Video of introduction – part one

Video of introduction – part two

The aims for our session are stated on page 35 of ‘Documents in Advance’:

For a long time Friends have been concerned to recognize and celebrate the different kinds of personal relationships within our Quaker community.

In the light of our Testimony to Equality we are asked by Meeting for Sufferings to consider how we should celebrate and recognize committed relationships within our Quaker community and what revisions of Quaker faith & practice would follow from this to include same sex partnerships.

Having dwelt on this theme for more than more than a while, I came to question the fundamental tenet of the first sentence.  Are there indeed different kinds of ‘personal relationships’?  When two people meet and seek to make permanent that bond, what is the very essence of the union?  Does it depend on personal circumstances, age, gender, ethnicity, cultural background, the spirit of the age, for example?  And I was forced to conclude that it does.  When George Fox and Margaret Fell married, I am quite confident that that was a different personal relationship to that of a younger couple marrying three centuries later.  In my Area Meeting this month we appointed a meeting for worship for the celebration of marriage to be held on Saturday next.  The Friend in membership is 79 years old, and his intended slightly younger.  What is the essence of that union?

Those of us in a relationship know full well that the nature of the relationship changes over time.  When my own children ask me why we, the parents, married, I always tell them it was my hormones.  After four children, I still reckon that’s not entirely mischievous, but the nature of the relationship has changed.  When I read QFP 22.40 I see a reflection of my own current relationship with my partner: ‘Over the years her contribution to the home and life she shared with Mary was constant and faithful. It was a partnership and Jessie’s support for Mary’s dedicated work in school and in Guides seemed as unquestioning as Mary’s was as the second pair of hands in Jessie’s flower and vegetable garden.’ I realise I only need to alter the names, and the job descriptions, and that could be us – Mr and Mrs B.

One can’t help being reminded of the words of UA Fanthorpe:

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

And what was different about the relationship between Jessie and Mary?  We knew Mary well, and I can say with confidence, absolutely nothing, apart from them being of the same gender.  To themselves they were married, but to the world they were ‘companions’.  When Mary died, at the meeting for worship to celebrate her life, her sister-in-law said ‘Mary never knew the joy of marriage or children’, and nothing could have been farther from the truth.  What is true is that Jessie and Mary lacked the means of making a public act of witness of that love that bound them, in a society that at the time could accept it; and a certificate.  Now, in that same local meeting, there are a number of same-sex couples who can enjoy the benefit of a civil partnership, and a legal footing for their relationships.

On the matter of equality, we are, as Friends, quite secure.  As a society and as a community we have embraced and recognised loving relationships in a variety of forms between adults; in the case of homosexuality, some years before it became legal, and many years before it became socially acceptable.  We have long accepted, under our testimony to equality, the worth of all individuals and the value of all committed relationships.

During Quaker Week, in 2008, we proudly announced that:

One of the consequences of our equality testimony is that we welcome lesbian, gay and bisexual and transgendered men and women, and have a fundamental commitment to equality and inclusion. We affirm the love of God for all people, whatever their sexuality.

quakerweek.org.uk – 2008

I know that there are pockets of resistance – that there are Friends for whom homosexuality is immoral, unnatural, and against the teaching of the wider Christian church.  The words of  QFP 22.45 are still true now, if perhaps for fewer people:

‘The acceptance of homosexuality distresses some Friends.’

And gay and lesbian Friends are equally distressed by the attitudes of others.  In The Friend we read of a gathering in which ‘we could safely express the hurts we had experienced in Quaker or other contexts – where sometimes our lifestyles and relationships were treated as second class or worse.’

But I also know that we as Friends are willing to accept our Quaker discipline, to put corporate discernment over and above our own fears and misgivings.

So we can go forth, and be rest assured that we do ‘respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern’, and that God, in whatever way we use the word, does not indulge in discriminatory practices, certainly not in our community.

And in accepting gay and lesbian Friends, we have acknowledged the worth of same sex relationships, and our desire to celebrate these relationships as couples give witness to the world. To quote Harvey Gillman, writing recently in The Friend – ‘I do believe that there is an eternal verity – that of love and commitment’.  ‘… why can’t we universalise marriage as a commitment of two people of whatever sexual orientation, showing love to each other and thus mediating God’s love to the world?’

So why are we considering this issue this week, when it seems we have long ago embraced the notion that all loving relationships are equal and valid and worthy of our respect?  Simply because our current processes do not reflect our testimony to equality, that couples of opposite gender have opportunities for marriage that same sex couples do not.  As Quakers we can change some of this, but not all. But much as changed already.  In the first place, our own opinions and attitudes as Friends have clearly changed.

