This article comes from my good friend, and card carrying Libertarian, Matthew Collins. Matt is a Nazarene Clergyman currently attending Seminary in pursuit of his Masters of Divinity.

Firstly, I want to be upfront about who I am - I am a part of a Wesleyan Holiness denomination called “the Church of the Nazarene.”  What this means is that I do hold to the traditional line of Christian orthodoxy about homosexual practice - that it is forbidden by the Bible.  Now, I’m not going to argue this - it is what I believe after investigation of the subject, and ill-considered discussion will only stir up biased hatreds and bigotry to argue in any direction.  I believe fundamentally that all men and women are children of God and my neighbors who are to be loved.  I make no claims to being perfect in love, but I will say that I do my best to treat all people of all beliefs with fondness and dignity.  If any of my readers who are homosexual themselves would like to point out a time I have treated them with bigotry or intolerance or hatred, I would say that you are welcome to share it with me, because i will gladly listen.  I can only offer contrition if I have ever treated any person without love.

But, that is another subject.  What I specifically want to write about, as a Reverend and Christian, is Gay marriage - and why I support it.  But what I also want to speak about is the necessity of the separation of Church and State - and what it should properly look like.

The first thing I want to discuss about Gay Marriage is that there is a misnomer about the Biblicalness of marriage.  Although marriage is condoned, endorsed, and required in the Scripture for anyone who would be sexually active, marriage itself is never defined as something that is “Christian.”  Rather, it should be understood that marriage, according to the scriptures, is a commitment of two people to one another, that cannot be broken except in a few extreme cases (infidelity and abuse, essentially).

In our culture, however, as many have rightly noted, marriage has been reduced to a legal contract.  I want to tell you all something - a legal contract before our government has nowhere near the stature of commitment that a commitment before God should have in the eyes of a believer.  Even non-Christians recognize that a commitment to God is an inviolable commitment - why else such incredible outrage at the failure of pastoral and priestly leaders by the community at large?

Christian marriage (at least) - and I am in no particular way qualified to speak beyond that context, should not in any meaningful way be managed by a legalized state commitment.  Instead, it should be built off of the religious beliefs of the people in the marriage, and their commitment to each other, before God.  And, if it is less than this, it is a farce of a marriage, not the lifelong commitment that is endorsed by Scripture.

That said, I recognize that there needs to be, in our society, a state recognition of the benefits between committed couples, and the commensurate benefits.  Particularly, these include the right to be with your spouse in times of emergency and illness at a hospital, and to take part in their benefits offered by a business or organization of which you are a member, and also a recognition for tax benefits, inheritance law, property law, and others.  Or, more simply put - there needs to be some legal recognition of partnership between two people for certain legal needs.

In our society, by and large, marriage has been the norm by which we divvy out these specialized benefits.  Spouses receive the inheritance and pension benefits of the other spouse, usually even after death, as well as special tax benefits, and other similar things.  To deny gay marriage is to deny a person the right to bequeath to a person of their choosing these benefits.  Frankly, how can any human argue reasonably that there is something wrong with allowing a dying person to have the comfort of who they wish, or to whom they should leave their pension related benefits after death, or any of a myriad of other, traditionally freely given decisions.  And, if there is a disallowance of gay marriage, there is a disallowance of some of these, and other, benefits.

Sadly, by intermingling a faith practice (marriage) with state laws (on a myriad of subjects), Christians will be disallowing the civil rights of a certain group of people (homosexuals, in this case) by virtue of the laws.  Aside from what I view as a black mark on Christian social ethics - history will certainly judge any group that disallows the rights of another - there are deeper legal issues in regards to the idea of equal rights that this brings up.  If there can be state sanctioning against certain practices now, that favor Christians - why couldn’t there be state sanctioning of practices that hurt Christians later?

But, what is the alternative for Christians?  By legalizing homosexual marriage, many clergy are left in the position of having to officiate homosexual marriages or else be sued for discrimination (much as they could be if a clergy person refused to officiate a service because a person was of the “wrong” race).  Instead, I offer up another solution.

Personally, I hold to the idea that there should be a domestic partnership that all people who wish to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage should have to enter into.  This is not to be understood as marriage, but rather as a legal partnership commensurate with all the benefits of marriage now.  Marriage itself would not be a legal term, at this point.

However, many people would still wish to have a religiously sanctioned marriage, be they Christian, Mormon, Buddhist, or any other of a myriad of religions.  And, they should be perfectly welcomed to partake in that ceremony, but that ceremony itself would be one of spiritual commitment, rather than legal commitment.  This would remove any person opposed to homosexual marriage on religious grounds from having to participate in any sort of marriage ritual they found abhorrent - it would be a religious ritual, and not a legal one, and thus exempt from state problems.

Incidentally, I believe that this system will work well, and that marriage will continue to survive and thrive.  Baptism, at one point, was a state-sanctioned event in most European nations.  This was when a baby was officially named, and brought into being a part of that nation’s broader society.  Later, this practice was dissolved, and the practice of the Birth Certificate was born.  Meanwhile, Christians happily continued to baptize their children, or to become baptized as an adult (depending on their family beliefs, etc.).

So, I want to reiterate my position - Homosexual marriage is a loaded issue, but I believe we should allow homosexual partners the full range of benefits of heterosexual partners by recognizing “domestic partnerships” rather than marriage.  Marriage, as a religious institution, can and should continue as a religious rite, but should not be in any way tied to state practice, as was done historically with the practice of baptism.  This will allow all people to maintain their religious and civil rights, regardless of political or religious beliefs.  And that’s why (and how) I support the practice of gay marriage, while disagreeing with the practice of homosexuality.