On Gay Marriage

Penny Nixon - MCC San Francisco,San Francisco, CA, USA

On Gay Marriage

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. G. Penny Nixon, MCC San Francisco

I think one of the things that MCC San Francisco does is bring balance to the universe because in churches and in other religious institutions all across America today, they’ll be talking about the gay marriages happening this weekend in San Francisco, but perhaps not in the same way that we’ll be talking about it. Certainly we have many people and churches alike in solidarity with us, but you know that the vast majority of sermons this morning will mention the demise of the family, mention the erosion of the foundational institution of marriage and family.

But I want to say that today we are not victims of discrimination any more, but victors; that we are not second-class citizens but citizens with full rights in this moment in this city, and that we are part of social change. And marriage has been a rallying cry, has been in fact, the nexus of a lot of the debate and the rhetorical arguments that go on and on about what family means and what love means and who has rights and who actually is part of the constitution and who is not. Those are the things that we want to lift up this morning. And to lift up that marriage and the right of anyone to marriage has vast implications. If same-sex marriage is ever legal in this country, it’ll make all kinds of differences for all kinds of people; from multi-national couple to adoptive parents.

But before I talk about that and talk about this very interesting story of the golden calf in the desert (because I know you’re thinking, “What is she going to say about that?”) I want to tell a personal story.

Many of you know that I’ve been away on vacation for a couple of weeks. And the first week Annlee, my partner of eleven years, and a couple of friends of ours went to Canada. And so, unbeknownst to Annlee, I thought, “Ok, we’re going to Canada; we’re going to Whistler; we’re going to ski but we could always get married at the same time." So I went online and found out that indeed Whistler Village had Marriage Commissioners and so, with our friends, we actually ended up getting married on the slopes at Whistler …. So, I came back all fired up to say, “And in Canada ….” But we totally got pre-empted.

Some of our friends, I think, were a bit shocked because we’ve been a very non-traditional couple in many ways over the years and last year, when we celebrated our 10th anniversary we exchanged some vows together that were really lovely. We did this in Canada, yes as an affirmation of our love, but also as a political statement and it really was an amazing, amazing moment. And when we went to the municipality in Canada, everyone was like, “Congratulations. Congratulations.” And it was almost like we were just waiting for someone to do something or to say something, and not an eye was batted. And it was just so weird to come back here and then start hearing all this news in San Francisco.

It was a wonderful event and sure enough within days it got put to the test as we went through U.S. Immigration coming out of Vancouver and into the U.S. They give you a declaration form, one per household. We fill out one; we hand it to the man. He says, “What’s the nature of your relationship?” And simultaneously we say, “We’re legally married.” They said, “That won’t fly here.” So I came back all fired up, but it does fly in San Francisco.

That evening after the Marriage Commissioner signed the license, I thought, “You know I am going to frame this and put it on my wall.” And then I thought, “In all the straight homes I’ve been in, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a marriage license framed and hanging on the wall.” And not that that would influence my decision... you know I’ll do what I want anyway, but I’m just saying that for us, it hasn’t been a privilege we've enjoyed. And I thought, this is not the same but it is not unlike, an African-American in the Civil Right’s movement going, "I’m going to drink from that fountain because it’s the law." It’s not unlike a woman going to vote for the first time and saying, "I’m going to the polls. You can’t stop me because it’s the law." And there’s something so empowering about that. "It’s the law." Even if only for a few moments here in our great City by the Bay.

So what does this have to do with the golden calf? Nothing... No, it really doesn’t. This was the text that I had worked on before all this came about, but as I’ve been thinking about it, it actually does have something to do with it. The people of Israel, for those of you that don’t know the story (though I’m sure you’ve seen the movie), were freed from Egypt and they went through the Red Sea only to wander in the desert. And after they’re wandering awhile, Moses goes up on the hill to talk to God, this God who had liberated them. The people are wandering around and they’re getting antsy and they’re beginning to doubt their liberation and their freedom. And they’re thinking, “This freedom was supposed to be real great but you know what? It’s hot out here. I've got sand in my ears. I haven’t had a good meal in months. And what about this God? Where is this God?”

And so they say to Aaron who is Moses’ brother, “Let’s build a god. Let’s build a golden calf.” And so, I don’t know how they do this in the desert without all the tools they would need, but they have everyone take off their gold jewelry and they melt it down and they build this golden calf. Now, why a golden calf? You know I wondered that for years and you won’t find it in many commentaries but as I studied the gods and goddesses around the world a few years ago, I realized that the goddess Hathor is one of the main goddesses of Egypt and she’s actually an ancient cow deity.

Her picture was everywhere and her head is shaped like a cow’s head. And she was also the goddess of gold. So I imagine the people all of a sudden began to image a god more like that than the one that Moses had led them to and began to reconstruct what was really the god of their oppression, Egypt, because sometimes that’s what happens.

When we get liberated, or when a people gets liberated, we know that historically, it is often true that those very same people can then turn around, in governments especially, and use the same oppressive structures. And you know what? I think we do that spiritually sometimes and we don’t even realize it. We recreate the gods of our oppression and then we wonder why we have all this freedom and liberation but we don’t feel a lot different internally or why our spirituality doesn’t look different than it used to.

It is not enough to come out as a gay person and say, “I’m gay and I’m a Christian and it’s ok.” That’s a good thing, sure. But you know what? When you come out and you’re ok with who you are and you celebrate who you are, all bets are off. It means that you start building a different theological system, a different spirituality that at its center is all about liberation. And if we ever bring the god of oppression back into this place, then the people should rise up and say, “No, that is not our god. That is not the God of liberation for all.”

