Arguments 7 and 8 against homosexual "marriage":
7. It seals us in a culture of divorce.
In the United States, nearly half of all marriages will end in divorce. It is hard to see how any community can survive the resulting breaking up of homes, the smashing of friendships, the jumble and shuffle of neighborhoods, and the underlying assumption that human beings are not to be trusted. Social science has finally come round to showing just a bit of what we all ought to have known anyway: divorce is deeply damaging to the family and to the community. Boys who grow up apart from their fathers are many times more likely to fall prey to drugs and crime; girls, to seek male affirmation elsewhere and bear children out of wedlock. Spend a little time getting to know the destroyed lives of a few of the millions of young men in prison, and then try to defend divorce -- or the habit in some communities of never forming a marriage in the first place.
Once again, we were told by the social reformers, this time the falsely named “conservative” reformers, that divorce laws were outdated and cruel, often compelling people who wanted to break up to manufacture ugly accusations against one another, just to procure the divorce. We were told that the reform of the laws would not increase the incidence of divorce -- since those who were going to divorce would do so eventually in any case. But it would save a great deal of human misery.
And again, that is exactly what the no-fault divorce laws failed to do. Divorce swept the land like a plague, and brought untold misery in its wake. And no-fault is patently unjust: very often it subjects the wronged party to the whim of the guilty; it rules out of bounds the most commonsense considerations in matters of the custody of children; and it reduces marriage to a status some miles below that of a business contract. If one partner at a gas station embezzles funds and uses them to buy stock in the competition, does he get to claim half of the original station? Does she get to compel her partner to provide her support as she buys even more stock? Would not such malfeasance land you in jail? Why do we take the ownership of corporations more seriously than the establishment of coherent families?
Any statesman must see that we cannot continue this way. At the basis of all civilization lies trust: I must believe that the people driving down the road will stay on their own side of the yellow line. If I did not believe that, and believe it with something approaching absolute certainty, I could not drive. Divorce begins by undermining trust in marriage (and that is bad enough, given our plummeting birth rates), and ends by undermining trust altogether. We must retrace our steps: we must bring some semblance of justice back to divorce law.
But how can we do this, while legalizing homosexual “marriage”? Again, the principle for the legalization is simply that people have a right to “fulfill” themselves sexually. But some marriages are unhappy -- or some people who are married come to think that it would be more “fulfilling” to leap over the fence. How can we deny them this? Or how can we blame them for it? How can we penalize the breaker of a family, when his or her motives are exactly the same as those we have blessed in the case of the homosexual?
And what about homosexual adultery? We have been informed by the homosexual activists themselves that people’s expectations in this regard will have to change. Male homosexuals do not remain faithful to one another, in the sense that they do not so severely restrict their sexual activity. But if a certain looseness is granted to the male homosexual, when his jealous lover chooses to “divorce” him, why should the same benefit not be accorded the male heterosexual?
The argument that the availability of marriage would encourage monogamy among homosexuals, while not affecting heterosexuals at all, is particularly specious. It assumes, first, that marriage is what the homosexuals seek, rather than the status of normality that marriage confers. In so doing it misconstrues the nature of the homosexual relationship (see below), and threatens the already embattled institution of marriage with a new barrage of divorces, custody litigation, and an expensive and morally disastrous “right” to manufacture children. The bases for marriage and homosexual union are, however, fundamentally incompatible. The former is based upon the very structure of our bodies, upon biological and anthropological fact. The latter is based, as is the sexual revolution, upon will alone. In practice it must accelerate the destruction of marriage; its principle, or rather the false principle that made homosexual “marriage” conceivable in the first place, is all the poison that is needed.
8. It normalizes an abnormal behavior.
That it is an abnormal behavior is clear to any disinterested observer. It hardly needs mentioning that the male and female bodies are made for one another, in obvious ways, and in more subtle ways which medical science is only beginning to discover.
I will discuss below what causes the behavior. For the moment, let us remember what is required of a scientific theory. It should explain the evidence -- all of it, not just the evidence the theorist finds convenient. It should not embroil the theorist in thornier questions than the one he seeks to answer. It should be coherent with other accepted theories. It should be fruitful: that is, if the theory is correct, it should help explain many other related phenomena. It should be based on few assumptions, and those assumptions should be easy to claim.
Now the theory that homosexuality is caused by one’s genes is based on the simple, though shaky, assumption that human behavior is wholly determined by genetics. Otherwise it violates every qualification for sound science.
First, it does not explain the evidence. That evidence shows that homosexual activity is far more prevalent among some cultures than among others; that in the same culture it is more prevalent among some groups than among others (for instance, living in the countryside places the boy at a significantly lower risk of experiencing serious homosexual attraction); that some people spend years engaging in homosexual activity and then give it up, often becoming happily married (John Maynard Keynes was one). At best, the theorist must retreat and say that there may be a genetic predisposition to homosexual behavior; but there may also be a genetic predisposition to crime, or to alcoholism, or to any number of human weaknesses and aberrancies. The possession of a certain gene for alcoholism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for one’s becoming an alcoholic. You can be dry with it, and alcoholic without it.
