Ministers Coverage in the Media and in Written Comments

Marriage Rites and Rights

Sermon by Tess Baumberger
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Franklin, NH
October 12, 2003

There are several layers to what I’m going to be saying today about gay or same-sex marriage. One layer concerns the societal and political aspects of marriage. Right now, there is a heated conversation about gay marriage taking place in our country. In fact, President Bush has declared this week to be “Defense of Marriage Week.” He means defending marriage for opposite-sex couples only.

Another layer of this story is religious, and has to do with what we as Unitarian Universalists have done about gay marriage. This layer includes theological grounding in our belief in individual conscience and the democratic process both within and outside our movement. The last layer of this story is personal, my own thinking and reflecting on same sex marriage and where I stand on it as a person of faith and as a minister.

I’d like to start today by discussing the first two layers, the social-political layer and the religious layer, which come together in interesting ways. A few weeks ago I told you about my grand plan for this year, about preaching on each of the seven Unitarian Universalist principles. My first four sermons were about our first principle, promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

My plan was to start talking about the fifth principle today, about the rights of conscience and the use of the democratic process. There are those two layers right there – the religious and the political!

At first glance, same sex marriage didn’t seem fit that well with the fifth principle. But yesterday was National Coming Out Day, and I thought this would be the right time to do this sermon topic, so I scheduled it anyway. It turns out to be timely, what with this being “Marriage Protection Week” and all.

Imagine my delight when I read E.J. Graff’s book, “What is Marriage For?” and discovered her main argument - that the changes in marriage over the last 200 years have to do with our increasing emphasis on the individual and on individual conscience. Yippee! It fits! The sermon gods have smiled on me.

Graff thinks that the emphasis on the individual and individual conscience grew out of the rise of capitalism, which pushes people toward individualism. There are bad things about the rise of capitalism (consumerism) and individualism (isolation), but this emphasis on the rights of individual conscience is a good thing in my opinion.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism, which were separate movements until 1961, have upheld the rights of individual conscience from their formation in this country hundreds of years ago. Neither tradition had a creed which people had state in order to be members – they affirmed people’s freedom to believe as they wished. It is not surprising that many among our nation’s founders were Unitarians and Universalists. Our religious history is intimately woven into our nation’s social and political history.

Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian by theology and one of the prime authors of our government’s philosophy of protecting the rights of the individual and individual conscience, even against the prevailing will of the people.

In her political and sociological analysis of marriage, E. J. Graff examines changes in the traditional reasons for being married, which include money, sex, procreation, establishing family ties, ordering society, and love. All of these reasons for marriage, she argues, have undergone transformations because of a switch from an emphasis on kin and community, common in agricultural societies, to an emphasis on the individual in contemporary society.

Marriage has also changed as women have gained legal rights, including the right to own property and the economic capacity to support themselves. Graff maintains that opponents have said that disaster will befall us each time our government has made changes to our marriage laws. They shouted that if we recognize the growing quality of the sexes by changing marriage laws, the fabric of society will deteriorate. Lewdness and promiscuity will prevail. The family will erode and the world as we know it will end. Sound familiar?

Graff points out that at each juncture when marriage laws and ideas about marriage have shifted, the sky actually hasn’t fallen, the world hasn’t ended. What has happened is that the meaning of marriage has changed. What used to be a means of passing down property and making kinship connections has become a means of uniting equal partners, a coming together based on love and mutual commitment that gives support to individual lives and order to society.

Graff contends that what the Religious Right really objects to in gay marriage is the underlying equality that it affirms. In a same-sex marriage, the real or imagined inequality of the sexes does not matter. Acceptance of gay marriage would clearly indicate that our conceptions of marriage have changed radically to this tender mutual coming together of equals. It would affirm the equality of all men and women in the endeavors of marriage.

Ministers in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, with its affirmation of individual conscience, have been performing marriage rites for same sex couples for decades. This past week I asked ministers on our chat line to tell me when they first performed same sex weddings – I had various responses, mostly citing dates in the 1970’s. One UU minister, Rev. Robert Wheatly, the late director of the Office of Gay Affairs for the UUA, put together a planning guide for same sex holy unions in 1978. Rev. Keith Kron, the current director of the office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Concerns at our headquarters started performing gay marriage ceremonies in the 1960s.

At first UU ministers did this without the official endorsement of the denomination, but they didn’t need that endorsement in order to do what they believed to be right. However, eventually our democratic form of governance kicked in and caught up to the ministers. In 1984 our General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the practice of UU clergy performing services of union.

Twelve years later, in 1996, our national board of trustees unanimously passed a resolution in support of same gender marriage. That same year, the General Assembly passed a Resolution of Immediate Witness in support of the right of same gender couples to marry. The resolution encourages the association and its member congregations to let the world know about this stance we have taken in support of same-sex marriage.

We as an association have lived up to that mandate. Four of the seven couples in the Goodridge case in Massachusetts are connected to our movement, with the support of our congregations and clergy. The president of our association, Rev. William Sinkford, was among the clergy leaders who publicly opposed an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution that would have legally restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples.

