See the 9th paragraph below for the rest of the column not included in the newspaper edition.
Marriage is being redefined across the nation. We in Big Horn County are swept into the fray because proponents on both sides confuse the secular and religious implications of law and the Bible. These should have been kept separate. The confusion creates sticky legal and ethical dilemmas. Even the sanctity of marriage is blurred. What business does our secular government have redefining a sacrament already defined and established by God? At the same time, how can government authority impose a religious standard limiting civil rights and important legal protections for some American citizens? Such are the tactics of the Taliban, and hardly American.
Recently twenty states have or are in process of legalizing adult domestic partnerships or civil unions. The pressure to give reasonable space for such to exist won't stay away from Montana. The situation reminds me of a recent development out on the farm.
Sheila is our Australian Shepherd who normally only defends us from marauding deer at night. I came home from school the other day and found her cowering in my pickup. I opened the door, and she wouldn't come out. I failed to notice the numerous turkey feathers scattered around. After returning home from a meeting later that night, I drove around to the garage, and there was our big turkey gobbler, Lightning, roosting low on a sawhorse beside the door. I wondered why he wasn't up with our two hens in the barn rafters where he belonged.
Next morning we opened the door to check on the animals, and as usual, the turkeys came running and stood their ground for handouts. Sheila romped around the corner of this scene, expecting her usual tidbit. In no time feathers were flying. It took both Bonnie and I to separate them. I laid a full body grip on Lightning and he proceeded to clamp my gloved finger in his beak. He kept his death grip with his body stiff, so I looked him over. The broken wing feathers on one side–he leads with his right–clearly explained his reduced ability to fly.
Then I understood. Now that spring is approaching, the turkey-breeding season is upon us. As Sheila approached the vicinity of the three turkeys, Lightning had forgotten all about possible corn handouts. He ran at Sheila, courageously trumpeting his version of Garryowen- defending his dominance over our two turkey hens as well as his potential posterity with them. Sheila also stood her ground, defending her right to exist on this farm with full access to sustenance and protection.
We were alarmed. No doubt this was headed for a fight to the death. It seemed there could be no middle ground. Gone were the peaceful mornings of opening the back door with handouts to both dog and bird. If we left them to their vices, we feared we would end up having to terminate one or both of them. What to do?
The final solution was separation: turkeys are sequestered behind an electric fence, free to be turkeys, while Sheila is left to guard the rest of the farm. I no longer fear we will have to deploy our termination plan.
Perhaps the same wisdom could apply to debates on domestic partnerships. If the government stays out of the business of redefining marriage, it can focus on protecting citizens. Any two adults should, for whatever reason, be allowed to form a contractual agreement to share a household and to designate the other as next of kin. And the Church can maintain its prophetic role to protect marriage and to proclaim freedom in Christ from the bondages of sin and moral depravity decried by Paul in the Bible. As Jesus advised, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Let the government have legal contracts, and the church have marriage.
It's hard for us today to imagine the Greek/Roman cities in the time of Paul where sex and the sword were used interchangeably to enforce human bondage. Rape was non-existent, simply because normal consensual marital sex was not valued. St. Paul's references to abominations become clearer in the actual Greek words he wrote down. English terms such as effeminate and homosexual in the original Bible language referred to bondage, domination, fear, violence and depravity that tore families apart and caused sickness and death. This is far from the respectful, faithful, caring lifelong relationship God intends for bonding in the human family.
The following is continued from the newspaper
To Paul, normal human bonding was intended from Creation, where Jesus was present. So in the human community of Christ-followers there was to be none of the huge power differences usually implicit at that time in sexual bondages, slavery, religion, race, politics, and wealth disparity (http://politicaljesus.com/2013/03/06/wealth-inequality-political-power-and-the-bible/?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit).
Paul learned this from Jesus. Implicitly or literally, Jesus' parables address human bondages and exclusions justified by Pharisaic literal interpretation of Old Testament law. Almost all of Jesus' healings directly destroyed a legally endorsed physical barrier to life, and welcomed an individual to leave bondages and become bonded with (follow) Jesus for life. It's the salvation to which first Christians were called, who "turned the world upside down," as noted by Paul's enemies in Thessalonica
(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17&version=NKJV).
The intimidation system of sex and the sword was obvious. Caesar's empire was destined to crumble. Roman law was no better than Old Testament law, and both were transcended by the power of Christ and his new Commandment (http://bible.cc/john/13-34.htm). Paul explains specifically that laws cannot enforce the relational elements of "neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free" (http://bible.cc/galatians/3-28.htm). The oneness in Christ to which Paul refers is not an intellectual agreement, but a oneness which law cannot enforce: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, patience" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5%3A22-23&version=NASB).
Much modern Christian agenda follows a philosophy of deontology, where simple unquestioning obedience "as unto God" sets aside Jesus' one commandment in which all the details of the Old Testament law are fulfilled. From the Creation story to the Ten Commandments to St. Paul's institution of communion, abusive bondage power of the other gods is rejected in favor of building human bonds of mutual trust with food and other means of life, in real time and place.
We are on the cusp of good changes in the legal system to separate the religious from the secular in the institution of marriage. Montana needs this change. It can happen with respecting the diversity of opinion and practice, without the imposition of religious law by secular government. Those among us who strongly oppose gay marriage would be relieved from demanding our government to enforce our Bible-based sin definitions. The religious function of exclusion would be relegated to religious institutions, not the secular government. On the contrary, those whose Bible interpretation asks government to issue marriage licenses to gays would no longer have the power to force religious institutions to allow use of their facilities for gay marriages. The government would not be marrying gays; marriage is the job of religious institutions. Government would have the job of protecting and recognizing legal human bonding, defining with public consensus such parameters age, mental capacity, and criminal history which can be clearly demonstrated to uphold the common good.
In New Hampshire, debates over gender in this sacred institution can continue to take place, but within the religious community instead of in government. This also gives back to God the right as Jesus advocated, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
The Roman standard of peace through the violence of sword and sex is all over the Middle East's ancient history sites. Unfortunately, some art historians tend to see nudity in Roman/Greek times as freedom from our Victorian prudery. It's not. It was riddled with bondage, with fear, rape and bloody violence to all those (male or female, bond or free) who would oppose that bondage, through and through. It was not lifelong bonding of trusting equals, but rather, imbedded in some of that art itself, I sense a cry to break from bondage. Our whole Bible advocates freedom for faithfulness, trust, lifelong, respectful human bonding. In fact, these are precisely the characteristics of the Father Jesus came to emulate, and asks us to do the same. This came vividly apparent to me in our 2013 Lent reading of the Gospels.
We in Montana should take note. We also, let alone our Washington legislators, do not need one more ounce of our emotional energy drained on either side of the gay marriage debate (Legislators, check my blog for document links).
The government in Montana now has a monopoly on marriage, and government-sanctioned marriages have been disintegrating for years— just look at the divorce rate in the United States. Since all 50 states issue no-fault divorces, it's sometimes easier to end a marriage than it is to end a corporate partnership. Doesn't the above make more sense? Make it a private contract between two individuals. That's where defense of marriage makes sense.
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
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