How to Reconcile Traditional Religious Beliefs and Support for Same-Gender Marriages

In a society like we have here in the US, there are all kinds of different individuals with different views. Some people are Christian, some people are Muslim, some people are Jewish, some are agnostic, some are atheist, and so on. The religions are similar to each to each other in multiple ways, though they have some significant differences as well. Even within each religion, there is some disagreement on how to properly follow the religion. When it comes to gay rights in particular, there is much disagreement between different religions and different individuals in each religion as to whether gay rights are compatible with religion. Most people I have communicated with who who view gay acts as sinful at least believe in still respecting the individual. They just oppose gay people getting married. What I want to address here is how one can personally not believe in that while still being okay with it from a legal standpoint.

For starters, it should be noted that even among straight couples who get married, their marriage often is not spiritual valid from a traditionalist standpoint. People get married quite often without the marriage being blessed by a church or other place of worship. One might then say something like "Well, that's an issue too. We need to get back to making all marriages traditional and reflective of God". The problem with though is that then one would need to basically be legislating religious morality for even those who do not believe. Very few if any people I have talked to, even those who have traditional view on this sort of thing, take it as far as desiring to mix religion and government. If those who are more traditional about this subject agree with that point, then it stands to reason that from that point of view marriage, unless blessed in a house of worship and abiding by traditional gender roles within the marriage that include a man leading his wife in prayer and such, marriage in general needs to be banned. That is quite clearly unrealistic and extreme. Therefore, banning legal marriage for same-gender couples on the basis that it is against what God is ultimately selective and fails to take into account the fact most of us already accept the existence of marriages that go against the teaching of various religions. In fact, even just being a different religion is technically sinful according to most religions, yet very few people say that that means we should make it illegal to be a different religion. That is one major way those with traditional views of what marriage is can bring themselves to being able to reconcile their view of marriage with society accepting legal same-gender marriage.

As for the other major way one can have a traditional view marriage while still being okay with the legality of the marriage of those of the same gender, religions generally recognize that there are civil law in addition to divine laws. For instance, as confirmed in the Washington Post article right below, the majority of Muslim people do not see divine laws as being a substitute for civil laws. It is commonly assumed that Sharia is meant to necessarily take the place of civil laws, but that is not true. For most Muslim people, Sharia is basically just a set of rules that they personally choose to follow regarding how they pray, give to others, get married, and so on. The LDS Church also likewise acknowledges a separation between church and state, as can be seen in the second link under here. This brings us to a fact related to the paragraph above, which is that from a traditional view marriage, legal marriage (also called "civil marriage") is not quite the same as divine marriage. Some people of faith say that the problem is that the government does not have the power to change the definition of marriage, and that very well may be true. However, the government changing the definition of civil marriages should not really affect those who say that. The only real way the government could affect that would be if it was requiring places of worship to accept those marriages, which it is not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-sharia/2016/06/24/7e3efb7a-31ef-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/true-to-the-faith/civil-government-and-law?lang=eng

At any rate, whether or not this changes one's mind about the legality of same-gender marriages, we can probably all agree that protecting the rights and liberties of all individuals is of high importance. That is as long as we are not violating other peoples' rights with our liberties. Even if one still would rather not openly support same-gender marriages, there are strong arguments to made, such as the ones above, that might make one want to rethink whether they should be actively fighting against it. We may not all agree about what is right and wrong, though we can most certainly disagree peacefully and let each other find our own truths regarding what we feel works best for us as individuals.

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