Mixed Feelings About Same Sex Marriages

George E. Curry

Editor's Note: This story, which George Curry wrote in 2003, triggered the ire of the LGBT community, precipitated his friendship with Phill Wilson, and became the inflection point marking the beginning of his advocacy to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We run it in his honor.

As regular readers of this column know, I usually have pretty clear views on most social policy issues. But I confess that I have mixed feelings about same-sex marriages. Not only am I in a quandary, I've been in one for weeks as I've tried to look at this issue from both sides. And when I do that, I end up right back where I suspect a lot of people are - torn between feeling that homosexuals should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and believing that same-sex marriages should not be sanctioned by the government or the church.

I know this disclosure will not please many of my friends on the Left. And while many on the Right might take some comfort in my discomfort, I am not in total agreement with them, either. This weight of arguments advanced by both camps places me in the position of being able to see the merits of each position.

I am a Christian and my religious beliefs don't allow me to accept homosexuality as normal behavior. Sorry about that, friends, but we must part company on this one. And I know that the Bible admonishes us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. I can and do love my neighbor without agreeing that the church should sanction marriage between couples of the same sex. Even Little Richard jokes that God created a union between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

To thousands, I know this is no joking matter. And while I believe that the government shouldn't sanction gay marriages, I understand why some gays and lesbians want to enjoy the same privileges that married couples covet – the right to make life or death health care decisions for an incapacitated partner, to be entitled to financial proceeds that were jointly created and to be entitled to all benefits extended to a surviving spouse.

Some states and cities are trying to duck the issue by legitimizing civil unions between members of the same gender, a distinction without a difference. There is no acceptable alternative to this alternative life style and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Gays and lesbians need to get real, too. It irks me that so many of them try to equate their struggle with the Civil Rights Movement. And some of my friends in the movement, in an effort to be politically correct, are reluctant to challenge such nonsense. Sure there are some things that are common to both movements, but except in limited individual cases, gays and lesbians have never suffered anything approaching the oppression of African-Americans. They were not lynched because they were gay, they were not brought here in chains because of their sexual orientation, they were not deprived of the right to vote because they like people of the same gender, and no White girl in the United States has ever been killed for
whistling at a White woman.

Still, homosexuals should not be barred from employment because of their sexual orientation. I don't think people should be automatically kicked out of the military because they are gay or lesbian. And they should have the legal right to do whatever they want in the privacy of their homes, including engaging in what the Bible describes as ungodly behavior.

The difficulty arises, at least for me, when gays and lesbians want their aberrant sexual behavior - yes, I said aberrant - sanctioned by the public and placed on equal footing with a marriage between a man and a woman. The Bible is clear on what unions the Creator has blessed and approved. And those unions do not include men marrying men or women marrying women.

This debate has political implications as well. The progressive movement in this country, which has taken a political drubbing in recent years, stands to lose more of its political clout if it continues to take up every hack-eyed cause deemed to be politically correct. I am not saying they should try to emulate the Christian Right (or more accurately, the Christian Wrong), but I am saying that moral issues are important to many voters in this country and if Democrats in particular continue to be perceived, correctly or not, as advocates for deviant or immoral behavior, the Party is in for many more devastating defeats. This issue looms larger than progressives realize. I suspect that many people share my misgivings about supporting same-sex marriages but are reluctant to speak out for fear of being labeled politically incorrect. There's no need to be fearful when you know that you've been honest with yourself.

George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and
BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is "The Best of Emerge Magazine," an
anthology published by Ballantine Books. He can be reached through his Web
site, georgecurry.com.