Gay marriage is very much on the public agenda here in Australia. For example, it's the opening item on the Fringe Program of the National Labor Conference that's beginning later this week. The issue is of course closely tied to the views of the churches. But aside from losing the battle to have the State uphold God's views on marriage for the national good, what would it actually mean for local Anglican Church ministers if the Marriage Act was changed to accept gay and lesbian marriage?
A few musings -
If a gay couple came and asked Anglican minister to marry them and that minister had issues of conscience, they could simply say no. Just because someone has a licence to conduct weddings, doesn't mean they have to conduct any particular wedding. There's probably already a good range of different scenarios where a minister may not feel comfortable performing a wedding service so this could fall into that category.
But even if the minister did want to perform the ceremony, they wouldn't actually be allowed to at this stage. For wedding services, Anglican ministers must use 'Anglican Rites' - it's on this understanding that they're licensed by the government. And at the moment, all the authorised Anglican Rites are very clear that the service is for the marriage of a man and a woman.
There may be some Anglian ministers who are also licensed as civil celebrants and so they could potentially perform a gay wedding in that capacity, although if they did so, I would want to ask if they'd carefully considered their integrity to ensure that they weren't just finding ways to circumvent the system that they'd sworn themselves into.
There are various groups within the Anglican Church that are advocating various changes in doctrine (or at least loosenings of doctrine) to allow for the church to bless gay unions / marriages. If the national law changed, it's quite likely that they would push for the official marriage liturgies of the Church to be revised to remove gender-specific language and theology. Their argument may run along the lines of 'relevance to mainstream Australia' or 'more enlightened theology' or similar. The counter-argument would be that this is a classic case of the church following the world rather than the plain teaching of the Scriptures. If this change ever did happen, conservative ministers could still continue serving and, again, just choosing not to marry gay couples. Of course, the reality is that the Anglican Church of Australia would probably formally divide in two at this point leaving us with a similar situation to the one in North America where there is now both the Anglican Church in North America and The Episcopal Church. That has already caused huge reverberations around the Anglican world.
Another issue that's live in Australia has to do with gay ministers, of whom there are already some who are bound - along with the rest - to 'faithfulness in marriage, chastity in singleness'. This is clearly a tough gig for gay and lesbian clergy in the same way it would be tough for the gay and lesbian community at large and also for unmarried people generally. But if the Marriage Act was changed, gay ministers could conceivably get married in a civil ceremony even if the Anglican Rites weren't amended. Again, it would be something of an act of defiance; going directly against the position of the church they work for and have made oaths in, but it may yet be a legal loophole. What would the church do with that?
There are lots more thoughts to be thunk but the bottom line is this: It's a really big issue for the church and in many ways is even tougher than it is for the government. It throws up huge issues of theology, personal integrity, biblical fidelity, historical continuity, membership, missiology and organisational unity. How will the church deal with it if it is all brought to a head here in Australia? We at least know that it will be with great struggle.
There is one part of this I believe is (in the long term) possibly wrong. You don't think the next step after legalized gay marriage would not be amending the anti discrimination act to provide legal recourse when a church declines to marry a gay couple. I know this sounds pessimistic buti would bet money on the campaign already having been organized.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's a new book on the matter, the views of which I suspect I'll disagreee with: http://www.theage.com.au/national/cause-still-has-long-way-to-go-says-gay-priest-20111128-1o38f.html
ReplyDeleteHow do Christians feel about the term 'marriage' being reserved for religious people (ie, everybody else gets a 'civil union' unless their marriage was blessed in a Church under Anglican/Catholic/Islamic rites)?
ReplyDeleteWhy must a marriage be something the government even regulates? A government should provide legal certainty for couples in a relationship, but shouldn't a marriage hold the same weight as a christening or baptism? Why isn't marriage just a personal religious affair?
It is inevitable that the Anglican Church in Australia will have to face up to this. At the Synod of the Toronto Diocese a motion was passed which called for the church to marry those whom the state legally allows to marry (which in Canada has been gay people for quite a while). It was a complete triumph of experience and the desire to accomodate to culture over theology. My advice to Australian Anglicans is to prepare now to hold the line on this, politically, morally, theologically, organisationally.
ReplyDelete@Jacob -- it would be interesting to see if this kind of "anti-discrimination" action has already taken place in countries where SSM has been legal for some time, eg. the UK.
ReplyDeleteYears ago when this first became an issue, I thought the choice of the word 'marriage' for gay people, who understandably wished to formalise life-long relationships, was unnecessarily provocative to conservatives. I wondered if a PR firm could be utilised to come up with a term less likely to upset conservatives; perhaps something like 'g-arrige'? But it's too late for that now and I reckon there should be some way of formalising committed gay and lesbian relationships, (even if not before God), no matter what it is called.
ReplyDeleteBut there is no way the state will ever force clergy to conduct marriages they prefer not to, we live in a liberal democracy and such a law would cause too much reaction against a mainstream political party.