Jesus Would Have Gone to Gay Weddings

It's been more than 2,000 years since a dude named Jesus walked around the Earth turning water into Merlot, but a group of Catholic priests in Argentina are making some waves for bringing up Jesus's name regarding the subject of gay marriage. And contrary to what folks might think, these priests aren't using the name Jesus to condemn gay marriage. They're using his name to suggest that gay marriage is totally compatible with religion.

The priests, responding to conservative religious claims that same-sex marriage can never be compatible with the Bible, bring up a pretty interesting point: Jesus never said anything about gay marriage. Nor did he really ever say anything about homosexuality, either.

"Jesus never set a closed doctrine on marriage," the priests say in their letter. "He simply followed the customs of his time and came to recognize and defend, in a special way, women in a social context (that was) sexist and patriarchal."

Uh-oh. It's one thing to portray Jesus as an anti-war radical. But to also call him a feminist and someone down with LGBT rights? If Elton John taught us anything, it's that anti-gay folks really, really hate that. Guess the truth hurts, though.

The priests continue in their letter, "We are Christians, Catholics and priests of the Catholic Church but we are opining on this issue at the antipodes of the view of the episcopate. We are in favor of equal rights, pro-family marriage of homosexuals and gay family."

That's some pretty bold rhetoric, and a direct challenge to institutional Church types in Argentina, who have bellowed loud and clear their opposition to same-sex marriage. In the wake of marriages that took place in the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego a few months back, not to mention a bill in Argentina's legislature that would legalize same-sex marriage, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires said "[Gay marriage] is a cultural and conceptual revolution with which the Church is not in agreement."

Looks like the Archbishop isn't speaking on behalf of his entire church now, is he?

Let the record show that yes, Jesus never did say anything about marriage being the sole domain of straight folks. As John Shore points out in this excellent Huffington Post piece on the subject, Jesus spent almost his entire life talking about loving your neighbors, and even loving your enemies, and avoiding the trap of using theology and religion to oppress others.

"Around Jesus you can whine, lie, shift your loyalties, be late, be greedy, be too ambitious, be stupid, be a coward, be a hypochondriac, constantly complain, fall asleep at every wrong moment — you can do nothing right, and it won't in the slightest way seem to offend him. But you put dogma ahead of empathy?" Shore asks. "Then ... yikes, man. Then you've got yourself a problem no one wants."

Putting dogma ahead of empathy. Yup, that sounds pretty much like what nearly every opponent of marriage equality does. Funny how that runs in complete contradiction to what are supposedly the tenets of their faith.

Photo credit: JP Puerta