Second, it embroils the theorist in an odd dilemma. If he affirms that such a gene is passed along by heredity, then it seems hard to believe that it would have survived after the thousands or millions of years the human race has been in existence. Put it this way: suppose there is a gene for celibacy. Would that gene not die out the faster, precisely insofar as it determined its possessor to a life of celibacy? To the extent that a “gay” gene is determinative, to that same extent it suffers under the mathematical power of natural selection, since people who do not possess that gene will have many more children than people who do. To the extent that it only nudges human behavior rather than determining it, to that same extent it will vanish from the gene pool less quickly -- but then it is incoherent to talk about it as if it were really a “gay” gene. And it is utterly implausible to suppose that millions of mutations of exactly the same sort pop up in the United States with every generation.
Third, it runs counter to the leftist notion, loudly proclaimed in academe, that sexual behavior is “socially conditioned.” Thus, despite the plain fact that some boys seem to know how to take machines apart and put them together again without ever being taught, or that boys in every culture have invented rough games, or that in every culture young men commit the bulk of the violent crimes -- all this is to be explained by social conditioning, occurring magically in the same ways in several thousand cultures that we have knowledge of, cultures in every part of the world and at every conceivable stage of technological development. The only thing that the left now believes is genetically determined is precisely the aberrant behavior for which it is implausible to suppose that any gene could long remain in the gene pool!
Fourth, the theory is not fruitful. It really explains nothing: it is a kind of deus ex machina, brought on stage to clinch an argument by appeal to higher authority. It does not explain why male homosexuals engage in a promiscuity that beggars the imagination. It does not explain their preponderant use of pornography. It does not explain the masochism and sadism that are so marked a part of the lifestyle. It does not explain the anonymous or group sex, or the precoccupation with bathrooms. It does not explain a host of psychological syndromes heavily represented among gay men, including narcissism, self-mutilation, coprophilia, drug use, alcoholism, exhibitionism, and suicide. It does not explain why the bizarre behaviors are more prevalent in places where homosexuality is the more tolerated. It does not explain the male homosexual cult of youth -- more about that below. Most damningly, it does not explain the compulsiveness of the male homosexual, a compulsiveness tacitly admitted by the name of the Catholic group Courage, a group of men attracted to other men and struggling to live celibate lives. Male heterosexuals do not need courage to remain chaste: simple continence will do. Something additional must beset those who require courage to keep from having sexual intercourse.
Before the current wave of political advocacy, many psychologists who studied homosexual men did come to some plausible conclusions about the same-sex attraction. From their studies and from what I know about the nature of boys, I offer the following alternative theory to explain male homosexuality.
I accept the word of male homosexuals who say that they have always felt attracted to other males. There is no reason to doubt them on this. They believe that this attraction makes them different from their brothers -- and this is where they go wrong. The plain fact is that all boys have a deep need (again, this is something hard to explain to women) for male acceptance and affirmation. All boys are attracted to the athletic, the popular, the gregarious, the cheerful, the clever boy, or man, as the case may be. This need is expressed in various ways: sometimes by shutting girls out of the club; sometimes by horseplay; sometimes by the violent high spirits of a gang; sometimes by initiation rites involving blood; sometimes by sworn devotion to a higher cause. In every boy there is a strain of the Tom Sawyer who organizes the other boys around him, or of the boys who look to a Tom Sawyer. The art of every culture testifies to these powerful (and difficult) friendships: Gilgamesh, Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield, Kidnapped, The Iliad, Star Wars.
That is the single assumption I make; and even homosexuals unwittingly testify to it. From it, all else follows. For suppose the boy has a cruel father, who makes fun of him for being slow or fat or clumsy. Or suppose the boy is naturally shy, and is rejected by the local boys -- and can only watch their rough games resentfully yet longingly from the kitchen window. Or suppose the boy’s older brothers ignore him, and he watches in envy as they catch the football or flirt with the pretty girl. Whatever the cause, suppose a boy who is rejected by the most important males in his life: the neighborhood boys, or his brothers, or, most perilously, his father.
The longing for male companionship does not go away; and remember, the boyish friendship is expressed with an active and frank physicality. What happens now may depend on other factors: the presence of some one friend in whom he can trust, or a loving father who will make rejection by the other boys pale in importance. Failing that, the boy must struggle on his own to define himself as a boy, or must accept that he “deserves” to be rejected by the others, because he is not a real boy. This struggle is for the central fact of the boy’s existence -- and that too is unwittingly supported by homosexuals, who alone among people of all kinds of sexual habits associate their very identities with their longings.
Soon enough, the boy reaches puberty, and the longing assumes a new character, influenced by the boy’s new capacity for sexual arousal and his developing, and often chaotic, feelings of sexual desire. The same kind of bodily fooleries that help form the identity of other boys -- for instance, nude bathing or semi-public urination or the common shower after an athletic contest -- become for him moments of great dread, or desire, or both at once. Hence the compulsiveness of the homosexual’s behavior: like other compulsives, he scratches at a wound that will not heal; he visits again and again the site of the painful memory; he aches to fulfill a longing whose source he can no longer rightly recognize. Most boys grow out of this silly stage; the homosexual, who was denied the chance to undergo it in the normal way, returns to it, as if compelled. Hence the exhibitionism and other forms of public behavior that one might expect in a prepubescent boy -- if the boy were deeply disturbed.
