On Same-Sex Marriage

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!

The headlines in today's Enquirer reads "California OKs gay marriage." From the Orthodox Christian standpoint of what constitutes genuine human sexuality, the biblical understanding of gender, and male-female relationships, and how all of this relates to Christian marriage, this cannot be received as good news. In this case, the California Supreme Court "overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage." This is a development that you are most probably aware of, but I did want to bring it to your attention and point out the seriousness of the implications that such a ruling raises.

If such a radical reassessment of marriage occurs in many other states, this could change an entire generation's and future generations' understanding of the basic issues of human sexuality that I mentioned above. This would be a social and culture revolution of seismic proportions. For, in my opinion, the issue here is not really about "rights" and "legal protection," which must be granted equally to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation. I believe that the issue of legal protection - important as it is - is secondary to a much more ambitious goal: the total transformation - if not demolition/destruction - of the very concept of heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman, so as to include on a fully equal level the marriage of persons with same-sex attractions. In other words, homosexual marriage would become equal to heterosexual marriage in all things, not just matters pertaining to legal status and protection of all civil rights. I am convinced that this is the larger agenda. The biblical intuition that homosexuality is sinful and unacceptable as a form of sexual expression would then be seen as bigoted and deeply prejudiced; meaning that most Jews, Christians and Moslems would really be bigoted and prejudiced "persons of faith" if they continued to hold to their traditional beliefs about human sexuality.


There is no civilization that I am aware of that accepted same-sex marriage. I am not referring to homosexual relations, but to marriage as a social and cultural institution. Marriage has always been defined - even polygamous marriage, distasteful as that may be to us today - as between a man and a woman. The biblical prototype is, of course, Adam and Eve who became 'one flesh" in their union. We have learned to live with the legalization of abortion; and we may now have to learn to live with the legalization of same-sex marriage. This does not mean that we accept either of these practices internally, or seek to modify the teaching of the Church so as to accomodate what we consider to be sinful.

Next week, I will share some excellent insights into this issue from a fairly new book by Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, entitled Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction - Eastern Orthodox Reflections.

Fr. Steven