There is a debate raging within Christian and other faith communities about how to deal with the issue of same-sex relationships and its implications for the participation of lesbian and gay people in the life of religious institutions.

Significantly, the issue has been bubbling under the surface in South Africa for more years than we dare imagine. I approach the topic with much personal interest as one of mixed heritage, having been classified as “Coloured” -- rather than as a South African -- by the previous apartheid regime. Having lived, as have countless others, under the spectre of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Legislation and the so-called “Immorality Act”, I have an inherent sense of the kind of overt and covert marginalisation that South African society inflicts on people who live in gay and lesbian relationships.

Most contemporary Christian denominations accept -- often grudgingly -- that they cannot exclude lesbian and gay people from membership of the church. Just as people of colour are often accepted for our “white and western” identities and our “black and indigenous” features are denied, the acceptance of gays and lesbians is frequently predicated on a denial of their sexuality.

Lesbian and gay clergy, in particular, often find that they are only accepted if they hide their sexual identity or espouse self-denial through celibacy. This view seems to be based on an assumption that sexual expression and identity are matters of (sinful) choice, rather than gifts from God. In other words, for faith communities, moral and theological prejudices may be used as trumps against contemporary and progressive values that seek to advance our constitutional democracy.

The modern concept of a “marriage” is a complex construct, a weave of disparate meanings and functions - legal, emotional, cultural and religious. The precise blend has changed enormously over time. For example, in the New Testament scriptures, St. Paul counselled his followers not to marry since he believed the second coming of Jesus was imminent. Judgement and damnation on the return of Jesus could be avoided, however, if sexual desire was channelled through marriage.

But even prior to this New Testament construct, Hebraic and Roman societies accepted polygynous marriages in which paternal authority was absolute over wife and children, even to the point of death. In the twelfth century, the increasing numbers of children fathered by priests who claimed Church property as inheritance gave rise to the idea of marriage as a “sacrament”, along with the reinforcement of priestly celibacy and primogeniture.

In more modern western traditions, it was not until the 15th century and Henry VIII’s efforts to subordinate ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy that the state began to assume a greater role in refereeing human relationships. In subsequent centuries, the roles of the family, religious communities and the state in recognising and giving effect to marriages became even more hopelessly entangled.

It might be argued that in contemporary South African society, marriage has emotional, social and cultural significance independent of and possibly even superseding any meaning ascribed to it by a particular religious community. On this reading, it would be unfair to deny same-sex couples access to that emotional and cultural validation.

However, if the notion of a civil or constitutional union were applied equally across the board so that all couples seeking state recognition of their relationship went through this state ceremony, then there would no longer be any basis for distinction or discrimination.

Whatever disagreements there might be among and within faith communities about how -- and to what extent -- they should incorporate lesbian and gay people into the life of their communities, there is a widespread (but by no means universal) acceptance of the principle that the state has to apply a different set of rules because it has to deal with a much more diverse, multi-cultural populace. On this level, there is broad support (at least at a leadership level) for the principle of equal protection before the law and the Constitution’s equality clause.

The moral logic of this is that whatever system the state ultimately uses to confer legal status and recognition on relationships, and whatever rules are associated with it (e.g., age of eligibility, etc.), these must be applied equally to all people and all relationships. So, if the state is to continue calling the relationships it sanctions “marriages” then it must use the same terminology for heterosexual and homosexual couples.

What should definitely not happen is for the state to set up a “separate but equal” category of sanctioned relationships for lesbian and gay people. Genuine equality springs from even-handed application and administration of the same systems; the creation of separate systems is almost always an attempt to disguise and perpetuate inequality.

So, the moral and legal arguments for equity are pretty straightforward. Social equity is, of course, much harder to address. It might be argued that by separating the civil and religious aspects of marriage and by allowing religious communities to retain the emotionally-charged (and, in many cases, spiritually-imbued) terminology “marriage” to describe religious unions, this allows institutions largely hostile to lesbian and gay people to be the gatekeepers of social acceptance and equity.

This may be so, but it is difficult to see a better arrangement. Any attempt to compel religious institutions to apply the same rules as the state would not only be unconstitutional, it would also likely be counter-productive. There are no shortcuts to greater social equity. These require the active involvement of lesbian and gay people in all dimensions of society and culture -- including religious communities -- to challenge false beliefs and uninformed assumptions, to roll back the boundaries of discrimination and to win social equity for all.

Rev. Keith Vermeulen
Director, SACC Parliamentary Office