What the male homosexual longs for, sexually, is what every male needs, and that is simply affirmation by other men. It is to know that you belong, you are a man, you can be relied on in a fight, you have what it takes. If a boy is given this affirmation, then, barring a rape or something else unspeakably bizarre, he will not become a homosexual. This too is a plain fact: it is a sufficient condition for the nonappearance of the syndrome. If a father affirms his son physically (for the rough touch of a good father’s love is never forgotten by the son), then the son will identify with the father. He will know he is a boy, to follow his father in marrying a woman and having children by her.
Thus male homosexuality is a corruption not of the relations between men and women, but of the relations between men and men: it is an aberrant eroticization of male friendship. And that explains the unimaginable promiscuity. What a man seeks in a woman is not what he seeks in a man. Husband and wife may be “friends,” but in the first instance they are both less and more than that. My wife is not an alter ego; we do not stand side by side to conquer the world. But I find in her what I lack in myself. She is the mysterious one who is not like me; and my love for her is quite unlike my love for my friend, who is like me. There is nothing casual about marriage, but friendship descends from the summit all the way down to pleasant and passing acquaintances. If it is friendship that male homosexuals seek, then we might predict many of their otherwise inexplicable behaviors. Friendship is not exclusive; one can never have too many friends; friendship is often celebrated best in boisterous groups; to live even a week or two without the feeling that one has a friend is agonizingly lonely.
But the hope that homosexual relations can ever really fulfill that need for the affirming friend is, in the end, delusive. The homosexual knows better than anyone that something has gone awry with him; hence his own vacillation between insisting that he is normal, and his flaunting of behavior that if performed by anyone else in any other situation he himself would despise. “Queer Theory” -- the sad name speaks volumes.
We're already sealed in a divorce culture -- that's not going to be affected by gay marriage. Considering the sorry state of marriage in the U.S., what exactly are we trying to protect? Evangelicals have a bad rate of divorce, so we're not much better than the rest of culture.
I know I am "supposed" to be against gay marriage having committed relationships, since I am an evangelical Christian, but I really can't find myself willing to go on about it.
I have a lesbian friend whose "marriage" (sans the official paperwork) lasted longer than did mine, although I worked so hard to keep it together. I would never dream of telling them to dissolve their union. Instead, we have enjoyed friendship through the years and occasionally some spiritual conversations.
You are a much better writer and thinker than I am, so I know my "arguments" here are pretty wimpy attempts to explain my point of view. But thought I'd put in my devils advocate ideas anyway. This blog is wonderful and thought-provoking -- even when and especially when I don't agree with everything in it!
Posted by: Startled Saint | August 08, 2006 at 01:19 PM
Startled,
You wrote the following: "I have a lesbian friend whose 'marriage'(sans the official paperwork) lasted longer than did mine, although I worked so hard to keep it together. I would never dream of telling them to dissolve their union."
I think the foregoing statement reveals two fundamental differences between your position and that espoused by Dr. Esolen. First, you seem to suggest a marriage exists if "official paperwork" is issued. Such an understanding seems to support a position that marriage is simply a "union" or "partnership" between two people until such time as they wish to dissolve it. The historical Christian understanding of marriage is less concerned with clerical niceties than the deep theological, spiritual, and moral underpinings of the institution (which, for Catholics and Orthodox, is actually a sacrament). Unfortunately, your attitude seems to have gained sway among many Evangelical Protestants who have essentially accepted divorce and remarriage as an acceptable, though lamentable, modern reality.
Second, you may have revealed more than you intended. It has always been, and should be today, presumed that average married couples engage in sexual relations. Given this premise, I assume your friend has a sexual relationship with her "partner." The fact you "would never dream" of counseling her to remove herself from that gravely sinful situation is astounding.
Finally, you apologize for not adequately explaining your point of view. But I'm not sure that you have a coherent point of view. You advance a typical American argument: pragmatism. What happened to objective truth and morality resulting in a principled stand against both heterosexual and homosexual corruption of marriage? By your logic, I should remain silent if my young daughters turn to sex or drug use because, after all, statistics indicate more than 50% of American teenagers engage in that activity. With that many American teenagers resorting to self destructive behavior, I "would never dream of telling them" to stive for holiness out of thankfulness to the Risen Christ. That's not nearly pragmatic enough.
Recusant
Posted by: Doug | August 08, 2006 at 02:55 PM
>>Second, it embroils the theorist in an odd dilemma. If he affirms that such a gene is passed along by heredity, then it seems hard to believe that it would have survived after the thousands or millions of years the human race has been in existence. Put it this way: suppose there is a gene for celibacy. Would that gene not die out the faster, precisely insofar as it determined its possessor to a life of celibacy? <<
Here is a place where the argument is shaky. There are instances where a certain gene interacting in some combinations produces a positive affect, but in other combinations is deadly. Overall it is beneficial, but it comes at a cost to some. I am thinking of the sickle cell gene or something like it.
Don't get me wrong, I am against gay marriage, but this part of your argument needs to be reexamined.
Posted by: Bobby Winters | August 08, 2006 at 02:57 PM
If the "sickle cell" theory was correct then we should be able to propose something that being homosexual makes easier (must...stiffle...uncharitable comments).
We should also expect that the "negative side-effect" would happen in roughly the same percentage of population as sickle-cell. While we know that the past claims of 1-in-10 being homosexual are incorrect, we still have something like 2% reporting homosexual behavior in the US. Since most genetic diseases present at less than 1% we have a gap that is unexplainable by the current pop-theory.
