The religious case for same-sex marriage

The religious case for same-sex marriage

Hot on the heels of California’s Supreme Court verdict, Norway has become the fourth nation in Europe, and the sixth nation internationally, to give same-sex couples full marriage rights at a national level.

The motion, which also gave same-sex couples access to artificial insemination, was endorsed in an overwhelming vote of 84 to 41, with even Norway’s Conservative Party voting in favour of the motion.

Only the country’s Christian Democrats and far right Party of Progress voted against it.

And in a world first, Norway’s same-sex couples will not only have the option of a civil marriage, but those who are religious will also be able to have their relationships blessed in a church marriage by the Church of Norway.

Norway’s reigning monarch King Harald V is the constitutional head of its Lutheran Church, which is, like many churches, split on issues of gay ordination and same-sex marriage. With typical Norwegian practicality it has allowed individual parishes to decide the issue for themselves, so if your local church won’t marry you, just drive to the next one.

And they’re not the only ones. Internationally, denominations that recognise same-sex marriages as equal for religious purposes include Unitarians, the Metropolitan Community Church, the Eucharistic Catholic Church, the Swedenborgian Church of North America, and the Mennonite Church of the Netherlands.

Congregations within the Quakers, the United Church of Canada, Reform Judaism, and the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation also perform and recognise same-sex marriage rites.

In addition, many Buddhists in Western nations and progressive members of other mainstream churches believe gay and lesbian couples to be acceptable for religious marriage rites even if their leadership doesn’t.

This makes a very strong case for same-sex marriage being argued not just as a civil and secular right, but part of a person’s freedom of belief as well.

If only such magnanimity was present in the debate over same-sex marriage and gay ordination in the Church of England where gay rights opponents continue to tear at the fabric of the church.

That church’s homophobic African wing, which routinely agitates for stiffer jail sentences for gay men, was shocked when two English clerics adapted the Christian wedding rite to celebrate their civil union this month.

It’s high time the Anglican Communion dealt with this matter once and for all. They’re better off without these loons. As the Bible says, If thy right hand offend thee -“ cut it off.

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