Let's Talk About: Gay Marriage

Hello, friends!

Why don't we get a little controversial today, hmm?

I spent a lot of my past few years in college asking questions: "Why do you choose to go to services every week?" "What does your faith say about sex outside of marriage?" "What are your views on gay marriage?" I spent a lot of time "seeking first to understand," as our favorite man Stephen Covey said, before I ever sought to be understood. Okay, to be honest, I did not "seek to be understood" often enough.

Perhaps that was my fault. But I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable--so I sat there and listened to various friends explain why alcohol was frowned upon in some religious groups, why gay marriage is not okay with them, their views on abortion. Opinions I often disagreed with, sometimes very strongly. I asked, and listened, and learned a lot, and (tried to) mostly keep silent if I disagreed. This blog is by all means not about pushing you to agree with my opinions (unless, of course, I can convince some more people about the importance of interfaith work, but you know what I mean), but in this post I wanted to explore a situation I recently dealt with on an individual level, and it does involve sharing my opinion. Bear with me.

Sitting in my car one night last week, I heard the end of a song on the radio, and I was shocked. It sounded like a hip hop song supporting gay rights. What?! This was on mainstream radio! I was shocked and a little excited, so I shut off my car and ran into the house to start looking for the video, and I found the song, called "Same Love," as in "All love is the same love." Here is the official video:

I am not going to lie: it touched me. To hear a somewhat mainstream artist sing about this, bluntly address a lot of the hate that exists in our society, and try to fight it, meant a lot to me. The video also tells a love story. I'm sure it makes a lot of people uncomfortable because the story involves two men, but if it were about a straight couple of two races for example, living out their lives together, getting married, supporting one another in illness, it would engender an emotional response, maybe even tears from a lot of people. I loved this video.

I decided to post the video as my Facebook status. Several times I put it up, then immediately deleted it. And why? Because some of the messages in the video seem to attack Christianity and conservatives: comments like "We paraphrase a book written 3,500 years ago" and "The right-wing conservatives this it's [being gay] a decision." I am so intent upon trying to not hurt peoples' feelings, that sometimes I let that overcome my desire to share my own opinion, and to share something that really had an impact on me. Clearly, the video makes some gross generalizations--not all Christians oppose gay marriage, and not all conservatives think one can decide upon their sexuality. I am not claiming this song is perfect. But the singer was apparently raised attending church, and so if we look at it from his perspective, he is commenting upon an institution he knows about, for better or for worse.

So I'm not going to hide. I am sorry if anyone was offended by the video, but I am not sorry I posted it. I like to spread the news when something really touches me, as this song and video did, and I was honestly shocked that none of my friends had shared the video earlier (it came out last fall). It's a love story, simple as that.

I'm wondering, though, how we can talk about these controversial issues in ways that people feel like everyone gets an equal say, and no one feels attacked. Because inherent in some conversations about gay marriage with very religious people might be the thought that their opinions are backwards, hateful, unfair. Granted, some are, but I have never met someone who said anything hateful about gay people or anybody (I could not be friends with someone harboring such blind hate in their hearts). My friends often cite passages from the Torah or Bible that lead to their opposition of the practice of same-sex relationships. I do not agree with their viewpoints, but I respect their religious convictions...and I wish they could see some of my side of the argument. I rarely brought them up, though, for fear that my friends would think that I was judging them for their judgment of homosexuals.

But I also am not sure if religious folks fully understand just how hard it is to hear about opposition to gay marriage--imagine if we said something like, "I oppose people being allowed to get married in a church" or "I do not support the right of heterosexuals to get married, let's make it illegal." It goes against the very fiber of my being to deny someone the same rights that I and many other are granted, to get married simply because we happen to like members of the opposite sex, and it's like "Why would my marriage in a church affect you?" And it wouldn't. That's a large part of what makes it hard to hear your opinions, because to some extent, it is very hard for us not to think of it as discrimination, or to understand why we cannot at least offer the freedom. We're not forcing anyone to take advantage of it. But once I've spoken with many of you who do oppose it, I at least understand why you feel that way. That doesn't mean it's not hard to hear it.

Then I have spoken with other, very liberal people who could never imagine being friends with people who oppose gay marriage, and that is not right either, to dismiss someone so completely without even listening to them. It seems black and white, but things rarely are.

I thought that I had spent these past four years having meaningful, interfaith discussions--and I did. But I think there was something missing in them, because I didn't have the courage or chutzpah to speak up, to voice my opinions. It was out of an attempt to keep the peace, but that was at the expense of really having full, well-rounded discussions where everyone had the opportunity to contribute. I forgot about the second part of Stephen Covey's idea: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." I want to be understood.

In the end, the current debate about gay marriage in our country comes down to one main thing for me: freedom. The main opposition I see today to gay marriage comes from conservative, mainly Christian, religious groups. That is not right. Our country is founded on religious freedom, and guess what? My movement of Judaism strongly supports gay marriage, they have released numerous official comments in this regard. So what this means is that, right now, my religion is in some way being subjected to the opinions of another religion, and that is just blatantly wrong. Allowing freedom for homosexual couples to get married does not need to affect religious people--they can still choose to only marry heterosexual couples, only allow same-sex couples into their groups, exclude homosexuals from participating in their rituals. But by keeping gay marriage banned, our country is preventing those religions that support it from enjoying the full exercise of their religion. G-d willing, with a few more successes like the one we had this past week in the Supreme Court, this imbalance will be rectified. And hopefully our lawmakers can find a way to put many of their religious assumptions aside--from whichever side of the argument they fall on--and make decisions that can really benefit all Americans.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

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