Posted by: Nick | August 08, 2006 at 03:29 PM
I am increasingly of the opinion that homosexuals reproduce by victimizing pubescent youth, when they are struggling with their nascent sexual urges.
This leads me to a particularly diabolical part of the apostate Gene Robinson's history: he helped start a community center for gay, lesbian, transgendered and, the latest term from the cultural Marxists, "questioning" teens; translation: confused, vulnerable youth targeted for manipulation by older homosexuals. Truly, for causing these little ones to stumble, "it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
My perspective may be biased as a dad, but I think also that a healthy sexuality in young women is dependent upon a strong relationship with their fathers.
Posted by: Douglas | August 08, 2006 at 03:46 PM
And please accept my apologies for the atrocious punctuation. I am more used to forums with an edit option.
Posted by: Douglas | August 08, 2006 at 04:02 PM
As I have mentioned in the past, I am working on a law review article on emergency contraception. As part of my research, I have been reading about the collapse of Protestant objections to contraception during the second third of the last century. Today, I am reading a pamphlet titled "Stopping the Stork" by B.H. Shadduck, published in the mid-1940s and making the case against contraception. The following is taken from his introduction and applies to Tony's efforts here:
Some years ago a mama robin began building a nest in the eaves trough of my house, and I tore up the half-built nest. She knew more about building nest than I did, and the only time I ever sat on an egg, I was disappointed; but I knew more about rain water than she did. Mrs. Redbreast called me names that I hesitate to print. I reasoned with her in soothing tones, but she said, as I understood it, that I was meaner than a cat -- a monster whose death was long overdue. Then I chided her, "You little feathered lump of baffled fury with a thimbleful of brains, I am doing you a kindness if you had sense enough to know it."
Keep up the good work, Tony.By this time, all the robins in the neighborhood joined in the clamor, and I hurried into the house to escape abuse. The nest was rebuilt and every time I showed myself in the yard, they greeted me with insults. Then it rained, and I was sorry for them.
Posted by: GL | August 08, 2006 at 04:04 PM
>>If the "sickle cell" theory was correct then we should be able to propose something that being homosexual makes easier (must...stiffle...uncharitable comments). <<
One could posit the hypothesis that there is a genetic predisposition for say, theatricality. This can present in various ways. It can aid in tribal communcation etc, but sometimes goes awry.
>>We should also expect that the "negative side-effect" would happen in roughly the same percentage of population as sickle-cell. While we know that the past claims of 1-in-10 being homosexual are incorrect, we still have something like 2% reporting homosexual behavior in the US. Since most genetic diseases present at less than 1% we have a gap that is unexplainable by the current pop-theory.<<
No doubt there are numerous paths through which this behaviour is arrived at. My point being that this is a loose thread that need not be loose.
Posted by: Bobby Winters | August 08, 2006 at 04:26 PM
Dear Prof. Esolen,
Are you by chance familiar with the writings on homosexuality by Dr. Elizabeth R. Moberly? (She is Eastern Orthodox; a grandfather of hers was a bishop in the Episcopal Church.) Your explanation and hers of the syndrome are astonishingly similar. (Hers is however couched at certain points in neo-Freudian terminology, including the unfortunately confusing use of "homosexual", instead of a neologism such as "homophilic", to designate healthy non-erotic as well as unhealthy erotic same-sex relationships.) I have long thought her slim text "Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic" to be the single best short work available on the subject.
If it would be of interst to you or others, I will post a summary of her argument.
Posted by: James A. Altena | August 08, 2006 at 04:52 PM
Dear Professor:
Your first 8 arguments are profound and insightful. These are the best arguments against same-sex marriage that I have read anywhere. I can't wait to see Nos. 9 and 10!
Thank you.
Posted by: Robin | August 09, 2006 at 08:36 AM
My comments about marriage without the official paperwork actually means the opposite of what Recusant said it means -- that a marriage exists if "official paperwork" is issued. Marriage has nothing to do with paperwork, or the government's approval, or a magistrates signature. Marriage is about commitment, which has nothing to do with paperwork.
One reason I wanted to post my opinion here is that I am aware it is not the prevalent attitude of readers of this blog. Whether I have argued my opinion well is not the point. The point is that not all Christians think alike on the subject.
Posted by: Startled Saint | August 09, 2006 at 10:15 AM
>>>Marriage is about commitment, which has nothing to do with paperwork.<<<
No, marriage is about a holy Mystery that manifests the relationship between God and mankind, and Christ and his Church. It really is, like all such Mysteries, an eschatological statement about the Kingdom of God that has no worldly or pragmatic purpose.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 09, 2006 at 10:28 AM
I know Recusant misunderstood your initial argument, Startled, but doesn't the rest of his response still hold true? Do you believe homosexual acts to be sinful? If so, you have a duty to discourage your friends from engaging in them, whether they are doing so with a single partner or with many. If a man told you "I'm a bank robber, but I only rob one particular bank," would you tell him that he ought to continue to do so? I can appreciate the idea of enjoying friendship and moving toward spiritual conversation. It may be that much spiritual progress needs to be made before your friend can see the error of her relationship. However, you ought not to give the impression that you approve of it if you don't. That would be dishonest.
On the other hand, if you think homosexual acts are not sinful, then just say so.