And so, when I’m thinking about this story of the golden calf and the people wandering around, what I really thought was this: In all the joy and the jubilation of this incredible historic moment, I don’t want us to make an idol out of marriage. Not all same-sex marriages are sacred. A marriage is only sacred if the people in it treat it, and each other, as such. That is what makes a marriage sacred. That is what makes all relationships sacred (or not).

Conservative religion has made an idol out of marriage. They worship the form of marriage without regard for its essence. Ok, the form, one man and one woman. That’s what gets worshiped. We all know in this room that the American household is one of the least safe places to be. We know about domestic violence; we know about abuse; we know these things. It is not the form that makes anything sacred but the essence. And while today we celebrate with our whole selves this human and civil right for queer people, let us not make an idol out of marriage and recreate any gods of our oppression in the past.

What we celebrate today is not the institution of marriage, we celebrate equality and that is a different thing. Yes, marriage can be celebrated because it is a holy endeavor but it stops being holy if the people in the marriage stop treating each other with the basic spiritual values that we hold sacred in this place: integrity and respect and dignity and honor and truth-telling and faithfulness, however those agreements are made in your relationships. I don’t want us to make an idol out of marriage because I want us to remember where we came from. I don’t want us to put a hierarchy on relationships in saying that marriage is the ultimate. Marriage is work, ok? It’s a wonderful terror really. We don’t want to recreate a hierarchy that makes anybody in our community less than anyone else.

We celebrate all kinds of relationships in this place. Bill and Fernando got married. I hope that you saw them on the news, these two sitting here with the buttons that say “I do.” Well, you know half the country saw them. It was great. All right. They don’t have a traditional relationship and they haven’t for years. Fernando Orlandi argued on the floor of General Conference of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches to change the language which describes Holy Unions, to include "between two or more people." We didn’t want it to be limited to just two, in case people wanted to constellate their relationships differently. Fernando argued on the floor of General Conference saying, “Hello, we’re the gay church. Ok? We need to find different ways to honor as sacred the ways that people choose to have kinship with one another.”

Today if you are single (and I don’t even like to use that word) but if you’re not in a relationship where you’re moving toward marriage or you’re in a committed partnership however you constellate that in your own intimacy, and you’re not going to move toward marriage, great. No hierarchy. Every relationship that we treat with dignity is sacred and that is what is so important. Let us not recreate any oppressive systems or gods or hierarchies that make anybody for any moment less than anybody else. We can rejoice with those who rejoice and we can support couples in the agreements they make with each other and we can support the agreements that friends make, the agreements that households make, the agreements that lovers make together. What is most important is how we love each other, how we are committed to each other and how we keep our word with one another. That is what’s important. That we’ve been recognized legally for this moment is frosting on the cake. That’s great; that’s equality. But that doesn’t mean that anybody’s relationship is less than anyone else’s. And we honor and we uphold and we recognize those couples today and later they’ll be invited to be consecrated in this sacred space, but with your blessing.

You know over here sits my friend, Beth of twenty-plus years, and we made a covenant twenty years ago to always be in each others’ lives, to always care for each others’ families in sickness and in health ‘til death do us part. We made that commitment and no, we’re not married. She is with her partner Fiona and I can say out loud in front of all of you, “’Til death do us part” and you know what? Fiona thinks that that’s the greatest thing in the world.” It’s the sacredness of relationships. When Beth and I have had our hard times, when we’ve gone our separate ways, it’s that covenant that has brought us back together again and the values that we hold most dearly. Relationships are sacred because of what we bring to them.

One of the things that I read that touched me most deeply about this same-sex marriage issue was the argument and the debate on the floor of the Massachusetts Senate when Senator Diane Wilkerson drew upon her experience as an African-American growing up in Arkansas where the hospital did not allow her mother to deliver her children. “I know the pain of being less than equal and I cannot and will not impose that status on anyone else,” a teary-eyed Wilkerson said. “I could not in good conscience ever vote to send anyone to that place from which my family fled.”

You know what, friends? Justice if not shared is justice diminished. Joy if not shared dies young. You see, Senator Wilkerson took her own experience of discrimination and being a second-class citizen in this country and as a straight, African-American woman joined arms in solidarity with the queer community and said, “You know what? As a public official and as a person, I will never condone anyone being less than a full citizen in this democracy of this United States of America.” That is solidarity.

And if this marriage thing does anything to us besides make us jubilant, besides affirm legally and socially our unions as equal, then what it should do is this: it should propel us to join arms with anyone and everyone who does not have full rights in this country for any reason and to say, “We want everybody to have this feeling. Like, wow, I actually got recognized as a full citizen just once.”

Let us not ever (I’m speaking to myself here first) take for granted the privileges that we have. Some of us in this room have a house, have shelter, have a job, have health, have certain rights and others of us don’t. And so now, knowing what it is to have a privilege that we didn’t have, let us extend that spiritually, politically, and emotionally to other issues with those around us who have less than others do and who don’t know what it is to have some privileges that others have.

It’s going to be a fight but let us fight with joy. And when we communicate who we are, let us never do it in a way that diminishes anyone else. This is about equality. If you’re gonna build an idol, build it to Equality. If you’re gonna worship a God, worship a God who is a God of liberation for all people. And then as Judy Chicago says, “We will all live in harmony with each other and the earth and everywhere will be called Eden once again.” Amen.