An
interesting article in today's Boston Globe profiles the selection of Marie St. Fleur and Mariann Walsh as legislators of the year by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry. Of particular interest is the way that these two legislators describe their decision to differ from Church teaching as a matter of faith:
"There were people whom I have known since I walked into that parish at 7 years of age, who could not understand how at this age I was moving away from all that I was born and raised [to believe]," St. Fleur said. "But I came to understand that I was not moving away, but was in fact affirming all that I had learned in all those CCD classes, and that it is one thing to read it in the Bible, one thing to go through the sacraments, but it is another thing to stand up and really support and demonstrate that the Bible too is a living word, just as the Constitution."
Walsh expressed similar sentiments:
Walsh, who has traditionally supported the Catholic Church on many of its legislative positions, said that when she was confronted with the gay marriage issue, "it was obvious to me that morally, this is the right thing to do, not as a legislator, but as a person, because all people are created equal, and God didn't make any mistakes. . . . We are all made in God's image and likeness."
Both Walsh and St. Fleur were great at the ConCon. Both spoke openly about conflicts within their religious communities. The moving thing about their speeches were they ways they demonstrated the real personal issues involved, the ways they made clear the personal struggles they'd gone through to get to the point they were at. I was just thinking earlier today about how good so much of the rhetoric at last year's ConCon was. This is a reminder.
One thing that has been striking here in Massachusetts has been the prominence of clergy in the struggle for marriage equality. While on the national level, religious voices have tended to be almost exclusively opposed to marriage equality, clergy and communities of faith have been at the center of the marriage equality struggle here. It adds another level to the discourse; it doesn't allow our opponents to claim the moral position on the issue. I'm not religious, so those parts of it don't have as much sway in my own life. But, I know it matters in the overall level of public discourse.