>>Whether I have argued my opinion well is not the point. The point is that not all Christians think alike on the subject.<<
You needn't post simply to make us aware of the existence of other views. We are all of us very aware of this already. Some Christians make homosexuals their bishops. If you can't think of any good arguments that sway you against Dr. Esolen's points, then perhaps you should simply be persuaded to agree with him.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | August 09, 2006 at 11:59 AM
Marriage has several worldly and pragmatic purposes. Since Christ tells us it does not exist in heaven, I must assume its purposes are primarily or solely worldly.
Among its pragmatic purposes are fellowship (what some call companionship), procreation of children, and care in time of sickness or adversity.
I share with Startled a desire for more charity toward those with homosexual desires. My uncle attended a Chritian college in Iowa in 1960. His roommate was a non-practicing homosexual who eventually married. The marriage fell apart after a couple decades, for reasons I am not aware of. My uncle expressed compassion toward both his roommate's tendencies and his roommate's wife's unwillingness to tolerate them any longer, even if they were not acted on. He expressed gratitude that homosexual temptation was not "his cross to bear." Rather than argue against homosexual marriage, I hope I can act with the same sort of compassion I see in my uncle.
Posted by: Jennifer K | August 09, 2006 at 08:27 PM
>>>Marriage has several worldly and pragmatic purposes. Since Christ tells us it does not exist in heaven, I must assume its purposes are primarily or solely worldly.<<<
Not according to Patristic theology--and your interpretation of that passage is not in accord with the Fathers. For my perspective, I recommend (a) Marriage--An Orthodox Perspective, by Fr. John Meyendorff; and (b) Crowning-The Christian Marriage, by Archbishop Joseph (Raya) of Nazareth.
>>>I share with Startled a desire for more charity toward those with homosexual desires. My uncle attended a Chritian college in Iowa in 1960.<<<
Charity in this case ought to be support to break out of a spiritually devastating way of life.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 09, 2006 at 09:02 PM
I would greatly appreciate the comments of our Touchstone bloggers (particularly Dr. Esolen) on the difference between true Christian compassion and what I believe is a poisonous false compassion that is rapidly infecting the minds of so many Americans, including professed Christians, on the issue of how one is to deal with homosexual friends and family members.
Posted by: Bill R | August 09, 2006 at 11:06 PM
OK, a thoughtful argument, all well and good and probably all pretty close to the mark.
But I just can't shake the feeling that I'm hearing the hired hand abuse the sheep - entrusted into his care - for being so irresponsible as to get themselves caught by the wolf.
What's the Shepherd going to say when He returns?
Posted by: Kip Watson | August 10, 2006 at 05:07 AM
Dear Stuart,
I think the problem some of of have with your statement depends on the meaning of "worldly and pragmatic." In the sense of "worldly" as used in the NT in contrast with being Christ-oriented, you are right. But marriage certainly does have purposes in and for this world -- not only as a means for our sanctification by humiliation (i.e., the cultivation of true humility by self-sacrificially serving another in exclusive fidelity), but also for the good ordering of all society (every larger organization from school to government being an amplification of the family). It is thus created as a part of the natural order, and is inherently virtuous even before its sanctification and exaltation by Christ at Cana.
Dear Startled,
One problem with your post is that your lesbian friend's "union" not only is not a marriage, but is not a true union. It is two people living together for mutual satisfaction of emotional and physical desires in fallen and sinful ways. You have simply succumbed to the euphemisms of modern secular culture that call evil good and good evil. (The same holds for the idea that marriage involves "commitment" -- a negotiable and renegable contractual term -- rather than fidelity. This notion may well explain why your own marriage sadly failed.)
A second problem is that you have also succumbed to the fallacious "personal experience" argument (also used to justify women's ordination -- another example of why the two issues and fundamentally conjoined). You "know" that you are "supposed to be against gay marriage" -- but you act against that divinely given and correct knowledge because you met someone in the sin that didn't conform to certain false stereotypes or mistaken suppositions you incorrectly drew from faulty understanding of that "knowledge." (Which, in fact, you haven't properly "known" at all, for true knowledge does not remain mere thought, but shapes us as persons.) Instead, you substitute a false "knowledge" of a lesbian relationship on the basis of your personal experience of the couple. This of course falsely presumes that you have discerned and understood that relationship rightly on the basis of your fallen natural faculties, apart from and in contradiction to the word of God. It in effect denies the Fall, and sets us your own mind as superior to the mind of God as revealed to us in Scripture. It forgets or denies that one reason God has given us His Scriptures is precisely to give us the necessary objective standards against which to measure all of our thoughts and desires, to determine whether they are godly or fallen. Frankly, I don't see that as very "evangelical."
Dear Ethan,
"Some Christians make homosexuals their bishops."
Actually, no -- those who do so are apostates, not Christians. Or, to put it a bit differently, they are Christians nominally but not substantively. At is 1976 General Convention, the Episcopal Church formally became heretical, from which there still was the possibility of redemption. Between its GCs of 2000 and 2003 it formally became apostate, from which there is (apart from a type of miraculous divine intervention it would be a sin of presumption to expect) no return.
