It’s been a while since I’ve opened up a can of worms, so why not start with this topic, eh?

I can’t claim to have finished refining my opinion on gay marriage. I can’t claim to be erudite on the subject, and I don’t base my opinion on custom or the balking of it. As with most of my opinions, I trust in the fact that I continually examine and re-examine my innermost moral compass which constantly compels me to ask what do I really believe, rather than what have I just been told by others that I ought to believe.

What I believe comes down to this, as plain and simple as it may be: I believe there is one God who created each and every one of us. I believe that the various religions are all like languages — they try to convey the same concept, but each does so in ways that those not native-born may not fully comprehend, that the preachings and teachings of the various pathways to God and the sects therein contain within them nuances and inflections that make no sense to those not raised up hearing them from birth. I believe that God — the one and only God — hears all of these languages. I believe that God loves, blesses and rewards each and every one of us regardless of whatever language our heart speaks, whatever faith we were born to or have since elected, whatever convoluted path we take to come to know God and our relation to the Godhead. Whether we call God “Him” or “Her”, God or Goddess, Allah, Shang Ti or Haile Selassie, I believe we are all hoping to, trying to, and wanting to connect with our source, our Creator, and ultimately our moral compass of what is right and what is wrong. I believe that some of us come to realize how small the yoke is, how hard the path laid before us, that we turn tail and run, claiming as right the very opposite of what we know to be truth. I believe that those of us who do just that secretly chastize ourselves, but I also believe that it’s nobody else’s job to do so.

I believe that we all instinctively know what is right — to live fully affirm our own life and to bring joy to the lives of others. As evidence I point to the way we are when we are initially brought into this world, long before anyone has sullied us with their own teachings: when we are children our primary impulse is to be happy, to make those around us smile with delight, to explore new things while eschewing those which bring us pain, to please those who treat us well and to avoid those around whom we are not comfortable. I believe that we are children of our Creator and as such we should not lose the childlike sense of joy. I believe that God — by whatever name you call the Creator — wants us to retain this form of happiness, this form of bringing the joy of being alive to others, and that our mission here is to appreciate, explore and enjoy the hell out of it without hampering the lessons the Creator plans to teach them.

I believe that life is a gift, inchoate until physical birth. Once we draw our first breath, I believe we have an absolute, morally imperative right to continue living until we chose to end it, be it through suicide, “merciful, assisted euthanasia” or through taking the life of another human against their will because, at that point, we’ve proven we no longer have a superior claim to continue drawing our own breath. I also believe that, as with any right, there is also a responsibility to live: to do what affirms the Creator of all life, to respect the lives of others, and to promote and protect our own living. In that order.

I believe that the purpose of life is to come to terms with our Creator. I believe that we have not only a mission to seek out knowledge but also to hold ourselves accountable to what we have learned. What I learn on my mission may not be the same thing(s) that you learn on yours. Thus, it is no more your place to dictate to me what path I should take or what actions I should make than it is my right to dictate yours to you. That right is reserved to the Creator by whatever name you choose to refer to him/her/he/she/it. (I hate “/’s”, so my shorthand for that whole rigmarole is God. You may choose some other name — one I’ve previously mentioned or, perhaps another — but neither of us can drag out first-hand accounts — i.e., those written by a Creator without intermediaries — and so all of us by definition assume we have not erred.)

I don’t believe we are called upon to exercise faith that a Creator does, indeed, exist. I believe there is enough physical evidence in this universe to prove that something was the impetus. Hence, I have no problem simultaneously believing in evolution as well as God, but I would not deign to teach either as the penultimate truth. I could not create this world, nor could you and I cannot claim to understand all of its mysteries, nor should you.

I do not doubt that there exists a Creator to whom these things are not mystery. I consider it a privilege and a wonder to have a brain that is impelled to try, at least, to understand these things. But I do not think any one of us is meant to fully understand them. As a corollary, I also accept that neither you nor I are capable of defining or fully understanding the Creator, and were someone to tell me that s/he has met the Creator I would require proof — first-hand proof, as in, “Oh yeah, you met God? Fine, invite him/her for a round of poker tomorrow. You can’t? Well, then I don’t believe I should accept what you’re saying as more valid than what I’ve come to learn from my own explorations.”

