I am saddened and more than perplexed by the inability of the Maryland House of Delegates in session March 11, to pass legislation that would guarantee marriage equality to same gender couples. Such comments from delegates as; marriage is subsidized by the state to ensure procreation, others that defined marriage as only open to heterosexual couples and others who erroneously believed that marriage between same gender couples would increase homosexual behavior were misguided at best and at the very worst painful to hear and read.

Much of the opposition has been fueled by persons and delegates who hold deeply felt religious beliefs on the subject of marriage. But to those holding to such positions, it must be said that the role of religious denominations interpreting and sanctioning marriage has been in flux throughout Christian history. There can be no mistake about that if one reads any scholarly theological work on the subject. The issue of who may be married, and who decides who may be married is further complicated by the fact that while religious groups can determine who may be married in the eyes of members of a particular faith, the government decides who is married in the eyes of the state. The distinction between religious and civil marriage is frequently lost, not least because clergy often act as agents of the state in performing the typical “church wedding” which effects both types of marriage at once.

Government officials too often blur this important distinction, reacting legislatively by erroneously defining the “sanctity” of marriage. Sanctity is not for any government or government official to define or protect lest the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” be diminished by contemporary culture wars.

Government officials should refrain from legislating sanctity; it is beyond their power. But states have every right to define civil marriage within their jurisdictions, legally providing same gender couples with the same civil rights that every heterosexual couple has.

Lest any forget, the Civil Rights Movement in this country did not just address the civil rights of African Americans, but in its breadth also raised other issues such as whether civil marriage is a basic human right. The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia 1967, overturned the conviction of an interracial couple and struck down the Virginia state law prohibiting interracial marriage. The High Court opined that marriage was “one of the basic civil rights of man.”

My hope is that in the future the House of Delegates will exercise reason, good scholarship and the courage to rise above the shrill voices of those who manipulate religious history and theology in order to deny the basic civil and human rights that they hold, from those who simply happen to be “straight” or “gay.

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane D.D.
Episcopal Bishop of The Diocese of Washington