Gay marriage in the church

I was listening to NPR this morning on the way to work and they were discussing the Episcopalians around the world that are thinking of forming their own sect of that church in order to avoid allowing gay bishops. That got me to thinking about how I feel about churches who refuse to allow gays to join, lead, or marry in their churches (and before the eyes of their god.)

I came to the conclusion that I really don't care if churches do that. It would be great if everybody on the planet felt the same way I do about everything, but they don't. The bible tells Christians that being gay is a sin, an abomination. The old testament literally calls for the deaths of men who would be so bold as to lie with other men. (Leviticus 20:13.)

Many Christians believe that by Jesus coming to earth and dying for the sin of humankind, the ultimate sacrifice has been made. Therefore the old testament and its laws are basically thrown out and are to be used as a history lesson. The new testament is what modern-day Christians follow. After all, if Christians followed the old testament word for word, kids would be stoned when they disobey (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and males would be worth more than females (Leviticus 27:1-7.) I could go on for days and days about this, but it detracts from my point.

Which is to say that in my opinion, if certain churches want to restrict gay people from joining, leading, or marrying in their churches, I begrudgingly support them. (Begrudgingly only in the sense that I think gay people deserve all the rights and freedoms afforded straight people.) It is just as much the right of a church to make this decision as it is the right of a different church to choose a different path. The beautiful thing about America is that we have this little idea called the separation of church and state. As long as churches aren't actively hurting people, I don't really care what rules they live by. (And yes, I do include both the Westboro and the Landover baptist church bigots in those who are actively hurting people.)

As an aside, all these churches wanting to create their own sects in order to follow what they believe to be the one "true" god and bible, is only lending credence to my idea that marriage as a governemental institution should be done away with all together. Every consenting adult should be allowed the right to a civil union and "marriage" should be saved for something only churches do. Marriage should be a religious ritual and covenant before an individual's god and civil unions should be the contract the rest of us sign when we wish to cohabitate with the same person for the rest of our lives.