Freedom to Love

A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Schatz, delivered at BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, February 1, 2004

Sermon: Freedom to Love

In marriage, two people turn to each other in search of a greater fulfillment than either can achieve alone. Marriage is a going forth, a bold step into the future; it is risking what we are for the sake of what we yet can be. Only in giving of oneself and sharing with another can the mysterious process of growth take place.

Only in loyalty and devotion bestowed upon another can that which is eternal in life emerge and be known. Two among us, who have stood apart, come... to be united in marriage.

Love is a living thing, waiting within each one of us for an awakening touch... We rejoice in its presence among us.

One of the things I love most about ministry is being part of the most important moments in people’s lives. The beginning of a marriage, especially, is a time filled with hope, joy and a sense of the possibilities of life. I invite couples in to talk with me a few times before I perform their weddings – not only about the ceremony, but also about their relationships, their plans, and their dreams. The couples sit on the little couch in my office and together we talk and laugh and enjoy the simple pure happiness of their being in love.

For one group of couples, though, the joy is neither simple nor pure. The love they feel is real enough, but their happiness is tinged with a deep sorrow. No matter how much they love one another, the law prohibits them from becoming married. Because the people I am talking to who want to share their lives as a couple, are two women or two men, I can perform only a commitment ceremony, and not a legal marriage.

I tell them that as far as I’m concerned it is a marriage, every bit as meaningful and serious as a heterosexual marriage. That the law does not recognize this has no effect on the religious nature of the ceremony. They have come to a minister to be married and I will both marry them and work for the day when that marriage will be legally recognized.

I want to cry every time. It cuts into my soul to have to tell a happy couple, so obviously in love as they sit together in my office, that they need to talk to a lawyer before they marry, because the state will not automatically grant them the rights and protections other couples have. If, heaven forbid, anything should go wrong, they will need those protections. Who will make medical decisions in case of illness? As much as we hate to think about it and can’t even imagine it now, what if things should turn sour in their relationship? How will they sort out their common property?

I don’t have to say these things to heterosexual couples, although the same possibilities are always there. In a legal marriage, the state protects people, so that they don’t have to worry about divorce or illness on their wedding day. Their joy can be as pure as their love.

But two men or two women have to face both the injury of having to fabricate protections that are often tenuous at best compared to legal marriage, and the insult of hearing their love and their family declared illegitimate by the law, by much of the culture, by many religions, and especially by those who loudly trumpet the need to encourage marriage and family values.

It disgusts me to have to say these things. This is not the way to begin a marriage.

I know about the beginnings of marriages, not only because I have been with so many couples as they married but also because I am beginning my own marriage later this year. The joy and wonder I feel at being in love and knowing that love is strong enough to make a life commitment is one of the most wonderful sensations in the world. When Geeta and I marry we will publicly commit to love and support one another, to be life partners, companions and friends. I won’t have to worry about seeing a lawyer, because I am a man marrying a woman.

The marriage I will enjoy is a right denied to millions of couples. Were I in love with a man none of the perfectly normal and accepted feelings of love and commitment I just expressed would mean anything to society. We would receive neither legal sanction nor legal protections in our love and commitment.

Knowing this adds a bitter taste to what should be the unsullied happiness of marriage. It feels like we are participating in an injustice by enjoying this perfectly ordinary right that is denied to so many. Love is joyful, and a wedding should be the same. But when I think about the couples who are denied the freedom to marry, I feel a little dirty, as if I have been drinking soda at a segregated lunch counter. This is why Geeta and I have decided to work with an organization that donate a portion of the cost of each gift in our wedding registry to Lambda Legal, one of the organizations at the forefront of the campaign for equal marriage rights.

The irony is that if Geeta and I had lived just half a century earlier we too might well have been denied the right to marry. Geeta is South Asian by ancestry and I am White. Many state laws against interracial marriage specified the illegality of marriages between Whites and Asians.

Last year, in a Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia, we were cruelly insulted because we are an interracial couple. It stung to have one stranger speak to us that way. I can only imagine the pain of gay and lesbian couples who meet this kind treatment every minute of every day, not only from nameless strangers, but from the very law under which we live.

It was not until 1967 - less than 40 years ago, that the absolute right for couples like Geeta and myself to marry was granted by the Supreme Court. The decision was called, appropriately enough, the Loving Decision. In his majority opinion in Loving versus the State of Virginia, Earl Warren wrote, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.... Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.”

In granting the right of interracial couples to marry courts had to contend with a deep seated sense that these marriages were unnatural. The opponents of interracial marriage claimed that it would spoil the race, that if God had wanted couples of different races to marry, He wouldn’t have made them different colors and placed them on different continents. They claimed that society didn’t accept these marriages, and it was true. In 1948 nine out of ten people were against interracial marriage, and 38 states had laws banning the practice. Opponents of interracial marriage claimed that it was unhealthy for children to grow up in interracial households; that a family consisted of a husband and wife of the same race, so they could biologically have children who looked like them. They claimed that legalizing interracial marriage would open the door to incest, pederasty and polygamy. They claimed that society had an interest in protecting traditional values and a responsibility to protect itself from the decay interracial marriage would cause. They claimed that no court had ever declared these laws unconstitutional, and that bans on interracial marriage had been in effect since the very beginning of our nation. They claimed it would change the definition of marriage.

Every one of these kinds of arguments has been made by the opponents of same sex marriage.

Last week I watched a video tape of the oral arguments in the Vermont Supreme Court case that ended with the granting of civil unions by that state. It was an education to hear the arguments in favor of same sex marriage, but more of an education to hear the arguments against.