President Sinkford stated, “The task of our government and elected representatives is not to enshrine the religious point of view of any one faith into our laws; the role of our government is to dedicate itself to protecting the rights of all citizens.”

When the Vermont legislature was considering legalizing civil unions, three UU ministers spoke in favor of that law. Rev. Dr. Nancy Crumbine stated, “Our failure to recognize same-gender couples as part of our ‘common humanity’ can be overcome only by the clarity of legal leadership. This is the power of representative democracy, a minority’s rights can never be left up to majority rule.” Just like the Jefferson quote we heard earlier.

Our society and our movement have come to affirm the rights of conscience and have used the democratic process to reform and redefine marriage. The personal story of my thinking about these issues really began four years ago, when I started seminary and became friends with another UU seminarian who is a bisexual woman currently in a relationship with a man. The two of them were and still are clearly smitten with each other and so I asked if they were planning to be married.

My friend turned to me and said, no, that they would not be legally married because it’s not a right that all people have. She said that if she happened to be as in love with a woman as she is with this man, it wouldn’t even be a question I could ask – at least not in the same way.

This led me to contemplate whether I would ever legally marry again – because to do so would be to take advantage of a system that discriminates against other people. I decided for myself that to marry would be to take part in a system of injustice and that I do not want to do that.

This led me to thinking about something else that Graff discusses in her book, that marriage is both a public institution and an inner experience. The inner part has to do with coming together in love and commitment for mutual support. The public part has to do with the recognition by the state of this commitment- that you come first for each other, that you belong to each other in a special way.

What makes a marriage? Is it the public recognition of the connection, or is it the inner experience of that commitment? Graff says that for centuries the church and the government said that what makes a marriage is the couples’ vows to each other. This changed with the Protestant Reformation, according to Graff, when the state became more involved in the institution of marriage.

As a minister, I also thought about the sacramental aspects of marriage, about the marriage ceremony. From my perspective, you can be married in the eyes of the Divine and in the eyes of the state, and I think that the first is more important. So I decided that if I should ever again find a partner to whom I want to commit, that I would have a sacramental marriage but not a legal one, unless it is legal for same sex partners to marry as well by that golden time.

My seminary friend also told me about a growing movement among our Unitarian Universalist clergy. Some of us have pledged not to sign any marriage certificates until we can sign one for every couple that comes to us asking to be married. In a sermon about his decision to take this pledge, The Rev. David Pettee, who is the director of ministerial credentialing at the UUA, wrote this:

My willingness as a member of clergy to help legalize marriages has important repercussions. To me, the seemingly innocent and neutral act of signing a marriage license actually represents a silent collusion with the state, which extends the numerous privileges of marriage only to heterosexual couples. I now believe that when I sign a marriage license, I am simply reaffirming the state-sanctioned discrimination against same-sex couples.

Learning that UU ministers were taking this pledge struck me as really cool, and courageous, and made me feel proud to be a Unitarian Universalist all over again. It also set me thinking about what I would do as a minister – would I join this group of prophetic men and women what have taken this pledge?
I thought about the issue in several ways. On one hand, I thought that each couple should make the decision about whether to have a legal marriage themselves – isn’t that their right? Of course, it is the right of individual conscience and they could and should reflect and decide about it for themselves.

My next question to myself was whether my not signing their marriage certificate would in any way infringe upon their right of conscience. No, not really, I decided, because I can and will gladly perform the religious rites of marriage because that is something I can offer to every couple.

Opposite sex couples who decide they want to be legally married can have a civil ceremony when they pick up their marriage licenses. Another option is that we can have a justice of the peace co-officiate at the wedding, and the JP can sign the certificate.

My next question was – well, what if the couple doesn’t have much money and my refusing to sign the certificate would be a financial hardship? Should they have to pay for my ethical choice? I thought about that one a lot, and decided that if that is the case, I’ll reduce my fee by the amount they’d have to pay for the civil service, so it won’t be hardship.

So the long and the short of all this thinking is a decision that here, today, I’m going to make a stand. I hereby publicly announce that for deeply felt and long-contemplated religious reasons, I will not sign any marriage certificates until I can sign them for any couple that comes to me wanting to be married. As an act of civil disobedience and religious conviction, I will not sign any marriage certificate until it is legal for same-sex couples to marry as well.

This is a diverse group, and I’m sure you will have a range of reactions to my decision. I know that some of you will support my stand and that some of you might object to it. That’s okay, you don’t have to agree with me. That’s freedom of the pew - your right to individual conscience. Either way, pro or con, I’d like to hear your opinion about this. Come to the forum at 11:30 today, or call me and we can talk about it.

And above all else, I encourage you to think about these and other ethical, religious, and political issues for yourself. I encourage you to inform yourself of various points of view and decide what you believe. I encourage you to talk to me and to other members of the congregation about your thoughts, and to listen. As Earl Holt III wrote, I encourage you to take full advantage of the freedom the fifth principle allows you to grow your soul, to cultivate your individual conscience, and to nourish that vital religious force within you.

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