Marriage should be extended to gay people. But the benefits and respect that comes with marriage should also be available to those who don’t marry.

While it is appropriate that Aiden points out the many ways that a solemn and positive ceremony can be used to justify very unjust and disrespectful practices, I wish he would have also pointed out that the important part of a marriage ceremony is that it is a covenant making. In our case that covenant making included mutual respect, equality, support, accountability, love. It has nothing to do with whether or not we are the same gender. If one of us disrespects, dishonours, exercises power over the other, etc., etc., we are dishonouring the covenant we have made with each other, the community and the divine. Likewise, if the community tries to impose conformity rather than call us to accountability, they are dishonouring covenant. Let us not confuse the two and let us remember that in community, both the individual and the community are called to mutual respect, honour. Let us also remember that covenant is about good relationship and dishonourable actions damage good relationship.

When someone in the community tells me ‘this is my partner’ I assume that theirs is also a relationship that involves some sort of covenant, whether they have articulated it or not and that I should respect and support that covenant as far as I can understand it. This is not as easy to wade through in a society where a wide variety of beliefs, values and practices exist and it is only through respect and honest attempts to understand that we can make progress towards community in a pluralistic society.