national denominational office and therefore Jill is covered as Tamra's partner but as I learned researching this sermon she's not covered on the dental insurance there are so many legal and tax advantages that heterosexual marriage automatically confer that cost couples like Tamara and Jill a lot of money to replicate and some can't be replicated at all and this is unfair discriminatory and wrong now legal marriage would fix all of those inequalities with the signing of a pen but also and most importantly it matters when it comes to their daughter Beckett even though they are both her parents Tamara is her biological mother since they are not legally married in Oklahoma if something were to happen to Tamara Jill has no legal rights to her own daughter think about that Tamara cannot put her in her will because children are not like soup spoons they cannot be willed to another person in situations like this despite being a child's parent for years and years and years in Oklahoma the biological father and his family have more rights than the child's mother now believe it or not in this state even a completely anonymous sperm donor has more rights and that it anonymous sperm donors family have more rights in Oklahoma than the mother of a child in this situation that's not the biological mother that's just not okay now of course Joe cannot adopt Beckett in Oklahoma unless Tamra were to give up her parental rights which would defeat the entire purpose right and this would never happen between these two but if they broke up Jill would have absolutely no rights to the visitation of our own daughter now this is the case with tens of thousands of children and families all over America today and it has to stop as a nation we have to take our heads out of the sand and create legislation that give equal protection under the law to all Americans one person recently pointed out isn't it ironic that the strongest lobbying against marriage equality is coming from the roman catholic church hierarchy and the Mormons and I'd like to add also from many african-american church leaders now the Catholic Church hierarchy are officially celibate and unmarried now pardon me saying this but they seem like an unlikely group to be dictating this country's marriage laws now the Mormon Church was instrumental in funding proposition 8 in California to block marriage equality in that state now they seem so hell-bent on what they call traditional marriage but their most revered prophet Brigham Young after whom they named their most prestigious university he had 55 wives and he had children was 16 of them now when MIT Romney says he's sticking with 3,000 years of tradition and marriage it makes you wonder what in the world he's talking about and then the strong opposition of many african-american church leaders is among the most heartbreaking now let me just say that fortunately many of the most revered african-american clergy are coming out day in and day out right now in support of the president's position on marriage equality for example a giant of the civil rights movement the reverend joseph Lowery who delivered the benediction at President Obama's inauguration he's come out the dr. Raphael Warnock Reverend dr. Raphael Warnock who is who serves as in Martin Luther King Junior's former congregation evany zur Baptist in Atlanta Georgia Otis Moss the third at Chicago's Trinity Church of course our own Bishop Carlton Pearson has been on CNN twice in the last two weeks speaking out for marriage equality and Reverend Gerald Davis here has been a pioneer on merit for marriage equality in this community but that said there is still a strong voice coming from african-american clergy in America against marriage equality and against the inclusion of LGBT people into the full rights of American society now they are using the Bible to make their case and it's particularly sad because of the long history of white preachers using the Bible to subjugate and discriminate against african-americans Bible verses were used to outlaw a slaves ability to marry we used to support the entire institution of slavery and it's not hard if you read the Bible literally God clearly ordained slavery as a way to organize human societies it's in there it's all over there and so we have to just deal with that if we're going to be literal about our translation of the Bible it's been used that way verses were used to keep slave families from Marion used to block interracial marriage all the way up until 40 years ago in this country that these preachers are using the same tactics to suppress LGBT people's rights is a particularly sad moment in African American churches that have been known to be a bastion of liberation in this nation I want to quote extensively here from Michael Eric Dyson who's a professor at George Georgetown University and a prominent african-american author and commentator and a Baptist minister for 30 years and he said last week on The Ed lacy show we must not use the Bible to create more enemies of the faith but to use our faith to create more friends with the least and the loss than the lonely my Bible tells me Jesus said you should love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and love thy neighbor as yourself there are no asterisks on what Jesus said except gay people except lesbian people except bisexual and transgender people do we really want to use the Bible in the same way it was used against us many white Christians believing that they were under the Spirit of God and the anointment of their faith believed that black people should be marginalized second-class citizens put out of the church refused entree not given communion because they were not human they were not Christian and therefore they were not their brothers and sisters they cited biblical texts to justify their bigotry do we want to become sexual rednecks he said do we want to extend the same trajectory of transgression and tragic suppression of the belief and faith of GLBT people do we want to stand on the wrong side of history because we have a narrow parochial provincial conception of faith I call upon all of my friends and clergymen and clergy women and people of faith and thinkers and prominent african-american people to stand against this kind of bigotry come on put down your covering and sanctification of bigotry bigotry in the name of faith when all you're doing is getting God to cosign your bigotry let's be bigger than the bigotry let's stand above the provincial and the narrow and call upon the faith of our fathers and our mothers to release and to free those who are oppressed and not to reinforce their oppression that's what niacin has to say on the subject of discrimination and bigotry and inequality are always bad for children bad for society and bad for everyone marriage equality is good for gays it's good for straights it's good for marriage and it's good for America so let's support it god bless you you

