Gay marriage

I see that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in America is once again grappling with the issue of ordaining openly-gay clergy and blessing same-sex marriages, a thorny and explosive issue in most Christian denominations.

Whatever the theological and scriptural arguments for each side of this issue, I find it interesting that the major monotheistic religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – have historically all had an almost pathological fascination with controlling sexuality. Celibate clergy, all-male rabbis, the burka, honor killings (killing female relatives who may have “dishonored” the family with their alleged sexual transgressions), and endless teachings focused, not on the quality of relationships, but on prescribed and proscribed sexual practices. A dispassionate alien observer could not help but think that these male-dominated religions must all live in terror of the reproductive capabilities of women.

If these religions had ever put anywhere near as much money, energy and real emphasis (as opposed to lip service) on controlling violence, on helping the poor, on social justice, or even on addressing the common dysfunctions in “normal” heterosexual relationships, the world would be a much better place.

Of course most people aren’t rational about this subject – they can’t be, having been indoctrinated since childhood in whatever religious tradition happened to be around them. As the Jesuits astutely noted “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man”. (as I said – a male-dominated religion). Childhood indoctrination, implanted before there are well-developed rational faculties to examine and question what is being taught, follows us all throughout our lives and shapes our world-view until we die.

But if people were rational and un-indoctrinated, they might see that the issues of confirming gay clergy or solemnizing same-sex marriages are very minor and largely irrelevant in the face of the real pressing world issues of the day, and hardly worth all the fuss and controversy they seem to generate and all the energy that is wasted on them.