Gay Marriage: The Pagan Difference
As I have pointed out before, laws against legally recognized gay marriage unfairly benefit those religious traditions who have a vested interest in GLBT folks remaining second-class citizens. The melding of a civil contract and (mainly Christian) religious ceremony in America has created the erroneous idea that the State should have some role in defining and blessing (with legal benefits) which two consenting adults should be able to be joined before their god(s). In a theocracy that might be understandable, but in a theoretically secular nation (one that harbors a vast diversity of religious viewpoints) such “traditions” of mixing religious law with secular law are absurd at best, and harmful at worst.
The Pagan attitude towards gay marriage is a very different one than the so-called ‘Judeo-Christian’ attitude that rigidly defines a sacred bonding, a marriage, as only possible between mating couples of the opposite sex. An example of this difference recently popped up in an Icelandic newspaper, where a former Asatru high chieftain blasted his government for its double standards concerning the legal status of gay and straight marriage in his country.
“Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, former high chieftain of Ásatrúarfélagid (a religious organization for those who believe in the pagan Icelandic/Nordic gods), has criticized the new laws on religious associations being able to confirm cohabitation between individuals of the same sex for being too vague and not really including marital rights. “The laws on confirmed cohabitation are mostly an optical illusion,” Hansen told Fréttabladid. “They neither give gay people nor straight people any rights to my best knowledge.” “Various people have claimed they give the same rights as marriage, but that is unfortunately not true. They do not include a reversionary right and do not provide the kind of safety that marriage is supposed to provide,” Hansen explained.”
While Iceland has long had civil unions for gay couples (called “registered partnership”), they have steered clear of allowing “marriage” for gay couples. The situation Hansen describes, is in regards to a new law that allows religious institutions to solemnize a “confirmed cohabitation”. While some are calling it “marriage”, others, like Hansen, point out that it doesn’t grant the same rights and status as a straight marriage.
“Separate laws are valid for the confirmation on cohabitation for straight and gay couples and the traditional definition of marriage, as a union between a man and a woman, remains unchanged. In October 2007, the State Church decided not to change the traditional definition of marriage. “I think it is poor behavior to make people believe that this is marriage when it isn’t,” Hansen said, adding, “If confirmed cohabitation is supposed to be such a good thing then why can’t priests confirm the cohabitation of straight couples?” “Until now I have not had the right to confirm the cohabitation of a man and a woman. There is no law that states that the cohabitation of two individuals of the opposite sex can be confirmed,” Hansen claimed. “I just don’t understand what the legislator is trying to achieve with this. It is like a band-aid for an undefined wound,” Hansen concluded.”
What these Icelandic issues illustrate is that “separate but equal” civil union compromises usually only emphasize the “separate”, and hardly ever confer true “equality”. Civil unions for GLBT folk in America might be seen as a step forward for awhile, but eventually those “not-marriage” contract compromises will start to chafe.
“We are all the same people, all of us. You’re no different than I am. Our love is the same. To me — to me, what it feels like — just, you know, I will speak for myself — it feels — when someone says, ‘You can have a contract, and you’ll still have insurance, and you’ll get all that,’ it sounds to me like saying, ‘Well, you can sit there; you just can’t sit there.’ That’s what it sounds like to me. It feels like — it doesn’t feel inclusive…It feels — it feels isolated. It feels like we are not — you know, we aren’t owed the same things and the same wording.” – Ellen DeGeneres
The solution is either for the government to allow true marriage equality and allow the solemnizations done by Pagan priests for gay couples to be just as legal as a Christian wedding of a straight couple, or for the government to get out of the marriage game altogether and establish only civil unions for everyone. Anything else creates a moral hierarchy with the traditional Christian definition of marriage at the top, and anything deviating from that below it. Thia marriage debate isn’t just about legal rights for gay couples, it is about respect, and true religious equality. So long as Pagan marriages and handfastings of gay couples aren’t legally recognized, the American government is participating in the sort of religious favorites-playing the separation of Church and State is supposed to prevent.
5 responses so far
Well said, Jason.
Glad to hear that the Asatruar in Iceland want gay marriage, too.
Come to that, why aren’t we out protesting about this issue (and the environment, and discrimination against Pagans in prison) instead of unimportant nonsense like reburial?
Thank you for this, Jason.
Unfortunately, queer rights advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign (which is hardly “queer,” but oh well…) don’t want to raise the religious issue in their objections to and advocacy on this matter. They try and keep everything “civil,” and just sit there whining “It’s not fair.” They have started a subgroup for religious inclusiveness, but they are not willing to include pagans in their listings or in their speaker programs and events, because we’re just a little too not-mainstream-enough to appeal to their main demographic, and that of their projected audience. Pagans advocating on these issues are seen as weird and deviant for being pagan…It’s a bit of a catch-22 in certain respects.
So, well done Hansen and Ásatrúarfélagid! And thanks again for posting this!
I’m not totally sure where Phillip is coming from on this one. Perhaps HRC has been reluctant to accept Pagan help, but the co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Freedom to Marry at the time of the Goodridge decision was Maureen Reddington-Wilde, an out Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagan and minister in Church of the Sacred Earth.
While the RCFM in Massachusetts has been retired (a victim of its own success!) their work has been subsumed by Mass Equality. I do not know if Mass Equality and Equal Marriage.org, the other group related to the RCFM that continues its work, still have active Pagan leadership. And I wouldn’t claim that Maureen’s position of leadership was wholly without controversy.
But it was there. It was a fact. Pagans have been active and visible on this issue out of all proportion to our numbers, and I, for one, am very proud to have been able to work for equal marriage within the state of Massachusetts.
Can we do more? Sure–and let’s.
The US Government discriminates against all same-sex couples, whether they are pagan or Christian or anything else, none of them can marry. And the US government allows any opposite-sex couple to marry, again regardless of religion. The government also doesn’t care whether the civil marriage is solemnized in a religious ceremony or at a civil ceremony, and if the couple does choose a religious ceremony it can be of any type they choose. The recognition required to be able to officiate at a wedding is very easy to get, and again there’s no religious test. When the government finally recognizes same-sex marriages they will recognize pagan same-sex marriage ceremonies. It’s the same-sex part they have a problem with, not the pagan part.
did not know that.. well I am a member of HRC and will layout it out to them… then see what they got to say