Who owns marriage?
This is the question asked by Nick Park, Executive Director of the Evangelical Alliance Ireland and pastor of Solid Rock Church in Drogheda.
The answer is as simple as it is indisputable. Love owns marriage – full stop.
Everything else, every other interest, agenda or argument surrounding the marriage of two humans in love is peripheral to the unassailable, indestructible core that is love.
No religion, no state, no law has a moral right to stop any two in love adults from getting married.
Marriage has been with us, in all its myriad forms, rituals and traditions, since the first humans descended from the trees and began to spread out across the savannah.
And it is this fact that makes Mr. Park’s claim, that marriage belongs to his particular god, so irrational.
His non-existent Christian god has only been around for a couple of thousand years. Countless thousands of other non-existent gods, for countless thousands of years, have also claimed ownership of marriage but not one of them has ever provided any real justification for their claim.
And the reason for that is as simple as it is rational – marriage is based on natural human love between two people whether it’s male/female female/female or male/male.
Human love is natural. Human marriage is the ritual that binds that love and that ritual belongs to everyone.
Everything else is peripheral.
Beautifully put.
I know nothing of Parks, but I know God.
That so many speak for God says nothing of God, who is quite real.
Dear me, in your eagerness to stereotype what you think Christians believe you have falsely and untruthfully attributed opinions to me that I don’t hold. Nowhere did I claim that “marriage belongs to my particular god”. In my book, I conclude that society owns marriage, and urge that religious and non-religious people alike should have freedom and equality to practice marriage as they wish with no discrimination.
The whole point of my book was to draw together those of different opinions (including religious, non-religious & LGBT) so they could actually listen to each other. It’s ironic that Anthony saw fit to reference me without actually listening to me.