Interfaith Alliance head calls for new ground rules in same-sex marriage debate

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The head of the Interfaith Alliance has called for a new national discussion about marriage not as a religious institution but a civil right.

Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance and an ordained Baptist minister, says arguments about same-sex marriage that begin with religious viewpoints seldom change anyone's mind.

Gaddy, preaching pastor at Northminster Church in Monroe, La., says one way to move forward is to agree that America is governed by laws that treat everyone equally and not by religion.

Gaddy

"If government officials and religious leaders distinguished the differences between legal marriage and religious marriage, they could greatly reduce the amount of conflict in public discussions on same-gender marriage," Gaddy wrote in the "On Faith" blog in the Washington Post.

In a longer paper, Gaddy says the only marriages legally recognized in the United States are those based on a government-issued marriage license. He says any religious ritual performed by a minister to consecrate that union is irrelevant to whether the marriage is legal.

"To confuse the civil institution of marriage with a religious institution to be protected by the government is to seriously misunderstand marriage and its relationship to government in the United States," Gaddy writes. "Civil law determines the formation and dissolution of a marriage as well as the duties, responsibilities, rights and benefits of married people: rights related to property, insurance, inheritance, bankruptcy, social security and more; duties related to mutual support, payment of taxes and more; and a variety of privileges."

Gaddy says religious leaders already recognize that governance of marriage belongs to the state when they comply with state requirements for those who officiate at marriages — even those performed in a house of worship. Ministers also continue to look to the state to determine when a marriage is dissolved.

Gaddy says it is unnecessarily polarizing to inject words like "sanctity" and "sacred" into secular debate about marriage, because the government has no business in dictating what is holy.

Gaddy argues that gays and lesbians should have at least as much right to marry as people who are in prison. He says there are at least 1,138 statutory provisions available to people who can marry that are unavailable to same-sex couples who are denied marriage. They relate to matters including housing, employment practices, public accommodation and medical and pharmaceutical care.

Along with equal benefits, Gaddy says same-sex marriages should be afforded the same recognition and respect extended to marriage between a man and woman. He acknowledged that would be difficult for people who believe legalizing gay marriage will erode the stability of the home.

Third, Gaddy says, legalization of gay marriage should be done in a way that poses no threat to religious bodies that oppose it.

"At a minimum this guarantee must assure houses of worship that they will not have to offer rituals or blessings for marriages they do not condone," he says. "Consideration also must be given to the advisability of religious exemptions related to fair-housing laws, public accommodation laws, and employment laws to name only a few realms of challenge."

Gaddy says movement toward same-gender marriage could provide an opportunity for Americans to seriously reconsider the place of marriage in government and religion. He also says a marriage recognized in one state should also be recognized in every other state.

Gaddy says that he personally believes all citizens would be best served by the government getting completely out of the business of marriage. In that scenario the government would be responsible for issuing licenses for civil unions for any couple seeking a legal relationship. The matter of marriage would be left up to houses of worship. The danger of that, he admits, is that civil unions might be considered a status secondary to that of marriage.

Gaddy says his reason for writing the paper is to engage discussion among people who want to be "religiously faithful, politically responsible, socially compassionate, and appropriately influential as a patriotic citizen."

He says Interfaith Alliance "is eager to help facilitate such discussions."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.