A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
January 31, 2011

The date for this Marriage Equality service was chosen because it is several weeks before the annual Valentines Day Lobby Day for Marriage Equality in Maryland. Our social action folks wanted me to inspire you to sign up to attend. They thought a few weeks notice would help you get it on your calendars.

Wouldn’t you know it, but since we set this date, Equality Maryland, the lead organization on marriage equality (and also transgender rights), announced that marriage equality is moving so fast, attracting such attention from its opposition, especially from anti-gay faith-based organizations, that an additional, earlier lobby day is needed. And it’s tomorrow evening! Not much lead-time! But out in the foyer there is a sign-up for those who can participate starting at 5 pm at Lawyers Mall in Annapolis with a brief rally, training, talking points and then visits to your state legislators. You can also sign up today for the rally and lobbying on Valentines Day. The legislature is in session and activity is on the upswing! 

Speaking of transgender rights, and our three-month legislature being busy, this past week Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk, who represents District 21 (in which our church property is located) was one of the two Lead Sponsors introducing the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act that will amend the existing anti-discrimination law to include protections on the basis of gender identity for employment, housing and credit. I will send her a letter of thanks for her support of transgender people.

Story:

One day last fall, someone knocked on Paint Branch UU member Iris Peabody’s door. Iris gave me permission to tell this story today. I got her to agree that she would stand so that you would know her.  But she wasn’t up to coming this morning. So, I’ll say that she is somewhat short, somewhat older and has totally white hair.

As I said, Iris heard a knock on her door.  She looked through the peephole and saw a man and a woman on her doorstep. Given that Election Day was approaching and they looked like politicians, she answered the door. Yes, they were looking for her vote, and to put a sign on her lawn. The woman was the candidate. 

Remembering our service about marriage equality here last Valentines Day when I announced, with your support, that I would not sign marriage licenses for straight couples until it was legal for me to sign them for gay couples too. That sermon helped Iris see that civil unions weren’t sufficient and she resolved to ask her representatives about their position on the matter.

So, when asked for her vote, Iris asked the candidate, “Well, what is your position on equal marriage?” 

For some, it would take courage to ask that question. Iris told me it didn’t for her. I gather she feels she has a right to influence her elected officials. And is proud to be known as a gay ally. “Well,” the woman began, and I bet Iris wondered what was coming next. “I’m lesbian myself!” 

And Iris said, “And, I’m Unitarian …” 

Go, Iris! 

Bonnie Cullison went on to win election in District 19, joining six other openly GLBT members of the Maryland General Assembly, one of them being Sen. Rich Madaleno who is a Unitarian Universalist. 

Do you have an Iris Peabody moment? When you worked up your courage and spoke out for GLBT rights?

Now it occurred to me in getting ready to tell this story, that the candidate might have looked at Iris, noted her apparent age, and recalled that surveys show younger people are more likely to support gay rights than older people. Perhaps she felt she should work up her courage to answer the question. Imagine her delight when she heard Iris’ response.

What’s your Iris Peabody moment?

A member of one of my former congregations, in Massachusetts, back before same‐sex marriage was legal there, had his Iris Peabody moment the day he got up his courage to wear to work the rainbow button he’d picked up at church.  Jim is an engineer. He worked at a power plant. It was a union shop. All guys.  I thought wearing that button to his workplace took some courage. He did too, actually. 

Well, one of his co‐workers did notice his button, right away, if I recall correctly. And proceeded to tell Jim how much he appreciated seeing it, because his brother was gay and life had been hard for him, but it had never been anything he thought he could mention at work. So then a bunch of them stood around talking about it. Go, Jim!

Another member, a retiree who volunteered at the library, had her Iris Peabody moment the day she wore her rainbow button that said “Straight, but not narrow” to the gala opening of the renovated and expanded town library. She felt people were noticing, but avoiding, her button. Until an acquaintance looked at the button and then at her, up and down, and said, “Why, Elaine, you’ve never needed to lose weight.” !

Actually, that didn’t turn into much of an Iris Peabody moment, because Elaine decided on the spot that it was going to take a very long time to explain the button to this poor, clueless woman!

A Paint Branch UU told me she wore her rainbow pin to work in a federal agency a few years ago and was told by a gay co‐worker that she shouldn’t wear it because “people will think you are gay, but you aren’t.” Isn’t that the point? For solidarity. To support gay rights to the end that being thought to be gay doesn’t result in discrimination or unkindness or worse, that it is just accepted and affirmed, one of the many ways to be normal?

There is a really good chance that Maryland could be the first state to enact marriage equality legislatively, through the votes of the people we elect, if we who are supporters get out there and let our legislators know how we want them to vote. It’s going to take a lot of Iris Peabody moments, talking to friends, neighbors and our representatives in Annapolis. I think we should speak as people of faith.

We should speak up in support of marriage equality, not just because of our first Unitarian Universalist principle calling us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, though that’s important. Because the life‐long love commitments of gay couples are as inherently worthy as those of straight couples.

