Building Relationships before Rights

[Natasha]

Building Relationships before Rights

http://www.bilerico.com/2008/12/building_relationships_before_rights.php
December 11, 2008 10:30 AM

Editors' note: Rev. Rick Elliott has been a minister since June 1973 and has frequently handled the overflow of weddings from a university chapel. He's a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received an M/Div from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and did five-sixths of a D.Min at Perkins School of Divinity (SMU). Rick's first book, Faith Journeys of the Heart, will be published by Tate Publishing in February 2009.

Let me throw a spanner in the LGBT marriage rights discussions. As a Presbyterian minister and veteran of at least one hundred weddings, I've seen marriages along the spectrum of stages from inception to dissolving, until death. More basic than a right to marry is the willingness and ability to sustain a relationship in the first place. I have seen attempted shot-gun marriages--which I, as a matter of principle, won't automatically agree to do. I've seen couples decide not to marry based on the pre-marital work I've given them to do. In truth, I've probably seen about every category and situation, if not all of them.