Quoting the Quaker Life soundings exercise:

‘There is overwhelming evidence that attitudes have changed significantly in recent years, even since our current book of discipline was published …  58 meetings thought opinions had moved; only 4 felt not.  It is clear from the responses of some meetings and individuals that taking part in this consultation exercise has enabled some participants to confront an issue which they had not previously faced up to and that they have been moved on.’

Whatever we agreed to in the early nineties, when we muttered ‘hope so’ to the content of the current Quaker Faith and Practice, we now seem to have taken to our hearts and minds, and we have indeed moved on.

Secondly, the wider society has changed.  The Civil Partnership act has been a landmark in both responding to changing attitudes, and in raising expectations. It confers on the participants rights and responsibilities identical to civil marriage.  But marriage in a secular sense, as a legal union, and not as an act of witness before God and the world. The state recognises and legitimises same sex relationships, gives those in such a relationship equal rights with those in opposite sex relationships, but does not afford them quite the same status; gay marriage is not on offer. For many gay and lesbian people, what is missing is the religious and spiritual aspect, declared before and to the world:

QFP 22.46 What seemed essential to us was the public witnessing of a commitment made before God by one’s worshipping community who then also took a responsibility to uphold it.

Hence, many Friends, in same sex relationships, have followed a civil partnership by a meeting for worship to celebrate that commitment.  And others have not, apparently happy to know they are loved, supported and upheld by their meetings, with no need of further witness.

Therefore, Friends have equal rights, in law, but not equal treatment, and within the current legal framework we know that equal treatment with Quaker marriage is not possible.  Can we, as Quakers, have something that is equal to marriage, but not the same?  Moreover, can we do so without trespassing on the feelings of those who see marriage as sacred between a man and a woman?  Is it possible to have an alternative, a gay marriage, that does not dilute the gravity felt by many of us, still, of a straight marriage.  And can we come together and say that such a union is placed in the spiritual context – ‘with divine assistance’ or ‘with God’s help’?  If and when we arrive at that place, we can then consider how as a community we record such unions, for presently only marriages are recorded in the annual returns.  To quote Quaker Life again: ‘Quaker faith and practice needs to establish right-ordering for the conduct of all meetings for worship held to celebrate committed relationships. Records of all such meetings for worship should form part of the returns to Britain Yearly Meeting.’

But if we are in so many ways united, what separates us?  There is a feeling, expressed in The Friend and elsewhere, that since this issue has been promoted as one of equality, those opposed to having same sex partnerships on an equal footing with heterosexual marriage, have refrained from speaking for fear of opposing equality and the rights of all, and of being homophobic.  And we know from the soundings exercise that a more traditional view of homosexuality is earnestly held by a number of Friends.  We need to embrace one another, to share our misgivings, objections, and reservations.  The purpose of these sessions at Yearly Meeting is to act as a threshing exercise, and I am sure we would all wish York to be a ‘safe place for difficult conversations’.

Yearly Meeting in 1994 minuted after difficulties over what should go in Quaker faith & practice on sexuality: ‘While our own individual experience does not identify with every extract, we recognise, in love, the Friend whose experience is not our own. We pray for ourselves, that we may not divide but keep together in our hearts.’

It might be very difficult for some of us, as we share our thoughts with others, possibly with diametrically opposing views.  But we do need to move on, so that we can speak and act in a way that demonstrates our commitment to equality, which we know experimentally.  We need to seek discernment together, so that we can give corporate expression to our inner experience.

Before I leave you, I would like to return to those four darling children of mine.

I found this conversation on Facebook, between number one son and his partner:

Christopher: Here I am, writing on your wall for all to see.  Love you, xx

Paul: Love you too. xx

Christopher: Thanks for making that delicious home made pizza for tea

Paul: Tiz a pleasure, didn’t come out as well as I wanted though :( It’ll be better next time :D

It lacks the eloquence of the poet, and the depth of the sage, but nevertheless, it is certainly from the heart, and not entirely different to Jessie and Mary.  And I’m sure neither of them is thinking of marriage.

Number one daughter might have been heading for a big Catholic wedding, but I’m afraid it’s off.

Number two daughter has promised her girlfriend in Australia that by the time she next comes to England gay marriage will be legal.  I hate to disappoint her.

And number three daughter – she’s a good Quaker and holding out for the right Quaker boy to have a proper Quaker wedding, followed by a bring and share.

Four young people, equal in the sight of God, with very different hopes and expectations for personal relationships.  They don’t want the same thing, but they do deserve some form of equality.