Dear Jennifer K,
I'm sorry that you don't seem to understand that arguments against so-called "gay marriage" are compassionate. There is no true compassion, only sinfully distorted sentimentalism, in any thought, word, or deed contrary to obedience to God. Anything that legitimates sin is not compassionate. The word itself, "com-passion", means that we are to fight sin by (at St. Paul says) helping to bear one another's burdens and suffer with and for one another, as Christ suffered with and for us. The failure to oppose sin, and indeed to countenance or approve of it, does not do this. Instead, it seeks the easy way out by pretending that sin is not sin, or by affecting a false kindness of mere social politeness by supposing that "nice" people don't criticize sin publicly (though, hypocritically, they can do so privately). It seeks to avoid bearing the Cross for others in imitation of what Christ did for us.
Dr. Hutchens' recent post on lesbianism is right on target in this regard (though it does not address the fact that many lesbians are in fact perfectly attractive women who make themselves ugly in appearance as part of their disorder). We need to love the sinner and yet hate the sin. (Hate, not in the sense of the revulsion of fallen passion, but in the sense of proper abhorrence for what God abhors.) Indeed, if we do not hate the sin, we cannot truly love the sinner -- and vice-versa.
Bill R,
I second your request to Prof. Esolen. I hope that the point I just made about the "easy way out" and avoidance of the Cross is a starter here.
Posted by: James A. Altena | August 10, 2006 at 05:22 AM
Dear James,
I agree with you that the acceptors of homosexuality should be considered aposates and not true followers of Christ. I was using the term "Christian" in the more general secular sense, meaning anyone who identifies himself as such. I suppose I should have used scare quotes, but that wasn't really the point of my argument.
My point is, more clearly stated, that just because some who call themselves Christians take a certain point of view, that doesn't mean that that view is either true or genuinely Christian. I'm sure Startled Saint wouldn't automatically ascribe validity to the views of the Westboro Baptist Church.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | August 10, 2006 at 09:27 AM
James Altena feels qualified to pronounce on whether Startled’s lesbian friends have a “true union” or not, going so far as to say that what sounds like a stable and loving relationship is evil. That’s not merely overreaching, it’s redefinition, the very thing that he calls “modern secular culture” to account for. And though I guess I’m late to this party, I’m surprised by the suspicion and derision directed toward the word “commitment”. Do we not speak of “committed Christians”? Just as no magic occurs in Baptism that removes the temptation to sin thereafter, no magic inheres in Marriage that makes what Mr. Altena refers to as “sanctification by humiliation” an automatic process. Remove commitment from marriage and you’re not left with much. The gibe at Startled’s own marriage is gratuitous and impertinent in more than one sense.
Mr. Altena then goes on to explicate Startled’s six paragraphs of postings to the conclusion that Startled “in effect denies the Fall, and sets us [sic] your own mind as superior to the mind of God as revealed to us in Scripture.” Wow.
If it were a simple truth, as Mr. Altena avows, that “Scriptures ... give us the necessary objective standards against which to measure all of our thoughts and desires, to determine whether they are godly or fallen,” then there would be no need for interpretation, commentary and discussion, and a great many people after the closing of the canon, not to mention a great many of us here, have wasted a great deal of time. The level of certainty and confidence in one’s own inerrancy in reading the Word, or even the mind, of God, is dangerous.
Posted by: John Hart | August 10, 2006 at 09:35 AM
Thanks, everyone.
I beg Startled to consider the import of Jesus's words, as He Himself cites Scripture: "And they two become one flesh." Note that He does not say that they become one mind, or even one soul. Please do not make the crucial mistake of ignoring the prescriptive demands of the body. Christian teaching does not sever the salvation of the body from the salvation of the soul -- if it had, Saint Paul would not have had such a hard time of it in Athens! Marriage surely is about more than the union of the body (and, as Pope John Paul II suggested, of two different but complementary ways of being-human) of a man and a woman, but it is AT LEAST and NECESSARILY about that; and that is not simply one item in a list, as Jennifer seems to imply. It is foundational.
Bill:
On compassion -- I am called upon every day to exert this virtue, since I live among people who have discarded Christian morality as regards sex. Besides, I am a sinner, and the words of the prayer I pray many times a day thunder in my ears, less promise than threat: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." But condonement is not the same as compassion, and here we need to make distinctions clear not only to ourselves but to others. For the effect of appearing to others to condone a grave sin is exactly the same as if one condoned it in one's heart.
Therefore we must never, in our compassion, appear to make light of the sin, or appear to treat the sin as if it were none at all. We would never chat breezily with a murderer about how he must have been sweating as he pulled the trigger, would we? We would not smile as he joked about it, would we? We might understand that our chattiness, which really is less compassion than simple spiritual sloth, the incapacity really to muster any zeal and love, might encourage him or others to walk the same path. Those people, sinners or victims or both, also have a claim on our compassion. When we speak forthrightly about sexual sin, without naming names or pointing fingers, I believe we do exert compassion -- for those millions who otherwise would trip right over the brink were it not for the frank sign in red letters that we have a duty to post nearby.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | August 10, 2006 at 10:02 AM
It is not compassion which sees a friend committing a grave sin and says nothing; that is complancy, cowardice, or complicity. Frankly, if one can sit by and do it, it should cause that person to question whether or not he or she really believes in a judgment after death.
