Is gay marriage a social or moral issue?

Religious Views, by Frank Ameduri

The debate over gay marriage rages on. Some states, most notably Massachusetts, have turned up the debate's volume by pressing forward with laws that will allow for gay unions.

What is perhaps most interesting about this issue, though, is that the country seems to be having two different arguments about the same thing. On one side it's a legal issue, with gay rights (and civil rights) activists demanding equal legal rights for couples who happen to be same sex. On the other side it's a moral issue, presented by those in opposition as an affront to the traditional contract of marriage intended by God.

In the middle, it is a social issue, and the outcome -- which will eventually be some acceptance of legal gay unions -- will be a part of, though not the end of, the process of social evolution. Why am I so certain? I am absolutely certain because this is, more than anything else, a civil rights issue, and we always move toward increased civil rights. Progress in the battle for increased civil rights can be maddening slow, and it sometimes suffers setbacks, but the overall direction is forward.

What is so intriguing about this chapter in the civil rights battle is the role played by churches. During the intense period of civil rights activism and progress from the 1950s to the '70s, churches became a critical organizational and economic foundation, as well as a source of spiritual comfort, for the movement. At that time many churches worked hard for what amounted to social, rather than spiritual, reform.

In the current battle over gay rights, many churches have taken a different stance, attempting to act as bulwarks against social reform. The reason, some say, is because the legalization of gay marriages would be just another thread pulled from the nation's moral fabric. Rather than seeing gay unions as a victory for social justice, some see them as a defeat for an already beleaguered morality. The concept has been explained as an "attack on the institution of marriage." Of course, that argument is either valid or erroneous, depending upon which definition of marriage you adhere to. And that is why, in a free country, we must assume that the public debate is one of laws, and that the moral debate is a personal one.

One of the most difficult concepts of our republican form of government to accept is the notion that a properly functioning representative government sometimes must make decisions that do not necessarily have popular support. That is because a right-minded representative government must apply the spirit of its laws equally to all its citizens -- it must assume its laws are blind to differences between people, and instead are driven by commonalities. The question of gay marriage as a social institution must be a question of law and civil rights.

The role of churches is to protect and nurture the spiritual health of their flocks. Churches, indeed, are driven by a moral prerogative, but that is a personal issue, and it is that moral territory that is the basis for the concept of separation of church and state.

A government that attempts to legislate morality ceases to serve its citizens, and a church that interferes in public policy destroys the very protections that permit it to operate in the first place. In this particular argument, the decision to grant state-sanctioned unions for gay couples belongs to the government, and each church must individually decide whether or not to marry gay people in God's name. If church and state are to maintain a healthy separation, there can be no other solution.

Frank Ameduri is editor of the Frontiersman newspaper.