Cody
Williams
My Views
Marriage: noun: the mutual relation of married persons: an intimate or close union.
Marry: verb: to unite in close and usually permanent relation.
Unite: verb: to put together to form a single unit: to cause to adhere: to link by a legal or moral bond: to become one or as if one: to become combined by or as if by adhesion or mixture: to act in concert.
synonym see JOIN
I’ve thought recently of separate conversations I’ve had with two men who vehemently opposed same-sex marriage. Both do so they say on biblical grounds. They both are men of the cloth; one a Jesuit Priest, the other a Southern Baptist Minister. Both are against these unions because, they say, God is against it. They both are publicly vocal with their opposition to gay marriage, often railing against it from the pulpit. Neither one of them would, as a minister, officiate over a ceremony wedding a man to a man, or a woman to a woman.
“God ordained marriage for opposite sexes,” one guy seems to repeat by rote when questioned on the matter. “The model for marriage was created when he created Adam and Eve,” the now divorced Baptist minister steadfastly affirms after he himself admits to trolling the internet for sex with other men. He rejects for himself, the label “gay.” He just has sex with men, “not relationships.” The Jesuit priest is much more comfortable with his gay sexual orientation, only far less comfortable keeping his celibacy vows.
Such the inconsistencies that surround the same sex marriage debate in our society. Gay marriage; or civil unions. Man, woman, family; or an abomination. Love and acceptance; or hell and damnation.
I’m a pretty good cook and have noticed that with some dishes it takes simmering, slow cooking, marinating, stewing or even setting over night for the flavors of the food and spices to ‘marry,’ merge, unite or combine to form one new dish. I think about the factors that caused my marriage to fail. As tradition calls, I carried my then bride across the threshold of our new home and put her down on the floor in our 101 year old Victorian fixer-upper and both of us looked each other face to face and said, “now what?” The wedding and honeymoon were easy and fun, our difficulty would be in merging our until then two separate lives into one.
More than just living in the same household, to be ‘married,’ like the flavors in a fine gumbo, meant melding our lives, our socializing, our sexual wants, our finances, what we eat and when we ate it; our common colds, our hopes, our waking up and sleeping, our dreams and aspirations; our societal concerns, our talents, our bloodlines, our generation to come, our friends and families, values, our heartaches and disappointments, our frustrations and our prayers into one unit, one dish, a marriage. We knew it would be difficult and, like a lot of marriages today, it was. We divorced.
Today, however, in spite of what we often hear there are millions of American couples who have joined two separate lives into one functional union where successfully the two have become one. The flavors of each have married. Some of these people have come together as a couple and started families, created homes, nurtured careers, built successful businesses, served their communities, ministered, socialized and moved through life successfully not as two persons but as one unit, married. Many of these couples our government recognizes and encourages their joint effort, sanctions their coupling, honors it and provides tax breaks, health benefits, support and other perks just because of the couple’s commitment to coupling. Our government and religious institutions condone and shore up these couplings, these marriages, so much so that the promise to marry is celebrated, ritualized and showered with gifts and aide. Albeit with one caveat, the two individuals coming together in matrimony must be of opposite sexes.
Yet, today even without the blessings of our government, mosques, churches and synagogues two people who happen to be the same sex are coming together and promising each other their commitment to merge separate lives into one. Many of these couples are just as, if not more, successful at this complicated effort, in spite of the tremendous social and cultural odds against them.
Yes, the Baptist minister and the Jesuit priest who, like many others who oppose same-sex marriages, say they do so because God is against it. Well, just maybe, God is not against these couplings at all. It’s happening everyday, quietly, all around us, without a nod from government or religious institutions. More same sex couples will continue to promise each other ‘marriage.’ Some will even be more successful at it than we were. And true, hypocritically like my two friends, more folks will come out against these same-sex marriages, for a variety of complicated reasons. And God, well, will continue to look at us and like me, be baffled.
Marriage: to join.
It truly seems that “what God has joined together no man can put asunder.”
(c) copyright 2004 Cody Williams
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