Channel: All Souls Unitarian

Views: 15,398

Rating: 4.5141244 out of 5

Keywords: All, Souls, Unitarian, Church, Universalists, Universalism, Sunday, Service, Sermon, Gay, Marriage, Justice, Heterosexual, Homosexual, Family, Right, Civil, Rev., Marlin, Lavanhar

Id: cJTF_ZnMGmA

Length: 30min 15sec (1815 seconds)

Published: Mon May 21 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Fair enough.

[u/[deleted]]

No. If he doesn't take his own religion seriously, why should I do it for him?

This is why I think religious moderates need to be called out more:

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This is my MAIN problem with /r/atheism lately.

Whats up with all this undue praise for religious moderates?

All of these are threads that they're getting all this praise in just for being religious moderates.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/rny0s/australian_christians_know_whats_up/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/rwmk6/as_a_christian_redditor_i_would_like_to_say_that/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ray5f/uh_embarrassing/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/rl1lu/church_in_my_town_of_burlington_vt_doing_it_right/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/r9qw9/carl_sagan_and_the_dalai_lama/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/r8gwn/providence_ri_doing_it_right/

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ro85g/the_world_needs_more_churches_like_this/

Its nothing new. Why does /r/atheism love to act like people are automatically off the hook for being progressive, when thats not the point.

They want to NOT kill gays or women? Thats great!...now how about you stop invalidating religion at the same time you try to support it. Its not helping anyone.

Its incredibly annoying.

Religious moderates are starting to become as bad as the fundies.

Why?

They don't recognize their own cognitive dissonance.

It should not be allowed for them to reject and declare parts of the bible as metaphor or mistranslations and simultaneously adopt other parts as literal and inerrant...while proclaiming that the book itself is infalliable.

Fuck.

That.

Religious moderates are in the same lot as the fundies. At least the fundies are predictable because if its in the bible/quran, they believe it.

The fundies have a set of rules they follow and its easy to distance yourself from them.

The religious moderates on the other hand will swing too and fro. They don't know which issues to separate themselves from. '

The liberal christians are even worse. They support gay marriage and equality...but then they don't even realize that many parts of the bible are DIRECTLY against that sort of ideology.

They want props for being "nice people" and doing "nice things"...but don't even realize that them still legitimizing their "faith" and "belief" allows the very things they're combating to be perpetuated and reinforced.

By them being religious, they're encouraging the same behavior they're combating.

Saying "i'm not that bad" is not helping anyone. If you're a religious moderate you are in the same bag of crazy bullshit as the fundies...they just want to choose their wording to make themselves seem less controversial.

http://livinglifewithoutanet.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/moderate-religion-two-lies-in-one/

Being a religious moderate is the biggest lie in any concept of theology out there. There is no such thing and any reference to such a concept should be chastised and ridiculed.

You want to preserve your autonomy and freedom? Don't join a religion that prevents you from adopting contradictory views then act like you have the authority or cognitive superiority to reconcile two completely contrasting ideas.

I get pretty tired of /r/atheism voting up people who want to show us images of christians "doing right" or hugging the balls of buddhism and all other sorts of illogical positions on reality.

If you support any claim with either unsubstantiated evidence or supernatural mysticism, you are in the SAME boat. It doesn't matter how extreme or how literal.

Stop promoting the ignorance of moderates and masking it as tolerance.

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1. "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord." (Deuteronomy 23:2)

2. "For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken. No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God." (Leviticus 21:18-21)

3. "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord."(Deuteronomy 23:1)

4. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (Romans 16:17)

5. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (1Corinthians 5:11)

6. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2Corinthians 6:14)

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Anything else?

Here are videos that explain my stance:

Penn Jillette on religious moderates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNRw7snmGM

Sam Harris on religious Moderates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82YIluFmdbs

Moderate Christian Irrationality & Stupidity of Beliefism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUgA5Vi-Ty4

You want to say you're better than the people who actually and actively seek to "take rights away from others" because of what the bible says, but then defer to the bible to make other decisions and influence your life?

Bullshit.

Its all or nothing.

For context: "The Negro's great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice."

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

[u/healingpanda]

Lets not actually. Oh you found a priest who isnt a biggot? Bravo, its kind of sad that that needs to be celebrated. If we showed love to every non-hateful preacher the front page would be full of sermons.