Here is an article from today’s newspaper in which they quote me. I’ve highlighted the text concerning my comments. Although all of what is attributed to me is not in quotes, Mr. Lowe did an excellent job of reporting our conversation.
In Jesus, our Good Shepherd,
Pastor Keith
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
Voters expected to be passionate about marriage
Groups such as Equality Virginia may organize meetings before the issue comes to a vote.
By Cody Lowe
981-3425
The Roanoke Times
As the Virginia General Assembly takes the first steps toward amending the state constitution to ban gay marriages, the debate over that issue – which ultimately must be decided by voters – is already moving into a higher gear.
“It’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot of resistance to gay marriage in Virginia – and in the U.S. generally – and that people will work hard to make sure gay marriage is prohibited,” said the Rev. Deborah Hentz Hunley, rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Roanoke.
On the other hand, she said, “I’m also aware of the increasing numbers of loving and faithful gay couples – some of them in my parish – who are creating strong and supportive families based on pretty traditional values.”
“There are plenty of people who love these couples and who want to support them, and they will also weigh in on the question with some passion,” she said.
“How those two factors balance out will be significant in the debate.”
That discussion is likely to be continual – and probably heated – between now and November 2006, when, most observers believe, a referendum will go before the voters of Virginia.
The legislature is considering two proposals – one from each house – that would define marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman and would prohibit the recognition of any other type of civil union that is marriage-like in nature. (These are now designated as SJ 337 and HJ 586, after substitutions in each house.)
Specifically, although opponents of the amendment say it isn’t necessary, the purpose is to avoid having a judge rule that same-sex civil unions must be recognized in the commonwealth.
The legislature should hammer out compromise language on the two slightly different bills later this week, and is expected to pass a joint resolution before the end of the session Saturday.
“I think it’s imperative that we frame the debate as one of persecution of liberty,” said Molly McClintock of Christiansburg. She’s on the board of Equality Virginia, a lobbying organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender concerns.
“We have got to educate everyday Virginians that this is an extremist measure pushed by a minority voice. That there’s no legal need for it since we have laws on the books, and plenty of them, to prevent marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships” by gays, she said.
McClintock, a court-appointed special advocate representing abused and neglected children, said opponents also must “make our message more clear than we have about the role of government versus the role of the church in relationships between adults.”
Gays and lesbians, she said, want “government protection and recognition of a legal relationship that two adults choose to form. Those governmental bodies have never wanted or been able to tell individual churches or congregations what they must recognize in a religious way.”
McClintock said she expects groups such as Equality Virginia will try to organize community meetings and other dialogues before the referendum comes to a vote.
“I think people will be alarmed to see that the law is discriminatory and hurtful and hateful,” she said.
The Rev. Keith Beasley, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) on Electric Road, also expects “there will be a lot said back and forth.”
But he said he doesn’t expect the debate to have much effect one way or the other.
“To change folks’ minds, you have to change where they start” in their understanding and assessment of the issues, he said. And “because people really do have their minds made up,” he doesn’t imagine any quantity or quality of argument will make much difference.
Certainly, he said, “Yelling or screaming louder, on either side, or being more in someone’s face is not going to change someone’s mind.”
For Beasley and many other conservative-leaning Christians, who undoubtedly constitute the majority of activists for an amendment, biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior are clear and unequivocal.
“For myself and my church body,” Beasley said, “scripture is the only source and norm for faith and life, and that’s what we draw from. When you contradict that, you’re going at the root of who we are in Christ.”
On the other hand, Beasley acknowledges that a homosexual who is told that “this is wrong and sinful feels as if that goes to the core of their being.”
For the Rev. Brian Clingenpeel, pastor of Villa Heights Baptist Church near Bonsack, homosexuality is a sin, “but I don’t see it as more of a sin than any other.”
He probably won’t preach on the subject, however, because he tries to keep volatile political issues out of the pulpit, he said.
“That gets back to the gospel being for all people. … Invariably someone in the congregation will not agree with you, and with a hot-button issue you’re turning somebody off immediately.”
He does expect the amendment will be a frequent topic of conversation in Sunday school classrooms, however.
The proposed amendment is “clearly an issue that is exceptionally controversial,” said the Rev. David Walton, pastor of Belmont Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
“My personal opinion is that there are much bigger things we need to be discussing than this,” Walton said, “especially in church.”
While he said he hopes the debate will be civil, especially inside the church, he will focus on what he sees as “my one commission, that is, to love as we have been loved.”
“It’s my job to love people. I’ll let the courts legislate, let the law mete all the rest of this out.”
Sam Garrison, a longtime gay-rights activist in the Roanoke Valley, said “it’s too early to tell for sure how the debate on marriage will go, one main reason being that every year that the Massachusetts experiment goes forward, there will be less and less objective reason for sane people to fear that ‘the sky is falling.’”
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that its state constitution guaranteed gays access to marriage there. That action is widely seen as the impetus for a spate of state constitutional amendments, including the one being proposed for Virginia.
“An honest and deep examination of the function of marriage from the government’s standpoint, the governmental or public purposes which it does or ought to serve, would be refreshing and worthwhile,” Garrison said. That includes asking questions such as, “What is marriage really for? Can we identify anything other than personal procreation of new humans that straight people can achieve through marriage which gay people cannot?
“I wish more people were talking about issues other than marriage, such as protection from discrimination in the workplace throughout Virginia, as our gay and lesbian municipal employees here in Roanoke enjoy.”
Keith Wagner, pastor of Roanoke Church of Christ, says he simply can’t understand opposition to civil unions.
“I don’t see how in the world you could deny somebody civil and equal rights,” he said.
“You don’t even have to approve” of homosexual behavior, he said, to “treat a person fairly and give them the same rights that you have.
“We’re living in a state where it’s illegal for a man and wife to have oral sex,” Wagner said. “We can’t talk about that,” he said, but he expects most folks will have no trouble talking about gay marriages and civil unions.
College students don’t have any trouble talking about it, said the Rev. Paul Henrickson, campus chaplain at Roanoke College in Salem.
“I don’t have any scientific proof here, but from my perspective most students would support gay marriage,” Henrickson said. Roanoke College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose policies discourage the recognition of same-sex unions.
“When I say to them that I would find it difficult as a pastor in the church to perform same-sex marriages, they are a little surprised at that,” Henrickson said. He said he doesn’t believe the matter is a burning issue for most of his students.
“From my perspective, if the state wants to OK civil unions, I don’t mind that at all. They can go to a justice of the peace and have that declared,” the chaplain said. “I would hope that our church would not do that.”
But even if he and his students disagree, Henrickson finds the campus atmosphere – which encourages debate – conducive to conversation.
“I think it helps us avoid being entrenched and opens doors to talk about it, to explain how I see marriage from a theological and spiritual point of view and how they understand marriage.”
Hunley said she hopes that sort of atmosphere extends beyond college campuses.
This is a good time, she said, to “look at marriage in general, and not just gay marriage. We need to be talking about what marriage means, period, to the state, to the culture and to people of faith. And we need to be able to articulate the reasons we think it’s important, if in fact we still believe it is. I personally think the institution needs a major overhaul, and I know a lot of clergy who agree with me about that.”