When I recently learned of a friend who was (and, unfortunately, still is) committing a grave sin, I confronted him about it and began by confessing to him a grave sin which I had in my younger years committed in the same category. By doing so, I hoped that he would understand that in confroning him I was not being self-righteous and holier-than-thou, but was hoping to spare a friend consequences of which I had unfortunate personal knowledge. Since my friend claimed to be a Christian and his prior life gave evidence that he was, I then took him to the Scriptures and pointed out how there was no way to avoid the conclusion that what he was doing was sinful. Third, I took him to the Scriptures to made clear the eternal fate of those who commit such sins without guilt, remorse, confession and repentance.
Unfortunately, he appears to have ignored my counsel, but perhaps in time it will be part of what causes him to repent. In any event, I did what I believed was my duty.
Posted by: GL | August 10, 2006 at 11:13 AM
One other thing, I pray for my friend and his family several times each week and, for a time, I fasted for them. If you just can't bring yourself to confront them, Startled Saint, you could at least pray and fast for your friends.
Posted by: GL | August 10, 2006 at 12:59 PM
"We might understand that our chattiness, which really is less compassion than simple spiritual sloth, the incapacity really to muster any zeal and love, might encourage him or others to walk the same path."
"Simple spiritual sloth"--it struck me after reading this comment that sloth, one of the Seven Deadlies, has a spiritual, and not just a physical side. Here is a sin which I suspect many of us Christians must acknowledge: we are spiritually slothful. I would suggest it as a topic for another blog by Dr. Esolen, but that would most likely disclose my own spiritual slothfulness!
Posted by: Bill R | August 10, 2006 at 01:02 PM
John Hart,
Your accusation that James Altena is engaging in "redefinition" is spurious. The conclusion that any lesbian sexual relationship is necessarily, by its very nature evil is the historic position of the Church. It doesn't matter how "stable and loving" Startled Saint makes it sound (I feel that you're reading nearly as much into his three sentences as you accuse James of doing), if the traditional Christian understanding of marriage is true, the relationship is sinful. If you wish to argue otherwise, you must be prepared to discard the traditional understanding as false.
Philosophically speaking, what we have here is a clash of competing epistemologies. Startled argues from an empirical basis consisting of his personal experience. James, Stuart Koehl, and Dr. Esolen argue primarily from a rational basis springing from the developed intellectual tradition of the church. For Startled (and apparently for you, John), truth is to be judged by its correspondence to one's own personal experiences and feelings. For the others (myself included), it is to be judged by its correspondence to the foundational truths of anthopology and theology that we know, through reason or revelation, to be certainly true.
Perhaps you wish to object that our commitment to these principles is itself nothing more than the product of our own personal empirical experiences. The answer to this is that the principles of reason and faith are indeed the products of experience. However, they are not the idiosyncratic products of a lone individual's experience but rather the products of the collective and exhaustive experience of humanity as a whole as it has reflected these independent truths, and as that collective experience has become preserved by history, tradition, and institutional authority.
I firmly believe, Mr. Hart and Startled Saint, that the first step to understanding the power and legitimacy of Esolen et al.'s arguments is to recognize the feebleness of the epistemology you are erecting against them. You must be prepared to meet those arguments on their own terms if you are ever to do more than simply talk past them.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | August 10, 2006 at 03:21 PM
Ethan, you put the matter most eloquently.
Posted by: Bill R | August 10, 2006 at 03:52 PM
Ethan Cordray:
If Mr. Altena’s categorization of the relationship in question is drawn from the historic position of the Church, it lies outside the scope of Dr. Esolen’s series, which sets out to be without reference to religion.
I plead guilty to “reading in” to the brief description of the relationship offered by Startled, but “stable” derives from it’s longlastingness and “loving” I’m guessing from Startled’s statement “I would never dream of telling them to dissolve their union”. Suffice it to say that I know plenty of folks whose (stable and loving) relationships would also be judged evil by Mr. Altena and otherwise by me.
I agree with you that we are talking past each other. I don’t have philosophic training, and am not equipped to carry on a formal discussion of epistemics. But would it be fair to ratchet the formality down a notch and suggest that we’re struggling over the difference between theory and practice? (I don’t here refer to Dr. Esolen’s posts, which have striven to follow the rubric set down at the outset, and keep firmly rooted to practical effects rather than metaphysical categories.) Not that it’s valid to generalize from a few data points of personal experience, but it seems entirely wrongheaded to condemn the character of a relationship in the abstract, without reference to the individual data points at all. So, no, I wouldn’t argue that your commitment to your principles is “nothing more than the product of [your] own personal empirical experiences.” On the contrary, I’m complaining that it is at times too firmly attached to an understanding of revelation which requires a willful denial of the facts on the ground.
I will add that I am puzzled by what seems to me an almost compulsive focus on the sexual component of marriage on the conservative side of the chasm. Surely sex is far down on the list of what makes a good marriage. Sexual compatibility, yes, but type or frequency or any other vector, hardly. Love, yes. But I am confident that no one here would equate love with sex. I bring this up because it would seem that certain kinds of sex, without regard to anything else, are sufficient to make a relationship evil to some folks. I do continue to find that boggling.
Posted by: John Hart | August 10, 2006 at 05:15 PM
>On the contrary, I’m complaining that it is at times too firmly attached to an understanding of revelation which requires a willful denial of the facts on the ground.
This assumes that we can objectively assess those "facts on the ground" and that this empiric objectivity trumps both the traditional and obvious understanding and application of divine revelation.
