When the State of Ohio changed its
position on gay marriage, because of the Supreme Court decision, I found myself
looking for a port in the storm. I am a
Local Licensed Pastor (LLP) in the United Methodist Church (UMC), and as such I
am authorized by the church to perform wedding ceremonies. But since I have only been an LLP since
September of 2014, I have intentionally held off on getting my State license to
perform weddings in the State of Ohio, waiting instead to see how Ohio would
vote on the Same Sex Marriage issue.
That was my mistake.
It occurs to me now that I was
looking for shelter from the coming storm of Gay marriage. (Yes, yes, I will explain what I mean in a
paragraph or two. Hold your horses.) Rather than relying on the UMC, I was relying
on the State of Ohio to protect me. Why? Because the United Methodist Church is
largely NOT guided by the Bible, but rather by the Book of Discipline. Certainly, the Bible is the primary source of
the Christian faith, but the administration and governance of the UMC rests on
the shoulders of the Book of Discipline.
And the Book of Discipline is far from immutable. Every four years, delegates from the
worldwide United Methodist Church meet at a designated location for ten days of
vigorous debate over the provisions in the Book of Discipline at the General
Conference (GC). At every GC since 1978,
a proposal has been made to remove the language from the Book of
Discipline. Paragraph 304.3 reads: “While
persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the
frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are
required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The
practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as
candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United
Methodist Church.” (emphasis mine)
Since this language is changeable,
and since efforts to change it have been made at every GC since 1978, and
further since the events surrounding the strange case of Frank Schaeffer in and
after 2012, I had lost faith in the UMC to retain that language.
Now, let me interject something
here: the Book of Discipline is the go-to source for this policy for the UMC
because the Bible is eminently clear on the subject. The underlined sentence above from paragraph
304.3 leans heavily on several passages in the Bible for its authority; among
these are Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 10. But the Book of Discipline is not the Bible,
and it is possible that the language of 304.3 could be altered or removed
entirely.
So I had placed my faith in the
State of Ohio to protect me from the need to perform Same Sex Marriages. Now, since I promised, let me deal with my
reasoning for calling it a “coming storm.”
For some time now, the idea of hate speech legislation has been
gathering support. “Hate Speech” is an
interesting animal, in that it punishes a person for their thoughts, rather
than for their actions. Let me explain by way of a brief example. Person A murders person B. Just before the act of murder, person A says
something mean to person B. If both
persons are of the same demographic (ethnically, religiously, sexually, economically,
etc.) then the penalty for the murder is X. But if person B is of a different
demographic, then it is up to the courts to determine the value of person B’s
life. If, say, person B is what the
court considers an oppressed minority, the penalty for the murder will be
X+Y. If the mean thing Person A said
before the act of murder draws attention to person B’s minority status, the
penalty for the murder will be X+Y+Z.
Now we couple hate speech laws with
discrimination laws. If person A is a
baker, person A and person B are of the same demographic, and person A refuses
to bake a cake for person B, person B may be upset and feel slighted, but have
no legal recourse. If Baker person A
refuses to bake a cake for person B, and person B is a member of what a court
might determine to be an oppressed minority, person B suddenly has legal
recourse through anti-discrimination laws.
One further point before
progressing with the narrative: “Separate but Equal” laws. During the Civil Rights movement, the courts
tried “Separate but Equal” laws as a form of appeasement. In the end, it was determined that “Separate
but Equal” laws are merely another form of discrimination.
Now, in my position as a Local
Licensed Pastor (LLP) for the United Methodist Church (UMC) I am authorized by
the denomination to perform weddings. I have
even had a training session on techniques for doing so. If I were to refuse to perform a Same Sex
Marriage ceremony, I could be guilty of discrimination based on sexual
orientation. If the couple in question
decides that I am rejecting them based on religious grounds (Leviticus 18:22),
I could be guilty of hate speech. And if
I refer them to my friend down the street at the non-UMC church who will gladly
perform their wedding, I am engaging in a form of “Separate but Equal”
discrimination.
At the outset of this article, I
stated that I had made a mistake in relying on the State of Ohio to protect me
from the “storm” of crimes I would commit detailed in the previous
paragraph. That protection has been
removed. And it is my fear that in the
next General Conference of the UMC, the remaining protections of the Book of
Discipline (even if they are still legally binding) are going to change. The overwhelming tide of change from the
Federal Government and from the politically driven Church Court system removes
my faith in any remaining protection from either of those two venues.
After consulting with a very good
friend and mentor, I have come firmly to the following conclusion: I will never
perform a state recognized marriage ceremony.
I will never be authorized by the State of Ohio (or any other state) to
perform weddings. Since the United
States Federal Government has made marriage their province, even to the point
of telling the church what constitutes a marriage, I want no part of it. My mentor stated it well in a recent
conversation: He said he is willing to (and has) performed wedding ceremonies
which bind the participants in the eyes of the church but not the state. He said he was contacted after doing so by a
state representative who demanded he stop, and his reply was brilliant: “Who
are you to tell me the meaning of the rituals I perform?”
I am out of the state marriage
game, and intend to stay so. I have
called my state courthouse and as of this moment, there is no provision for
authorizing me to perform weddings without first getting my consent for that
authorization. This may well be the
final frontier in the Separation of Church and State, and I’m calling on my
fellow clergy to make this area of separation complete.
