Ah one of the most divisive issues in the church today: the gay rights movement.

I don’t dare open the debate about what God thinks about homosexuality. I’m not interested in comments that include Bible passages condemning gays or interpretations that negate those condemnations.

My question is, does it matter? Should what the Bible says determine legislation about the gay community? I don’t mean the ol’ separation of church and state debate. I just mean common sense.

This article outlines the current struggle in Oregon: Not Enough

 The most relevant points are toward the end, but here’s a summation:

– A heterosexual couple in which one partner works, and the other doesn’t, can file a joint tax return at considerable savings (the example in the article is thousands of dollars). Gay couples are denied this benefit.

– Married spouses don’t have to pay anything to estate taxes after their partner dies. The assets of the deceased transfer tax-free to the surviving spouse. Not so if you are gay and have a domestic partnership. A quote from the article: “It’s killing me that upon my death [my partner] is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes.”

– If you are a married man and you die, your wife is qualified to receive your full Social Security benefits. If you are gay and die, however, the registered domestic partner you’ve lived with for, say, 30 years gets squat. They have to purchase more life insurance for their partner to receive to make up the difference.

It’s a shame. A man and woman could be legally married, worship the devil and make blood sacrifices to demons every night, and they can reap all of these benefits. They could scream at each other, beat each other, smash beer bottles at each other, and no one would dare to question their rights to collect these benefits. When their partner dies, they will collect their social security. They can enjoy their health care benefits and get all kinds of tax breaks. If the marriage fails (shocking, I know) support can be awarded to the partner that would suffer from the end of the relationship. Their union is considered good in the eyes of our country … because it’s a man and a woman.

There are plenty of unholy, heathenistic, ungodly heterosexual marriages. Why have religious groups decided to draw the line in the sand at gay couples? Because they’re easy to point out? Because it’s clear they are “different” and attacking unholy heterosexual couples would eventually hit too close to home?

For those who believe homosexuality is a sin, since when does a sin that isn’t illegal warrant taking away benefits that sinful heterosexual couples enjoy? Does anyone actually believe that taking away these benefits will disuade anyone from being in love with someone of the same sex? That the fellings will go away if the tax break is gone? Clearly, that isn’t working.

Why on earth are these issues even up for a vote? We have twisted democracy into a tool for the majority to take away rights of a minority, who happen to be tax-paying American citizens who have earned the right to benefits just as much as anyone else. We gladly vote away their tax breaks with the same smile we take their tax money to supplement our own breaks and benefits. Does that seem like Christian behavior?

Obviously, there are monetary motives for squelching government-sanctioned gay marriage. So where does the religious context come in?

“Well we can’t support gay rights because they might think we APPROVE of their lifestyle!” some might say.

And there it is. Lazy, passive-aggressive evangelism.

Yeah. I think the gay community gets it. You don’t approve. Duh. I doubt that will ever be in question. So therefore we get tax breaks and they don’t! Ha! VICTORY! 

Wait, how is this a victory? No one’s hearts or minds have been changed. All we’ve done is sucker-punched our fellow man in the wallet without genuinely sharing the message.

To create a parallel, generally Christians also don’t approve of worshipping any other gods than the one in the Bible. Shall we nix freedom of religion? Synagogues and temples get tax breaks, too, you know.

Maybe we’ll keep freedom of religion, but religious groups can’t be tax exempt unless they worship Jesus. After all, a tax break to a mosque would make us a country that APPROVES of worshipping other gods!

I actually hesitated to write that line because I know there are plenty of people who would love that idea. *sigh* What a dangerous path this leads us down.

One solution I approve of would be to abolish the word “marriage” from government files altogether. All bonds within the government would be civil unions and anyone could have one.

Personally, the marriage license on file in city hall meant nothing to me spiritually, romantically or committmentwise. It’s simply for money purposes and legal documentation. God really wasn’t part of the equation when I signed it.

Which is odd because that’s the thing Christians are fighting so fervently to deny gay couples. A slip of paper. A Godless legal document that can be nullified with a signature. “Defending marriage” by denying this sheet of paper to gay couples? What sad marriages these Christian anti-gay-marriage activists must have if the core of their union lies within a paper in a filing cabinet.

It was in the church where God became a part of my marriage — in the vows I made to my husband at the alter. That is the committment I am giving my all. The controversial piece of paper could burn up and blow away forever and nothing would change before God. I’d still very much be married. I would just have a harder time keeping the money my husband and I have worked so hard to earn.

If government “marriages” were all called civil unions, “marriage” could then be strictly a church word, and just like now, it is up to a church to decide who can be married before the God whom that church worships.

The church — the place where the motives are about how one worships God without the message being muddled with our worship of tax breaks.

Shame on anyone who equates the two.