A Biblical Perspective on Civil Partnerships

Those who are opposed to ministers having freedom ever to bless a same-sex union resent, understandably, being branded “homophobic”. 

Those who perceive in some homosexual relationships qualities of love, nurture and affirmation that they cannot believe are odious to God resent, understandably, being told they have abandoned the Bible.

It would be difficult indeed to make a case for Holy Scripture saying anything approving about homosexuality.

It would be equally difficult to make a case for Holy Scripture saying anything at all about stable homosexual relationships. We read of men loving one another – David and Jonathan (II Samuel 1: 26), for example. David even speaks of his friendship with Jonathan “surpassing the love of women”; but there is no suggestion of any erotic component in such relationships. There is one explicit prohibition of what are often referred to as “homosexual acts” (does anyone ever talk about “heterosexual acts”?) in Leviticus 18: 22 where these are included with forbidden degrees of marriage, bestiality and child sacrifice as “abominable institutions customary before your time” (Leviticus 18: 30).

This Old Testament prohibition is reinforced in the New by references in Romans 1 to unbelieving idol worshippers and in Jude to those who “pervert the free favour of God into licentiousness”, Many ministers believe that these texts together constitute an absolutely binding moral law which makes any recognition of civil partnerships a betrayal of the faith. This leads, logically, to a sense that it is vital for the Church’s spiritual health to make sure ministers are forbidden to bless civil partnerships. It has been said that the 2006 proposal of the Legal Questions Committee “calls holy what God calls sin”, that it is “a flouting of the clear and unambiguous testimony of the Bible” and that it dismisses as a minority “those who hold to the gospel”.[1]

Those who welcome the approval of that proposal by the 2006 General Assembly believe that “holding to the gospel” is exactly what the Assembly was seeking to do. We believe that Scripture witnesses to Christ, who is the living Word of God, and we perceive in Christ a Shepherd who invited everyone and who condemned no-one other than the smug and the hypocritical.

Jesus affirmed, as we all do, the traditional relationship of marriage (Mark 10: 1-12).  Marriage as an institution, though, will not be undermined by civil partnerships but by alternative lifestyles of the heterosexual majority. For those who seek the affirmation of their civil partnership, successful marriage is not likely to be an option.  It cannot be repeated too often that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice. Those who are happily married are hugely blessed; but it is not pastorally helpful to claim for that blessing a position of moral virtue from which to condemn others, and it is certainly not gospel to do so if Gospel means “good news”.

There is no recorded instance of Jesus denouncing any group or individual for things outwith their control. There are many indications that he found attitudes more telling than behaviour: his relationship with “tax-collectors and sinners” (Mark 2: 16), his story of the Pharisee and the tax-collector praying in the Temple (Luke 18: 9-14), his blistering condemnation of religious leaders in Matthew 23. His problems in fact seem to have been always with the ultra-orthodox; and in a revealing comment (John 5: 39) he points out that even when we study scripture diligently and think we are being true to it, we may still draw mistaken conclusions from it.

This perhaps is the crucial divide in the present debate: the way we read the Bible. When we acknowledge that some parts are more weighty than others, and that some selection and interpretation are necessary, we lay ourselves open to the charge of relativism, picking and choosing, being subjective. On the other hand, if we regard the sentence in Leviticus 18: 22 as “the clear and unambiguous testimony of the Bible”, we must take note that some equally clear but unwelcome instructions come with it. Descendants of an “irregular union” are to be excluded from the fellowship of believers, to the tenth generation (Deuteronomy 23: 2); disobedient sons are to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21: 21); women engaging voluntarily in pre-marital sex are also to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22: 21).

The Church’s attitude to civil partnerships will not be resolved by groups firing proof texts at each other like weapons. Perhaps it never will be resolved with unanimity, but it is important that neither side should seek to impose its viewpoint on the other. Many ministers who started their career with very clear moral views, and would never have considered acknowledging the validity of any gay relationship, have found, when the focus shifted from theory to real people, that they cannot in conscience close the church doors against them.

If we ourselves have found fulfilment, support, nurture and joy within marriage, it is a grave responsibility to claim that there are groups for whom God definitely does not want these things.  From the time when Love incarnate walked in Galilee, reaching out to those who had previously been outside the circle, the good news has been heard most clearly when the frontiers have been widened and barriers lowered. The admission of Gentiles in the first century, the empowering of the laity at the Reformation, the equal status finally accorded to women in the twentieth century, are now acknowledged to have brought the Church huge benefits without any loss of integrity, though at the time all these changes were fiercely contested.

Many are now becoming aware of how much gay members and gay ministers contribute, and no doubt always have done, to the Church. If the Presbyteries during this year can forget the traditional prurience over “homosexual acts”, can focus on the breakfast table rather than the bedroom, on people and relationships rather than categories, we may see a growing conviction that “those who dwell in love are dwelling in God, and God in them” (I John 4.16), whatever their orientation.

Some have asked, “If as Christian leaders we fail to make a stand on this what will we ever make a stand on?”[2]  We believe that Jesus offers helpful pointers here.  He suggests “justice, mercy and good faith” (Matthew 23.23); and of course the two great commandments – love of God and love of neighbour (Mark 12:29-31). There is, as he said, no other commandment greater than these. In a world of famine, fighting, global warming, cruelty and violence, it is extraordinary to many of us that anyone should think civil partnerships the most gravely important issue of our time. It would be shaming if the Kirk’s one piece of mandatory pastoral instruction to its ministers were to be compulsory denunciation of the bedroom arrangements of free consenting adults who love one another.

Rev David M Beckett