Wilbur Award for excellence to Newsweek's 'Our Mutual Joy'

Excoriated at publication time by fundamentalists and other theological conservatives, Newsweek's article about gay marriage, Our Mutual Joy, won the 2009 Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Award for outstanding work in the secular media by a magazine.

Adelle M. Banks of the Religion News Service wrote:

“Wilbur judges noted that, while people of faith and Religion Communicators Council members disagree widely on the subject of gay marriage, Miller’s article is a fine example of the purpose of the Wilbur Awards, which is to recognize `excellence in the presentation of religious issues, themes and values,”’ the organization stated in its Tuesday (March 3) announcement of award winners.

According to Newsweek, while some readers sent messages of "heartfelt" support, many others disagreed with what Miller calls the "religious case for gay marriage." The article generated more than 100,000 e-mail responses and over 2,000,000 page views on Newsweek's web site.

Read the award-winning Newsweek story, Our Mutual Joy, here.

Central to the enraged response by fundamentalists is the following paragraph and all of the support Miller marshals on behalf of its argument:

As a religious institution, marriage offers something else: a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor and cherish each other—in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer—in accordance with God's will. In a religious marriage, two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them. Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

Yes, "Biblical literalists" disagreed, and are no doubt disenchanted to see the article well-honored today.