Join The Impact remarks for Saturday, November 15, 2008 ~ Rev. Allen V. Harris

Free Stamp ~ Willard Park, downtown Cleveland

[Ed. Note: It was raining buckets on Saturday, and very hard to hear the speakers.  Therefore, the remarks you read here are only what I intended to say.  I ended up summarizing them pretty well and got most of my ideas across.  AVH]

Rally Photos by Bob Olayas found at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=697592845

As a person of faith, and a pastor of twenty-two years, I do believe there are great moral issues of our time that demand our attention. I also believe in the great prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power, naming and claiming our faith not just in the sanctuary, but also in the marketplace, the public square, and even in the voting booth. I, too, believe that who we love and how we recognize our loving commitments are two of the most critical issues facing our society today.

But let me also tell you today, as a person of faith and as a pastor, the great moral issue of our day is to expand the embrace of love, not to restrict it. The grand ethical dilemma of this generation is not how to write into our governing documents ways to exclude those who would love a person of the same sex, but ways to support and lift up all who seek to create and maintain glad and generous hearts, stable homes, and loving families.

One of the greatest ethical mandates, that runs throughout all of the major religions of the world, is called the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” Jesus said. Jewish sage and scholar, Hillel reflected, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary.” And yet, what has happened in this past election in referendums on same-sex marriage, and in previous elections including here in Ohio in 2004, is nothing short of an appalling violation of the Golden Rule. The benefits, and the responsibilities of marriage are for all committed and loving couples to enjoy. As you would want it for yourselves, so you should also desire it for others.

On August 23 of this year I stood before two of my dearest friends, together in love for 18 years, in the sanctuary of Forest Hill Christian Church in San Francisco, California. In the sacredness of that space and the beauty of that moment, these two men vowed not only to be the love of each other’s lives, but to be patient with each other in all of life’s circumstances. Echoing the beautiful words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, they vowed to make their love bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things. Before their families, the members of their church, friends who had gathered from far and near, they exchanged rings blessed by the gathered congregation, kissed each other passionately, and beamed with joy. We all cheered.

But all of that could have happened at any other time up until May of this year when the California Supreme Court called upon the people of that state to live up to their noble ideals of equality for all. Thus what happened after the service, during the reception, is what was truly historic and good. The pastor who co-officiated with me, and I, signed the legal document that made real the Golden Rule. Finally, the state did for this gay couple what they had always been doing for heterosexual couples: treat them with equal dignity, respect, and justice. That’s what Jesus stood for. That’s what God calls us to do. That is the magnificent and monumental moral principle we are called to support today.

Eighteen years ago, at the very event where our friends first met, my partner, Craig, and I shared our own vows in the sanctuary of Church of the Covenant in Boston, Massachusetts. There are today thousands of congregations of many different denominations and faiths across this great country which support the love of gay and lesbian couples. Many of them also honor those relationships with ceremonies of commitment or Holy Unions. These communities of faith, like the one I serve across the Cuyahoga River in Ohio City, the 166-year-old Franklin Circle Christian Church, recognize the value of stable, loving couples and of treating all their members equally. When I asked the Elders of the church I serve when I first arrived if I was allowed to do Holy Union services, they replied, “Only if you treat them exactly the same way you would a straight couple!” These are God-fearing, hard working, potluck-loving Christians and they understand the Golden Rule.

Rather than sit and listen to all these complaints about how the “gay-rights advocates” are forcing their values onto religious people, I would argue that the state is denying these hundreds, even thousands of Open & Affirming congregations the fullness of blessings that are afforded the heterosexual couples whose ceremonies are also blessed in their houses of worship! In 2004 Massachusetts finally respected the actions of churches like Church of the Covenant to have the same-sex relationships they have been blessing for over 20 years legally recognized!

To conclude, I humbly realize that I cannot stand in front of you and say that all religious people live the Golden Rule and do unto others as they would have it done unto them. Obviously we have to look no further than to the sources of funding of many of the referendums that passed earlier this month than to see that there are religious people and institutions dead set against gay marriage. But I can stand in front of you today and assure you with all my heart, soul, and strength that there are FAR MORE of us Open & Affirming people of faith who gratefully, wildly, and adoringly support the equality, dignity, and sacredness of all people, and believe that every committed and loving couple deserves our blessing and the state’s equal treatment.

It is to this moral question that I dedicate myself today. God Bless you all.

 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org

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To hear a magnificent commentary by Keith Olbermann, click HERE or on the picture below.  To read the text of Mr. Olbermann's remarks, click HERE

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/from/ET/
 

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Copyright 2008 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096