"Marriage Needs Protection from -- Heterosexuals"

Article published in the Birmingham News

February 20, 2005

Rabbi Jonathan Miller

Temple Emanu-El

Birmingham, Alabama

I am privileged to be a member of the clergy for the past 23 years. One of the most cherished duties I have is to join together the lives of two people who pledge their love and loyalty to each other. I myself, married almost thirty years, rejoice with these couples as they build their lives together. So imagine my dismay when, just the other day, I had the following conversation in my study with a young couple, let’s call them Sam and Sarah. They had been planning their wedding after a several years’ long courtship. I had worked with them over the past months, and thought that, while they have some work to do on their relationship (who doesn’t after all?), they made a delightful couple and would bring much happiness to each other.

"Rabbi," said Sam. "Sarah and I have been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching. We have decided to delay our wedding. We don’t know if marriage is right for us."

I was dumbstruck. "Why what’s the matter? Y’all are such a wonderful couple. Your families are supportive. You love each other. Why break up now, after all these years? What is going on?"

"We still love each other, now more than ever," Sarah said, holding Sam’s hand tightly. "Its just . . . its just that marriage is so special, and we don’t want to share it with homosexuals." Her eyes welled up with tears.

Sam rushed in to explain. "Marriage is under attack by those people who also want to be married. If we let everyone enjoy the same relationship we hope for ourselves, than our relationship will be sullied by their love and commitment for each other. As long as homosexuals are allowed to marry in Alabama, we feel that we must deny ourselves the sacred bond and companionship that they seek for themselves. Either marriage is for homosexuals, or it is for couples like us. We cannot share marriage with them. That is the bottom line."

I understood immediately, and of course I identified with this young couple. After all, I have been doing some thinking myself. I know that homosexuals call in for pizza, and I decided a little while back that I would deny myself the pleasure of pizza as long as homosexuals are allowed to eat the same food. I am thinking about giving up my driver’s license because homosexuals also drive on the same roads that I do. And I will think twice before sending my children to school because homosexuals are also intent on receiving an education. The principle is this: if homosexuals are doing it, I most certainly am not!

I called my mother that very afternoon. My mother, who lives in New York, is a family lawyer—a misnomer at best. She still works in her career to help families dissolve their sacred bonds. I shared with her Sam and Sarah’s plight. "Jon," she said, "I know exactly what you mean. My phone has been ringing off the hook. Couple after couple is looking to divorce because homosexuals are allowed to marry here. They just can’t stand the idea that other people should be as happy as they are. They are coming to me in droves because the homosexuals want to get married."

Of course, the conversations above are fictitious. Worse than that, they are ludicrous. But here is an equally ludicrous fact. ... Not that marriage doesn’t need some serious protection. It needs to be protected from the heterosexuals who don’t keep their vows, from heterosexuals who cannot control their urges, and from heterosexuals who have stopped being nice to their lifelong partners. But the State Legislature is looking to defend marriage against an onslaught of phantom homosexuals who only want to share the same obligations that heterosexuals take upon themselves with their beloveds.

With all of the ever-present challenges facing our state, why would protecting marriage against people who love each other become the focus for our state leaders, or our national leaders for that matter? We are now, again, succumbing to our worst fears about people who are in some ways different from us. We demonize them, isolate them and ultimately, we hurt ourselves.

There now, doesn’t that make you feel a whole lot better?