Category Archives: Theology

Before the first presentation in the debate at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis over Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment that would ban, constitutionally, same-gender marriage in the state, the audience was asked to indicate by raising a hand if they were inclined to vote against that amendment next fall. I was sitting in the back corner of the room of 170 people (not counting, obviously, 50 people who had to be turned away at the door). It seemed to me that most of them, including those who were being turned away at the door, were in their 20s. It definitely seemed to me that the number of people who raised their hand, including me, were in the majority that afternoon.

Across the room was Mark Osler, a friend to me and to St. Stephen’s, who teaches law at St. Thomas. He was impressed by the second presentation, which offered reasons to oppose the proposed marriage amendment. It also inspired Professor Osler to write an op-ed, “May our debate about gay marriage be constructive,” which appeared last weekend in The Star Tribune. Here’s a taste of that op-ed:

If you are going to do any good, you have to engage in a conversation with those who either disagree with you or have not yet made up their minds.

Too much of our public “discourse” is not that at all — it is people of like mind chastising their opponents, who are not there. If you find yourself in a group of people waving signs and yelling at an empty building, you are not changing anyone’s mind.

That building will not vote.

He continues with lots of helpful advice for his more liberal friends based on his years of teaching advocacy. Insults, for example, are not helpful. But reaching out to individuals who disagree with you, arguing toward the principles that they profess, and assuming that those principles are genuine, is actually fruitful.

Interestingly, another friend and colleague of Professor Osler, Teresa Collett, wrote an op-ed, “May debate over marriage include facts,” that recently appeared in The Star Tribune as a counterpoint to his. The witness to the rest of us, I think, is that the friendship and the conversation between them is able to continue in the midst of a disagreement about the question at hand.

Of this I’m sure, without us doing the same thing in our own contexts, no one’s mind is going to change about any of this. But there is both time for these kinds of conversations to take place over the next year and, for some of us, the genuine principle that requires us to love our neighbor because of the words of Jesus. As Jesus taught in one of his most interesting stories, that neighbor might turn out to be someone who’s very difficult to love because of deep-seated theological and cultural differences. Yet that kind of love has the power to change the world.

You can read all of the reflections in this series here.