According to a headline on page 1 of today's Minneapolis newspaper, "Governor's race steers clear of social issues." I guess that means we get to listen to Tom Emmer's odd notions about economics instead of being subjected to his odd notions about gay marriage. Not exactly a blessing, but, on the blessing side of the spectrum, it is probably another sign that the tide is turning on issues pertaining to gay rights. Not very long ago candidates like Emmer would have loved to make a political campaign a referendum on gay marriage. Now their judgment is that they are better off putting their failed, recycled economic program front and center.
The arguments against gay marriage smell of bad faith. Let us begin with the idea that the Bible is against it. Jesus, fully human but never a husband, has nothing to say on the subject. The Old Testament condemnations of homosexuality are interwoven with an assortment of rules and proscriptions, such as what to do with menstruating women and whether or not a glass of milk may be enjoyed with a ham sandwich, that Christian conservatives have no evident passion for enforcing. Then there is St. Paul. He is disgusted by homosexual relations, also heterosexual ones, and this, by some leap of illogic, makes him a champion of the movement that places "traditional marriage," an unassailable Christian ideal, opposite the dark perversion of homosexuality.
It's obvious that all the dear people whose Bible condemns homosexuals are a lot more interested in homosexuals than they are in the Bible.
And if we are all children of God, and if traditional marriage is the ideal arrangement, then it follows that it must be a rank injustice to deny traditional marriage to one substantial segment of humanity. Here the arguments against gay marriage become laughably strained. Marriage is for raising children, and therefore it must be an option for heterosexual singles in the eighth decade of life who meet at a Sun City West mixer--but not for gay couples who actually are raising children.
Of course this whole outlook is sufficiently absurd to attract the Catholic Church! Here in Minnesota, the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul, under the direction of Archbishop John Nienstedt, is sending an anti-gay-marriage DVD to 400,000 Catholic households in the state. The Church's perfect record of craziness on any issue remotely associated with sexuality is intact.
Comments