Marriage amendment reveals sexuality divide

Lutheran, The, Aug 2004

In June, the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, the ELCA's federal public policy office in Washington, D.C., signed a letter to Congress opposing adoption of the Federal Marriage Amendment. More than 25 religious groups that differ sharply on gay marriage-from Baptists and Quakers, to Roman Catholics, Sikhs and Unitarians-endorsed the letter.

The amendment states: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Karen Vagley, LOGA director, said the letter expresses the ELCA's commitment to civil rights and isn't about endorsing gay marriage. But LOGA's action drew rebukes.

A letter sent to Rebecca Larson, director of the Division for Church in Society, and posted on the WordAlone Network's Web site (www.wordalone. org), called LOGA's action a "serious mistake" because it suggested the ELCA has taken a position in the homosexuality debate while it is still studying issues related to same-sex blessings.

LOGA should have been "more sensitive to the delicate position in which the ELCA finds itself ... [to] be eminently clear that ELCA leadership has not prejudged the study," said Roy Harrisville III, executive director of Solid Rock Lutherans, a recently formed group seeking to uphold the ELCA's practice of not blessing same-sex relationships.

In a letter (www.thelutheran.org/ 0408/larson.html), Larson told the ELCA Conference of Bishops that the division followed its normal practice of examining ELCA social statements and those of its predecessor churches to determine whether there is a policy basis for LOGA to endorse any statement. The division opposed the marriage amendment because it "threatens hundreds of legal rights that gay and lesbian families currently enjoy under a number of state and local laws," she wrote.

Larson's letter cited several ELCA policy documents that take strong stands against discrimination. She noted that Sexuality: Some Common Convictions (adopted by the ELCA Church Council in 1996) calls Christians "to respect the integrity and dignity of all persons, whatever their age, gender, sexual orientation, or marital status."

Word Alone's letter, authored by Larry Wohlrabe, a pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Moorhead, Minn., dismissed this: "The issue is not civil rights but how our society has defined ... marriage.

"Cloaking LOGA's opposition to the FMA in the garb of civil rights is a way of short-circuiting the ... moral conversation that needs to happen in our churches and our culture ... [about] homosexuality, marriage and family life."

A new Barna poll reports that 46 percent of Americans favor the amendment; 44 percent oppose it.