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My wife Kathy and I celebrated our 31st anniversary last week. I feel so fortunate. It is a wonderful thing to share your
life with someone you love. I'm anticipating our 50th celebration not so far away in 2025. I'm decidedly pro-marriage.
One of the anniversary notes we got was from Ernest and Louie. Last February was their 32nd anniversary.
Kathy and I were married in her home church in front of a large congregation. My priest, who later became my bishop,
celebrated our vows. That was 1975. A year and a half earlier, Ernest and Louie opened their prayer book together at home
alone. They read the Marriage service to each other, editing the words slightly, pledging their vows of solemn loving faithfulness.
No minister of any stripe or civil official would consider presiding over their commitment.
On our 25th anniversary our kids put together a scrapbook for us from friends from all of our decades and each of our
communities. The whole family gathered with friends for a joyful party. On their 25th anniversary Ernest and Louie went
to their home church which was filled with friends who couldn't come to their original commitment. They publicly renewed
the vows they had taken so privately back in 1974. Their bishop prayed over them, saying, "May these two men, who have
been a blessing to each other and to so many others, continue to bless us. May God continue to bless them in their relationship,
in their lives and in their work, that they may continue their commitment to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their
God all the days of their life."
In 1975 I couldn't imagine there were people like Ernest and Louie. I knew there were gay people, and I accepted my culture's
critical thoughts about them. But when I learned that one of the most whole, mature and holy people I had ever known was
gay, he blew my stereotypes. We were working together at a hospital. I remember one Monday he asked our supervisor if he
could leave early that Friday. He was traveling to the 50th anniversary celebration for a gay couple. That's what I want,
too. I also want to celebrate my 50th anniversary with Kathy.
This year on our wedding anniversary the U.S. Senate voted down the badly named "Defense of Marriage Amendment."
Gay folks don't threaten my marriage. They don't threaten yours either. I think it would have been better named the "Scapegoat
Gays Amendment."
Last week the President promoted "Defense of Marriage" amendment by criticizing "activist judges who overrule
the will of the people." Brings back memories of my childhood and billboards to "Impeach Earl Warren." He
was one of those activist judges who said black people are equal and fully human in our land. That was very contrary to the
"will of the people" in my home state where segregation was a family value of the majority. Our Mississippi legislature
and electorate tried every creative way imaginable to "defend" white people from "the black agenda."
Sometimes majority opinion is simply unjust, especially toward misunderstood minorities. Thankfully, so far, every amendment
to our U.S. Constitution has expanded rights rather than denied them. Mississippi and Arkansas cannot say the same of their
state constitutions.
Full page ads for the marriage amendment stoked prejudices and fears. A sad eyed depressed child asks, Why don't Senators
believe every child needs a mother and father? Yet research shows children in loving same-gender homes are just as happy
and normal as children in loving husband-wife homes. Children in dysfunctional or unhappy homes, gay or straight homes, are
equally troubled. Gender is not the issue; love is. I know children being raised in same-gender homes. They are happy and
wonderfully normal children. Fear not. So are kids raised in multi-racial homes, by the way. We used to have laws about
that too.
And don't let then frighten you saying "they'll compromise my religious beliefs." Any church or clergy can
refuse to marry anyone they wish. For racial or sexual orientation or any other reason. It's our church's policy not to
marry people who aren't members of our church. That's pretty restrictive. It's also protected under the first amendment.
No minister or church will ever have to marry a gay couple unless they truly want to. And some do.
How about a "Defense of Marriage Amendment" that actually addresses some of the real pressures that truly strain
marriages? Maybe an amendment that gives working families a living wage, or one that guarantees health access and insurance.
Economic and health pressures always rate high as marriage destabilizers. How about real access to mental health care? I
promise you, more families have been torn apart by inadequate help for mental illness than by loving gay couples who may want
to take vows of faithfulness.
Or if you want to get religious about it, why aren't these pious defenders of marriage offering an amendment banning divorce?
Wouldn't that really defend marriage? Jesus' words in Mark 10 prohibit divorce. What about an amendment outlawing remarriage
after divorce? Same reference. Could it be that some good religious people have known broken marriages where a divorce was
the compassionate, life-giving solution? Maybe they know couples who have experienced resurrection through a loving second
marriage. They can put names like Ernest and Louise to those stories. It makes a difference when you know real persons.
When God looks upon the three decades of faithful affection of Ernest and Louie, and, I daresay, of Lowell and Kathy,
God sees the fruits of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
There is no law against such things." (Galatians 5:22f)
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