Rev. Dr. William M. Barter of St. Ansgar Evangelical Lutheran Church in Portland, ME speaks out against mis-truths used by Stand for Marriage Maine and national religious fundamentalist organizations in the Portland Press Hearld:

On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to repeal Maine’s new marriage equality law or vote no to protect the right of all Mainers to marry the person they love.

Much of the opposition to marriage equality has come from some leaders of some churches and denominations.

Despite their loud protestations, the fact is that more than 200 leaders representing thousands of Mainers who follow 18 different faith traditions have endorsed marriage equality and urge a “no” vote on Question 1.

Stand for Marriage Maine is the coalition of groups opposed to marriage equality in Maine and behind Question 1 on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Its members include national religious fundamentalist organizations like the National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family. It also has the support of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

On matters of faith, it is reasonable to expect churches and religious groups to base their arguments on the Word of God. I scoured the organization’s Web site for references to Scripture, and found none.

Highly respected Scripture scholars from many denominations agree that Scripture, when interpreted responsibly, is unclear on the issue of homosexuality, and silent about gay marriage.

Perhaps this is why God’s Word is totally omitted by the marriage coalition. Moral statements which omit Sacred Scripture are suspect.

SFMM contends that Maine’s marriage equality law somehow threatens religious freedom. The facts simply do not support this argument. In reality, the new law explicitly protects the historic free exercise of religion.

Before becoming a Lutheran pastor, I was a Roman Catholic priest. In my nine years as a priest, the state (which recognizes divorce) never forced me to marry divorced people, a practice prohibited in the Catholic Church.

Even now there are couples whom I refuse to marry in the Lutheran Church for pastoral reasons, and this remains an internal issue. To say that the state will reverse 189 years of history and begin regulating church marriage policies is ridiculous and false.

SFMM argues that a comparison to the history of interracial marriage is wrong and that race has never been part of society’s definition of marriage.

This is not true. As recently as 1948, 30 out of 48 U.S. states defined marriage as existing only between a man and woman of the same race. Until 1967, 16 states continued to criminalize interracial marriage until federal courts ruled those laws unconstitutional.

SFMM says that repeal of Maine’s marriage equality law will protect children.

The truth is that marriage equality guarantees that the thousands of Maine children of same-sex couples enjoy all of the rights and protections that marriage confers on the children of heterosexual couples.

Scientific research and evaluation have confirmed that it is the love and parenting skills and not gender or orientation that determines a good parent.

This is the position shared by the American Psychiatric Association, National Association of Social Workers, Child Welfare League of America, American Bar Association, North American Council on Adoptable Children, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychoanalytic Association and American Academy of Family Physicians.

Lutherans believe that Scripture interprets Scripture. If a passage in the Bible is clear, repetitive and emphatic, it carries greater weight than an obscure text lacking clarity.

For example, the teachings of Jesus about love and social justice fall into the weightier category, while the passages often used to make a case against homosexuality are less weighty – Jesus never talks about homosexuality.

The Christian Church is most Christ-like when we carry out the more important mandates (feeding the hungry, healing the sick, advocating for the oppressed).

Misusing Christ’s teachings to scare people into repealing equal rights legislation is not very Christ-like.

So, often the debate about same-sex marriage claims to be one that has religion and the faith community one side and the LGBT community on the other. Leaders of faith all across the country are debunking that myth and explaining how their faith and belief in the scriptures leaders to support same-sex marriage. Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, a Baptist minister, and Robert M. Hardies, a Unitarian minster, detail in the The Washington Post detail how their belief in fight injustice is their guide to support same-sex marriage.

Our solidarity exposes two of the myths perpetuated by opponents of marriage equality and by the media. Let’s call these myths “God vs. gay” and “black vs. white.”

Opponents of marriage equality would like us to believe that one cannot be both pro-God and pro-gay. Yet we lead a coalition of nearly 200 D.C. clergy who support marriage equality precisely because of our commitment to God’s inclusive love and justice. Our clergy are black, white, Latino and from every ward in the District. We are Baptists and Jews, Catholics and Methodists, who have worked side by side for years on issues ranging from peace to affordable housing, and who now stand together again to raise a faithful voice for justice. Let us be clear: God vs. gay is a myth we reject. God vs. injustice is a truth we affirm.

Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have tried to use this issue to divide our communities along racial lines, and the press often plays into their hands. The gay community is repeatedly characterized as a group of well-to-do white folks, while all people of color are portrayed as heterosexuals who oppose gay marriage. This is the myth of “black vs. white.” To suggest that the struggle for marriage equality in Washington affects only a small number of white people from Dupont Circle is an affront to the rich diversity of the District’s gay and lesbian community, and it erases the lives of thousands of gay and lesbian people of color, some of whom are members of our churches.

The New York Times does an in-depth analysis of all the higher costs for same-sex couples as opposed to heterosexual couples, including health care, estate and income taxes, pensions and retirement acounts.

And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay.

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.

Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.

In challenging economic times, same-sex couples should be afforded the opportunity to invest in businesses to help grow the economy, not burdened by higher costs.

A father tells the story of how seeing his son raise children with his partner lays the foundation for his support of marriage equality.

Protect Maine Equality highlights a father to make its case for establishing equal access to marriage regardless of sexual orientation.