Reflections on Supreme Court Marriage Ruling

The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.  Will that cheapen the holy institution of marriage?  Obvious people will have their opinions, and we will read them on newspapers and on the Internet.

My own viewpoint is a little different.  The institution of marriage is not a holy temple where only perfect couples can visit.  One dear pastor once told us that marriage happens when two deeply flawed people join together, and learn to love selflessly, hoping to make each other more whole.

From the book of Genesis we learned that marriage is a bestowed blessing because God did not want people to be lonely and struggle by themselves.  The first marriage was between Adam and Eve, but since then through the generations there were also people who were different than us.  They were also God’s lovely children, but they long for union of their own sex.  Some of them found lasting matches, but they were not understood by us.  We thought their loving relationship as sinful, and as a result the gay people could only live in the shadows of our society.  One notable gay author wrote that even a chancy encounter in a bar is superior to a life of loneliness.  How little do they live for!

But the work of the Holy Spirit continued all this time.  At last there is understanding and reconciliation. I still could not believe how many hearts and minds were changed in these few years.  As a straight ally, I can only help along side the true fighters.  There were only a few stories I could offer up, inadequate as they were.  However, I felt we need all our stories out there in the open, in order to continue our honest dialogs.

Now the gays and lesbians can also participate in loving marriages.  No doubt they will face many challenges – just look at how many straight people’s marriages fail.  I do hope there will be helpers out there to help them travel this journey beside them.  I wish more people will see them not as problems, but as real people needing care just as everyone of us.

Do not lie to one another, for you have taken off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self. This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself. As a result, there is no longer any distinction between Gentiles and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves, and free, but Christ is all, Christ is in all. You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:9-14)

May the spirit of truth guide us.