What are the differences between a concubine and a wife? Well, if you attended the Religion News Service Roundtable with activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage dispute Thursday morning, you would
know.
This was just one piece of the wide-ranging discussion between the four panelists of varying religious backgrounds on the “Civil Rights and Sacred Rites” debate.
Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, laid out his pamphlet on “Same-Gender Marriage & Religious Freedom,” with the words “a call to quiet conversations and public debate,” jumping off the front page. However, the other three participants did just the opposite.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said “we have watered down the meaning of marriage,” taking it apart like “a Mr. Potato head.”
“It will be the death of marriage,” he said.
“The stronger the family, the stronger the community,” Perkins said. “But the core strength of that family goes back to the marriage. Not just two people-but of a mother and father.”
In the same vein, Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization Marriage, said she was concerned that the “powerful cultural elites” are changing the meanings of marriage out of sympathy for the minority. She also said — repeatedly — that she resents the comparison between race-based discrimination and gay-based discrimination. The two aren’t the same, she said, and resents the comparison.
“I think marriage means a husband and a wife-that makes me like a racist in their eyes,” she said. “I am a bigot just because I hold that view.”
Gaddy, meanwhile, said “I have much more confidence in marriage than you all do,” adding that some long-term gay relationships are more stable, committed and monogamous than many straight marriages.
He went on to argue that if you take to the extreme that marriage has to be defined by a man and woman (presumably with children in tow), than a whole slew of problems arise: that every person in society should marry, a single parent needs to immediately get remarried, or children are at risk without both members of that household.
“The place to begin the discussion on same-gender marriage is not religion,” Gaddy said. “That will inevitably polarize us.”
“I don’t want to judge your patriotism or your faith,” he also said. “But, I also don’t want you to judge mine.”
Rabbi Jeffrey Wohlberg, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, actually bridged some common ground, emphasizing each panelist’s concerns over being an American patriot and maintaining strong moral values in family.
“Family is central,” he said. “It is a core element in religious thinking, religious law.”
Wrapping it all up, Gallagher asked Wohlberg what the difference was between a woman and a concubine, after an RNS reporter (one intrepid Dan Burke) asked how family dynamics have changed in Jewish history. The quick answer: legal status, or perhaps the legal status of their children. Wish you were there, right?
(photos by David Jolkovski)