They said that marriage was for the purpose of procreation and creating a family. They said that no court and no state recognized same sex marriage. They said that legalizing same sex marriage opened the door to incest and pederasty, that it would “cause confusion.” They said that granting same sex marriage rights would destabilize heterosexual marriage. They said that same sex marriage was not an accepted practice in society. I was astonished as I watched every one of these arguments boil away.

In perspective, the legal arguments became silly. They spoke of procreation, yet nobody has, to my knowledge, ever argued that two people in their 80s should not be allowed to marry or that an infertile couple could not marry. Indeed, these weddings are often celebrated as triumphs of the spirit, a renewal of life. They had to concede that same sex couples who adopted children were perfectly competent parents. They claimed no bias against gays and lesbians, yet equated gay marriage with incest and pedophilia. They could not demonstrate any way in which granting the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry would undermine heterosexual marriage.

When all of the legalese boiled down to nothing, the sole remaining argument was the same as it has always been: “We don’t like them very much. We don’t want them to have the right to marry because it would legitimize their lifestyle, which is a perversion.” There can be no other argument against the freedom to marry.

Behind that dislike, I think is not only cruelty. Behind much bigotry is fear – fear of change, fear of a loss of identity, fear of the unknown. Many of the people who fought against interracial marriage honestly believed that it spelled the end of everything they knew, and in fact, it was one part of a much larger social movement that today is all but universally accepted as a change for the better. But it was a change, and those who felt they had much to lose fought bitterly.

Marriage is a sensitive issue, because nobody can deny the sacredness of love. God, we often hear, is love. If we accept that two people of different races or of the same gender can love each other and marry each other, that means that God is part of that marriage. It means that they really are just like us.

That’s a difficult concept for some people. The love between two men or two women is no different than the love between a woman and a man. Society has taught most of us from birth that homosexuality is wrong, a sin, a perversion. Even the most progressive families have to struggle with this hatred. How many of you have been shocked to hear your own children insult something by calling it “gay?”

Raised in hatred and afraid of change, many leaders in government and religion will do all they can to maintain the status quo. Two weeks ago, the President of the United States proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage.

The only time the constitution has been amended to take away a right was prohibition, and it was a mistake. This would be a mistake far worse, because, for the first time ever, it would take away a basic human right from only one group of people. To pass such an amendment would be to forever set one class of human beings inferior to another. It would be to forever teach the 15 year old high school civics student who has just realized he is gay, “You are not as good as everyone else. You’re second class. You’re junk.” The idea of a constitutional amendment to curtail freedom is an assault on the core of our nation’s values. Far from being a defense of marriage, it would be a vicious assault on marriage, a gigantic step back for those who truly value family.

The worst thing anyone can do to another person is to take away their hope. To ban gay marriage completely would be to take away the hope of millions that they will ever be seen as fully human.

This is an issue that transcends partisan political barriers. The ill-named federal “Defense of Marriage Act” was signed by a Democratic President, and several leading Democrats have publicly said that while they support Civil Unions, they oppose calling it marriage. Marriage, they say, is a religious distinction.

I am a minister, ordained to serve love, justice and all that is sacred and divine. The weddings I perform may be legally binding – for some – but they are not civil unions. They are sacred marriages. It offends me to accept as just any second class status for couples whose love for one another is genuine and true. It is my right as clergy – our right as Unitarian Universalists – to sanction marriage, not civil unions but marriage, between two people who love one another no matter what gender they are.

During weddings I often tell couples that a true marriage of souls is life giving. I’m not talking about having children, although many couples, both heterosexual and same sex, will have children. I’m talking about the way that two people nurture one another and help each other grow. I’m talking about the way that they give life and hope and support to their friends and their community. I’m talking about the way that together they make the world a better place. Marriages are life giving in so many ways beyond procreation.

My parents are Kelly and my Mom. They take care of my brother and me. They provide a roof, food, love, time, and understanding. I know that they talk like they should. They sit down and present feelings and come to a compromise. It is awesome. I’ve never seen such a real friendship. I strive for what they share, but most people my age are fumbling for identities, values and answers. The only disadvantage to having two same-gender parents would be to the people who would ignore or discriminate against us. It’s their loss.[1]

It is their loss. The people who deny freedom to others are denying the very sacred love that is the fabric of human life. It is everyone’s loss.

The right to marry is not only an issue for gay and lesbian couples; it is an issue for all who value freedom. It is an issue of freedom of religion, freedom of life and freedom of love. It is one of the defining struggles of our times, and I believe I will live to see the day when every young woman or man, every young person, is free to marry the one he or she loves, regardless of gender.

Unitarian Universalists have a long standing commitment to freedom, justice, compassion, the inherent worth and dignity of all people. It is incumbent upon us to commit ourselves not only to the approval of what is just, but to active work for it. Vermont has made a beginning, albeit a limited one. Massachusetts shows promise. But Pennsylvania has a bigoted law outlawing same sex marriages. The Federal government is complicit in this bigotry. It is time that we as religious people stand and speak with a voice that is loud and firm and united for equal rights. It is time that we say, “This is our sacred duty – to further the cause of justice and of freedom.” It is not enough to be proud of our General Assembly for passing resolutions or our denominational leaders for making statements. It is time that we, here, take action for justice.

Nothing is of greater moment, because in the end, the freedom to marry is but a symbol of a far more important freedom, one that no law can successfully curtail. In the end our struggle is for the freedom to love. Love is divine, and no human power can contain it. A thousand years of tradition cannot deny it; a hundred laws cannot prevent it. In the end, love will always prevail.

[1] Jane Levy Drucker, 1998, Lesbian and Gay Families Speak Out, (Cambridge, MA, Perseus Publishing), 62.

Sermon: Freedom to Love