Love, love, love

... and thank you Lennon-McCartney

Nations are deciding about gay marriage in different ways. I can’t verify it, but here in chronological order is a May 2015 list from TIME of countries where same-sex marriage is legal nationwide: Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Iceland, Portugal, Denmark, Brazil, England & Wales, France, New Zealand, Uruguay, Luxembourg, Scotland, Finland (2015, effective 2017).

In Ireland’s recent referendum a large majority of the public thumbed their noses at their bishops and voted yes, so add Ireland. In America it has been left to the states until Friday’s 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court decided yes nationwide.

In General Convention (June 25 - July 3) http://www.generalconvention.org now meeting in Salt Lake City, the Episcopal Church will undoubtedly vote yes. A hundred years ago this would have been unthinkable.

Gay marriage thus becomes the law of the land and the law of the church. Whether their vote is 9-0 or 5-4, the Constitution is what the United States Supreme Court says it is, the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says, the Constitution intends what the Supreme Court says it intends, the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means; and the Court has now spoken on this issue. Suppose the decision had been 4-5 the other way: then it would have remained a matter of StatesRights, a term from the Civil Rights era. A spectator, just a bystander whether the decision was 5-4 or 4-5, I have neither shout of victory nor cry of dismay, nor do I have condemnation for those of good conscience on either side of this issue which is now settled.

Memories I do have, though, of a bygone petition in the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church of our late Book of Common Prayer, "We beseech thee also, so to direct and dispose the hearts of all Christian Rulers, that they may truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue." God help us, this is the United States of America: wickedness and vice in whose eyes? The maintenance of whose true religion? Whose virtue? God in heaven deliver us from ourselves and from those of us who would administer, punish, and maintain. Cranmer's medieval petition from the Established Church is blessedly gone from our prayers, why it took so long to delete it, I cannot imagine.

My first problem is that I see few of good conscience on either side; rather, lineups of certitudinously self-righteous spewing vitriol, and many pointing and shrieking "bigot" or "pervert." My second and third problems are that I am never certain of anything, and that I am almost always wrong.

Over against those who would protect everybody from each other, my own archconservative view is that it’s nobody’s business whom anyone else marries, and the fewer peering into bedroom windows and going through neighbors' garbage to count condoms, the better. For those flipping Bible pages for proof-texts, in a hundred years marriage in America will be polygamous anyway, and Scripture will finally be fulfilled. Meanwhile, no literalist-inerrantist presses for Deuteronomy 21:18-21. And as always throughout the ages of ages of human history world without end amen, the greatest sin is certainty.

A preachable gospel:

Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love, love, love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Nothing you can know that isn't known

Nothing you can see that isn't shown

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

All you need is love (All together, now!)

All you need is love (Everybody!)

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Yee-hai! (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

One incomprehensibly unspeakable shame I did note this week: the pressed resignation from a seminary's board of governors, of an Episcopal bishop who in his diocese had approved the baptism of a child who had been adopted by a gay couple. True, I don't know all the facts; but my reaction? WWJD? Same song, second verse --

Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love, love, love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Nothing you can know that isn't known

Nothing you can see that isn't shown

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

All you need is love (All together, now!)

All you need is love (Everybody!)

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Yee-hai! (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

At any event this morning, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Jude, 1 John 4:8, Matthew 5:28, John 8:7, and Yellow Submarine.

TW+