We should speak up in support of marriage equality, not just because of our seventh principle calling us to affirm that we are all connected, though that is important. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality” and “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The life‐long love commitments of straight couples are diminished by this inequality, when they realize that they are unfairly privileged compared to gay couples. 

We should speak up in support of marriage equality not just because of our principles, but also because of… love. 

I was reminded of that as recently as Thursday, at the memorial service of Bob Parr, a longtime member who hasn’t been seen here since the unexpected death of beloved wife Hortense, because he had been declining with Alzheimer’s disease. I said more than once on Thursday, as I always do at memorial services, “love is more powerful, even, than death.”

To me, that is a statement of faith. 

And also of fact. I’ve known it to be true in my life. My father died at age 61 more than twenty‐two years ago, but I still love him and I still feel the love he had for me. My best friend Susan died at age 45 more than seven years ago, but I still love her and I still feel the love she had for me.  I still feel the way their love for me and mine for them, our relationships, were fertile ground for our becoming who we are called to be. The love that is more powerful even than death is not limited to marriage. 

All relationships grounded in love have the potential to be eternal in this way. All relationships grounded in love offer us ways to grow into our deepest, whole‐est, best selves, most able to give our gifts in service of love and justice to future generations. 

All such relationships have a spiritual dimension; there is something of the soul in them.

But the intimate relationship between two people that involves body and soul, heart and mind, spirit and the flesh … now that relationship, if grounded in love offers all of this, but even more so. It offer us ways to grow into our deepest, whole‐est, best selves, most able to give our gifts in service of love and justice to future generations, even more so. 

Its promise, though never fully achieved, is brought to fruition only over time, in the deepening that happens in the sharing of life’s journey of ups and downs, sorrows and joys, peaks and valleys, deaths and births, ebbs and flows. Its promise, though never fully achieved, is brought to fruition if the passion persists in the deepening.

But love needs help to be that powerful. In the case of love between two people who have found their attraction to, fondness for and bonds with each other to be sufficient to want it to last their whole lives, that love most typically needs reinforcement. It needs rights. It needs limits. It needs public affirmation. It needs marriage.

Love is always a risk. Marriage, even more so. We are all imperfect. Our relationships are all imperfect.

We develop relationships ‐ whether parent, child, friend, relation or partner – grounded in love, but then we mess up. Most of us know what it is like to feel disappointed or betrayed in a relationship. Most of us know what it is like to flail, or fail, in a relationship. We are all imperfect. 

In marriages, these challenges are even more so. Some marriages meet and survive them. Some do not. Some stop helping us grow into our deepest, “whole‐est,” best selves, most able to give our gifts in service of love and justice to future generations.  Some never did. Some need to end. Most need work, and support. That’s why it’s good that we have Marriage Enrichment Groups in our church community, led by Barbara and Don Fairfield, whose contact information appears on the back page of the newsletter each month.

As Tish Hall, our Worship Associate today, said to me this past week, while she was kneading bread in the meetinghouse kitchen to serve at Warm Nights that evening, providing delectable fragrance in the meantime, and we were talking about her Chalice Reflection for the service today, “People say marriage is troubled. I don’t think it is troubled. It is challenged.”

That marriage is challenged is not a reason to fail to extend its protections, rights and responsibilities to gay couples. When gay couples have the choice, and choose, to marry, those grounded‐in‐love relationships will be better able to offer ways for each to grow into their deepest, whole‐est, best selves, most able to give their gifts in service of love and justice to future generations. 

In the case of love between two people (whatever their gender) who have found their attraction to, fondness for and bonds with each other to be sufficient to want it to last their whole lives, that love most typically needs reinforcement. It needs rights. It needs limits. It needs public affirmation. It needs marriage. 

If love needs help to be that powerful, don’t gay relationships deserve that support?

There is a change underway. Marriage equality has momentum. But it only has momentum because its supporters have given it their time, talent, treasures and – yes ‐ Iris Peabody moments. Such support has gotten us to where we are today. But it will not be sufficient to bring it to fruition. It’s not like a ball at the top of a hill, which will inevitably roll down it with just a little nudge. It’s more like rolling a snowball to make a snowman. When you stop rolling, that’s where it stops, and that’s as big as it’s going to get. 

You might feel you are not needed. You are mistaken. You may feel that this isn’t your issue. You can add it. 

True, there are many pressing causes calling for our attention, and we all have limited time and money, but let me suggest that none of them have what this movement has:  the potential to create joy. 

Let “joy” be a criterion for selecting where you put your energy, and marriage equality will be one of your issues. 

What joy, when a long‐time gay or lesbian couple that never‐ever dreamed they could ever marry, is able to stand before family and friends and say, “I do!” What joy, when all those gathered hear the words, “By the power invested in me by the State of Maryland, I do declare you legally wed!” I’ve been there. The joy is outstanding. You feel it in your bones. Gives you shivers.  The people at the wedding cheer, clap, stamp their feet in euphoria; the couple beams. It’s meant to be.

The movement for marriage equality is a spiritual movement. It’s about the transforming power of love, which is, even, more powerful than death. 

And it’s about bringing more joy to the world. So may it be, and soon. Amen!