The suppression of ego demanded by a truly Christian union makes gender irrelevant, writes Karen Armstrong of gay marriage
On the fourth of July, in Harvard Memorial Church, I attended the wedding of my friends Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, and Dorothy Austin, Episcopalian priest and chaplain to the university.
It was an exhilarating occasion. When the couple - Harvard luminaries together for 28 years - walked down the aisle, the massive congregation of more than 800 people broke into spontaneous applause. But there was also a hint of unease.
The Harvard police surrounded the church to prevent the incursion of hostile protesters. In some ways, Dorothy and Diana live more truly Christian lives than many joined in heterosexual marriage. In 1999, for example, they took in a family of four Muslim Kosovar teenagers who had lost both parents, and seen their father killed before their eyes. But the religious right would regard their wedding as sacrilegious, and bishops who support gay rights have received death threats.
The extremity of this response suggests a buried anxiety. The strident fundamentalist rhetoric in defence of "family values" is just one end of the spectrum. At the other is a tradition of recoil from matrimony, apparent in some of the religious movements that erupted in America in the 19th century.
The Oneida Perfectionists advocated free love, while the Mormons introduced a system of polygamy. Shakers regarded sexuality as wholly corrupting.
The movement flourished for more than 70 years. The success of such apparently bizarre experiments indicates widespread dissatisfaction with traditional marriage.
We now regard monogamous, heterosexual marriage as a holy institution that is central to Christianity. But enthusiasm for the married state is relatively new. Until the 17th century, celibacy was the primary Christian vocation. Jesus told his followers to leave their wives and children (Luke 14: 25-26). St Paul permitted marriage but recommended chastity.
St Augustine, the founder of western Christianity, equated Christianity with celibacy. Plagued by sexual desire before his conversion, he prayed: "Lord, give me chastity - but not yet!" Later he regretfully conceded that marriage was part of God's plan, but described sexuality as a symptom of humanity's chronic sinfulness.
Matrimony may have been the lot of the vast majority of Christians, but it was not revered as an "honourable estate". Couples were not married in the church itself, but - like the wife of Bath - at the church door, epitomising the liminal status of wedlock.
Priests uneasy about their own sexuality did not encourage a positive view of marriage. When the 12th century philosopher Abelard proposed to his pregnant mistress Heloise, she insisted that it would be a scandal for Abelard to submit to such "base servitude". She later attributed their downfall not to their "fornication" but to their wedding.
Following Calvin's lead, the Anglican Church was largely instrumental in promoting the ideal of holy matrimony, now routinely praised in all denominations. But the old denigration of sexuality persists, often at a subterranean, subconscious level. In the Catholic Church the ban on artificial birth control implies that married sex is permissible only with a possibility of conception. Priests are still forced to be celibate, even though clerical celibacy is not a divine ruling but only became obligatory in the 13th century.
This is not only unhealthy but self-destructive. Priests are leaving the church in droves. Forbidden to marry, they have sexually abused women and children, a scandal representing what Jungians would call the shadow-side of the church. For generations, the Catholic establishment has aggressively regulated the laity's sexuality, while denying its own corruption.
The writings of the American religious right show it is perturbed by shifting gender roles and sexual mores. It is particularly fearful of feminism and sexual ambiguity. This inspires aggression against those who support gay rights.
Christians have long found it difficult to integrate their sexuality with the sacred and to affirm the religious value of marriage. Unable to accept their own sexuality, they castigate the behaviour of others, attribute far too much religious importance to what happens in the bedroom and see sexual correctness as the benchmark of orthodoxy.
But like all major faiths, the Christian scriptures speak of the primary importance of practical compassion, which mitigates the destructive tendencies of egotism and greed.
Marriage demands the suppression of the ego. Every day you have to dethrone yourself from the centre of your world and put another there. It is a spiritual process, and gender becomes irrelevant. Those who prop up their sense of self by attacking others' sexual behaviour have lost the plot. Diana and Dorothy, who have cared for the orphans and the dispossessed, seem far closer to the Christian ideal. - (Guardian Service)
Karen Armstrong is a writer on religious affairs and author of The Spiral Staircase: A Memoir (HarperCollins)
karmstronginfo@btopenworld.com