North Carolina voters have spoken, passing an amendment to the state constitution – called Amendment One – which allows that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be recognized by the state.” I, and many other bishops, clergy and laity from within the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, and faith leaders from many traditions, opposed Amendment One. I opposed it because I believe, as the scripture says, all people are created in the image and likeness of God and that all are therefore to be accorded the rights and dignity that befit a child of God. In like manner, those who hold a very different position are also created in that image – and deserve the same respect that befits a child of God.
[blockquote]My concern for the hurt and harm that this amendment may cause remains. That includes hurt and harm to unmarried victims of domestic violence, unmarried couples – gay or straight, senior couples and children. This must not be the end, but a new beginning to end any form of discrimination in the constitution of our state and to build a new North Carolina, where there is equality and justice for all of God’s children.[/blockquote]
What? Just how does this follow from the state refusing to give sanction to same sex copulation? If you are going to end discrimination then you must do away with all law because all law discriminates between those who break that law and those who don”t.
Rather sad for him to quote Ted Kennedy’s statement after his failed presidential run in this context. I appreciate his saying that he thinks I, an amendment supporter, am also created in the image of God. He thinks, though, that I am a hurtful one. He doesn’t have a program for helping more unmarried people to understand the church’s teaching (or what was its teaching) about abstinence from sexual contact outside of marriage.
The issue is not one of civil rights or not showing dignity to God’s creatures. It is constant misrepresentation of reality; first in the misapplied use of what it means to be a “person” and second, the constant disregard for, as well as attempted redefinition of “sin.”
We may have been created in the likeness of God but there was a big problem which is being overlooked. Also, I believe scripture has something to say about all this. This is the apostles’ teaching?
Being a bishop is obviously no guarantee that one actually reads the Bible. Genesis 1 does indeed teach that human beings are created in the image of God:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (my emphasis)
Verse 28 continues: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.â€
Chapter 2 elaborates further on Scripture’s understanding of what it means to be human. In verse 18, God creates woman because “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him.” The chapter concludes with God bringing the woman to the man, who responds:
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was staken out of Man.â€
The next verse concludes: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
It is to these passage in Genesis 1 and 2 that Jesus appeals in his own assessment about the permissibility of divorce: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and ithe two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.â€
I suppose it is possible to find something in there about approving of “same-sex marriage,” but I imagine that only a bishop could find it.
I rather doubt that the TEC bishops of North Carolina are experts on the subject of Marraige. For 2002 through 2010 the three dioceses lost 30 percent of its Marraiges. In 2010 there were 436 Marraiges from 257 churches, or less than two per church. Statmann
Love the ‘proof texting’ used. Makes me laugh.