So when it comes to gay marriage — or abortion rights, pre-marital intercourse, drug use, Pardah/burka, or what-have-you — I don’t believe anyone knows what God really expects of us. And I believe it is patently wrong to attempt to dictate to another what God says.

Don’t get me wrong. I consider myself a Christian. That is a path I chose after my own explorations. Still, I cannot say without second-thought that my path might not be different had I been born in, say, Islamabad. And you know what? Neither can you. None of us can go back and re-live our lives from the beginning, so none of us can accurately conclude how we would turn out today had we not experienced the things we’ve already lived.

Which means, ultimately, that when it comes to gay marriage or any other “moral determination,” I reject the teachings based upon any source outside of my own experience. I trust in my moral compass. I trust that because my efforts to know and understand my Creator — and my resulting obligations to the source of my creation — are continually informed, because I am continually seeking to hold myself accountable to what I believe, and because I know that my judgements of “right and wrong” are just that — judgments against my own worthiness and no one else’s — the Creator does not consider it a sin if my beliefs do not parrot the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, Septuagint, apocrypha, Book of Mormon or the Urantia. My job here is to be accountable to my Creator, and to no one else.

With all that said, my view on gay marriage is simple: I don’t think God cares with whom we have sex. I believe God cares about why we are having sex.

Whether we choose to have sex with someone of the same gender or the opposite one, whether we have pre-marital, non-marital, intra-marital sex (or whatever other variation I’ve somehow left out), I believe that the means is always more important than the end. No pun intended. Seriously.

Some of us have sex to assuage our own egos. Some of us have sex to work through issues in our past. Some of us have sex because we feel ugly, unloved or unneeded. Some of us have every reason to believe we’re worth being loved and yet — for our own private reasons — can’t truly accept this and seek proof of it through the physical demonstrations of others. Some of us just like the release. Some of us are into it for the head trips. Some of us — yes, I believe this, too — truly love sex because we truly love the person with whom we’re having it.

Unless you can trot God out — by whatever name you call God — to testify that your way is the one and only right way, unless you are willing to accept that even to claim to speak for God is — in your religion, as well as in others — tantamount to soul-condeming blasphemey, I do not believe you can claim to be the definitive source on God’s will.

In whatever religion we practice, we are called upon to be humble. And, when it comes to religion, the definition of humility is to know that we are not, and never will be, God. To God alone is reserved the authority to determine truth, and thus to God alone is reserved the judgment of what is right and what is wrong.

A lot of religions preach just that and yet go on to pronounce “laws” and “rules” and “fatwas” concerning how man (or woman) should act, dress, eat, pray, procreate and think. How dare we! I believe that to be humble before God is to accept that you cannot incontrovertibly prove that you’re right, and that you risk not only your own soul but those of others when you attempt to speak for the Creator.

So if gays want to marry, well, I believe neither you nor I have any business dictating what is “right” or what is “wrong.” The decision whether it’s right or wrong resides with the individual, the one and only person capable of knowing whether his/her acts are, ultimately, affirming the life they’ve been giving or disparaging it. The accountability for for having erred ultimately resides with him/her, too, and that goes the same for heterosexual couples.

But I defy you to show me any religious book upon which you claim to base your belief that says you have the power to judge on God’s behalf. That goes for you, too, Congress. And you, Mr. President. And, yes, even you, Your Holiness.

If I’ve said anything in this blog of which I’m proud of having to proclaimed, it is this: I am happy for any two consenting adults who are willing to unite today so that they may weather tomorrow and all the tomorrows thereafter together, and when two such people come together, I believe they are not only blessed, but that they have blessed all of creation as well.

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006, 7:51 pm   |   My Venomous Life  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.