Fifty-one years ago, a 1958
Gallup poll showed that 96% of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. Laws at that time prohibited marriage
between people of different races in 33 or the 48 states.
That
same year, political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote a notable reflection on the desegregation crisis in Little Rock. She
argued that there was a fundamental human right which was even more basic than the political rights enshrined in the Constitution
and more important than the right to vote. She said that the free choice of a spouse is “an elementary human right”
comparable to the inalienable human rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence. The right to home and marriage belongs to us as a fundamental human right, she declared.
In the context of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling against racial segregation in education, Arendt claimed
that anti-miscegenation laws were more damaging to human liberty than racial segregation in schools.
Liberals reacted critically. They feared that her article would enflame racists fears and arouse more
passionate opposition to the struggle for desegregation of public institutions. Nothing is more volatile than sexual
talk.
What a difference
fifty years makes. Today we have an elected president who is the child of an interracial marriage. The legal right
for people of different races to marry is universally recognized. Interracial couples are common and do not invoke stares
or gaping mouths in public. If there are churches that still prohibit couples from different races to marry, they are
fairly hidden in the public landscape. We rarely hear preachers proclaim the old Biblical proofs about racial purity
anymore. A 2007 poll found that 77% of Americans approve of black-white marriage and only 17% disapprove.
Today the debate about whether the free choice of a spouse is an elementary
human right swirls around gay equality. Will gay people be allowed the same right to home and marriage as other citizens?
It appears that the question is turning in the same direction as it did for interracial couples.
Nine states now recognize civil unions or registered partnerships that give gay couples the same rights
as married persons. Five states have now legalized gay marriage, and California’s revocation of that right is
under judicial review.
I was in Seattle recently and
read some of the local coverage of the domestic partnership law passed last month by the Washington state legislature.
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat’s headline declared “Debate About Gay Equality Appears to be Ending.”
He was reporting about a blog from a conservative megachurch pastor and family-values political activist. In that blog,
28 out of 34 “right-leaning political or religious activists” recommended not attempting an appeal of the domestic
partnership law. They plan instead “to take a sort of ‘last stand’ against gay marriage.”
During the same trip I talked with a priest-colleague who has been presiding
at dozens of same-gender blessing services for at least four years, but he believes that marriage should remain as it has
been traditionally, a rite for a man and woman. He supports full and equal civil rights for gay couples, but he will
not celebrate a gay marriage, even if it were to be legal in his civil jurisdiction and authorized by his church.
Everyone should know that a pastor does not have to marry anyone. I have the absolute right to refuse to marry
for any reason. I regularly turn down wedding requests from people who are not members of our congregation. Even
though they have every legal right to be married, I am not required by the state to perform any marriage. Regardless
of what the civil laws may be, the First Amendment protects the freedom of any church or religious leader. A minister
can refuse to conduct interracial marriages, same-gender unions, or any other similar rite, regardless of civil rights, for
any reason whatsoever. Conservative pastors need not fear. They will never be forced to marry anyone against their
will.
Right now there are two parallel reforms happening. There is the legal reform of extending equal rights
to gay people. That reform is close to being concluded. Fairness is triumphing. It is a basic human right
to choose one’s own spouse. The law will recognize that reality definitively in the near future.
But
the reform of religious theology, tradition and practice will have a more spotted conclusion. Some religious groups
will make the covenant of marriage equally available to all adult members. Others will retain their customs reserving
marriage for a man and a woman. Some will accommodate to offer a same-gender rite of blessing. Others will maintain
their teaching that all sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin. Unfortunately, in matters of justice the church
is sometimes slower than the culture. Racial relationships have been pretty slow to develop in the religious world.
Many have observed that Sunday morning at 11:00 is the nation’s most segregated hour.
But my hunch is that
in fifty years, outrage at gay unions will be as archaic as anti-miscegenation laws are today. When we recognize more
fully that the right of adult citizens to choose to marry is an inalienable right of “life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness,” we will become a more just, humane and honorable society.
