This week in
arguments before the Supreme Court, advocates and opponents of same-sex
marriage presented their cases in what could be the defining moment in the
struggle that has emerged over the last two decades on this issue. At issue was whether there would be a uniform
federal right to same-sex marriage, and whether (though if the answer to the
first question is “yes,” it’s hard to see how this one is still operable)
states that do not have same-sex marriage will be required to respect lawful
same-sex marriages concluded in other states, as the federal government was
required to do in the Windsor
decision two years ago. Two issues,
equal protection of the laws and full faith and credit, are at issue.
To say that
both sides are passionate about this issue is something of an
understatement. For supporters of same-sex
marriage, nothing less than the full panoply of rights available to every
heterosexual citizen is at stake. For
opponents, the possibility of a legal right to same-sex marriage is viewed in
apocalyptic terms, as the rough equivalent of destroying the pillars of Western
Civilization itself.
It is not my
intent to make either argument here; I am foursquare behind the movement for same-sex
marriage and think the religious arguments of opponents are silly. Believe what you will, this is a nation of
laws—a secular nation of laws—meaning
that there needs to be a compelling social interest in discriminating against
one group or another. Adhering to antiquated
notions of purity and following the dictates of sketchy authority don’t quite
fit the bill.
I am still
stuck, though, wondering why it is that conservative Christians are so adamantly
opposed. They cite Biblical passages
decrying homosexuality, though unless they plan to adopt the entire Levitical
corpus of laws, they are left only with passages of ambiguous meaning in the
New Testament. Given this, it seems to
boil down to personal taste. Biblical
literalists, like Constitutional literalists, seem always to find support for
their own prejudices in the “plain meaning” of whatever text they’re using.
But there’s
more. No Christian (or anyone else, for
that matter) can claim he or she will be harmed by same-sex marriage. No clergy will be forced to perform a
same-sex wedding. Christianity will not,
as perpetual GOP also-ran Mike
Huckabee has tried to claim, be outlawed.
This seems part and parcel of the on-going “War
on Religion” meme that, while it is absurd as described, is buried in the
genome of conservative Christianity.
What we’re
witnessing here is an extension of the same hissy fit that leads some to argue
that their religion is being devalued whenever society chooses secularism over dogma. And though the battle over same-sex marriage
is pretty bad, if opponents lose the next one will be worse because, bit by
bit, their world is shrinking, and their sense of specialness is becoming more
and more untenable.
It’s not
been an easy half-millennium, after all.
Beginning with Copernicus moving the Earth from the center of the cosmos
and ending…well, it’s hard to say where
it will end…so many certainties about the place of humanity, and of Christians,
have been eroded away.
We do not live at the center of the universe;
Copernicus told us that, and subsequent scientists refined his faulty
heliocentrism which was ultimately proved true.
Kepler and Galileo taught us that there was no divide between the
heavens and the Earth, that all operated on the same principles. Generations of scholars showed the
construction of the Bible from multiple sources and, indeed, the construction
of Christianity from pagan and Jewish roots.
Darwin and those who followed abolished
the artificial distinction between humans and other animals. We have swept away attempts to prove this or
that “race” inherently superior. Cosmology
and physics have removed the need of a creator.
Secularism has removed Christianity from its privileged position in
Western societies.
If one was
convinced of one’s special place in a created order, it’s easy to see why one
might feel under siege.
At every
step, there were conservatives who fought to keep things the way they were,
even when what they believed flew in the face of the evidence provided by our
senses and reason. And every time they
have lost. After each loss, rather than
accepting it and attempting to assimilate new thinking to their faith—as the
Catholic church, mainline Protestants, and liberal Christians have to varying degrees managed
to do all along—they have retrenched and sought a new battleground for the
struggle against the world. Instead of adapting to a changing world, they childishly demand the world adapt to them.
Prejudice
against homosexuals is surely one of the last redoubts in which conservative
Christians, desperate to feel special, can barricade themselves. They will add to the imprimatur of the Bible
junk science “proving” the perils of same-sex marriage to children and society
in an attempt to rationalize their prejudices.
And, when they are ultimately defeated (even if it’s not this time
around) they will flee to another, more distant, spot for a last stand, and
fight even harder for that vanishingly small sense of being important in a
universe that just doesn't give a damn.
Until they
grow up.