Posted by: David Gray | August 10, 2006 at 05:25 PM
In one of the comments of "The Last Bastion of Sentiment", one reader suggested (rather uncharitably but with some truth), that we ordinary people have a profound hate of paedopphiles because we are so deeply in sin ourselves -- we deflect from our own wretchedness by manufacturing outrage at the one who has gone a step deeper in the mire than ourselves.
In similar fashion, so many of the voices in these pages express white-knuckle outrage at the mote of sin in their gay neighbour's eye, when their own churches are utterly polluted -- with all the sins of the Pharisees; vain pride, love of appearances, barring access to the temple, ungodly legalism -- not to mention that the churches themselves are the source of some of the most abominable cases of sexual sadism of the very type the author rightly suggests is a cause of sexual deviancy in the young.
In fact the very rise of atheism and secularism, in all their associated evils, was a response to the vilest wrongdoings in the church.
Christ commanded us to remove the beam in our own eye first, for good reason.
Wasting my breath, I suppose...
Posted by: Kip Watson | August 10, 2006 at 06:32 PM
Mr. Watson,
I assure you I don't get any pleasure in having to talk about this business. At every chance I get I write about other things, as my articles for this magazine will amply show. And I certainly AM directing my gaze at the failure of our churches -- please read the posts more closely. Which Christian church has NOT gone soft on the sexual sins generally? We are now at the end of a long history of degradation. Still, we are where we are, and it is the Prince of Darkness who has chosen the battlefield. Unfortunately, this time the battlefield is about sex.
But do not underestimate the deadliness of sexual sins. The philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand once pointed out that our proper use of sex belongs to God in a way that our proper use of money does not. Though the latter is God's, too, it still does not so directly allow us to participate in the very creative power of the deity Himself. The Bible, too, is with me on this; whenever the prophets wish to designate particularly unspeakable sins, they turn to images of wicked sexuality, as if those could most immediately convey the affront to the majesty of God.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | August 10, 2006 at 07:05 PM
Kip,
I don't think you're wasting your breath. I think it's very important that churches focus their attention on their own faults and recognize the prevalence of other sins than homosexuality (such as rampant materialism, envy, legalism, unkindness, and all the rest of what you listed and more). And I believe that some Christians definitely use the homosexual issue to mask their own sinfulness (a certain Mr. Phelps comes to mind, especially).
However, does this mean that the debate about homosexuality should not take place? Because secular society is certainly not going to wait for Christians to get everything else taken care of before pressing for further sexual license. Christians need to press for holiness on all fronts, in our own hearts, in our families, in our churches, and in our nation and world. The solution is not less struggle but more. I think the contemporary American challenge (for Evangelicals especially) is to balance political engagement with private piety into a cohesive whole.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | August 10, 2006 at 07:36 PM
I think if the churches would only get themselves right with God, this whole discussion would become academic. The lost souls out there, starving as they are for God's love and peace, would come flocking back.
Instead we stand on the church roof throwing stones at them, while the doors are blocked by piles of rubbish.
Posted by: Kip Watson | August 10, 2006 at 07:36 PM
John Hart,
I believe you agree with Dr. Esolen, James, myself, and others far more than you realize. I don't want to be disrespectful, but please bear with me through the following argument, all the way to the end.
If marriage is about love rather than sexual union, why shouldn't a man marry his mother? He loves his mother, and his mother loves him. If his father dies, why shouldn't he take over the empty place in his mother's bed? Or let us say, hypothetically, that I love my next door neighbors: a husband, a wife, a fifteen-year-old boy, and a six-year-old girl. Can I marry them all?
Now I'm not trying to gross anyone out. And I'm sure, John, that you would object to both scenarios. Now the question is, on what grounds? I think you would probably say that in those cases, the love we are talking about is not the sort of love that allows for sexual involvement. In fact, those are kinds of love that would necessarily be destroyed and perverted by sexual activity, even if everyone involved fully consented. So, then, there are different kinds of love, some of which do not, indeed must not, involve sexuality if they are to be actually loving.
Yet there are clearly kinds of love in which sexual involvement is appropriate. So the question still remains: How do you judge whether a type of love is of the sexual kind or of the non-sexual kind? And this is where it becomes a matter of epistemology. Don't be afraid of the philosophical word. Everyone has a framework by which they evaluate truth and falsehood. Now I doubt, John, that you have ever known anyone who married his mother, or anyone who had sexual relations with all of his next door neighbors. And anyway, I doubt you can think of any "facts on the ground" which might lead you to approve of either scenario. So, then, on what grounds do you object to these specific cases? You have two choices:
1. You throw up your hands, refusing to decide whether or not these relationships are good or not. You are paralyzed into inaction. You would not call the police on the neighbor pederast, you would not try to separate the mother and son until you personally experienced some sort of harm stemming from those relationships.
2. You appeal to a higher, general principle. You say that marriage cannot be between a man and his mother, or between a man and his neighbors, because marriage has a definition that precludes these arrangements.
You are a compassionate and moral man. You would not choose option #1.
So you choose option #2, embracing the same epistemological framework that Dr. Esolen is arguing from. With that in mind, I have one final question which I will ask you to answer yourself:
What, precisely, is the difference between homosexual relationships and the above relationships that makes homosexual marriage possible and those other types impossible?
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | August 10, 2006 at 07:50 PM
Don't get me wrong, I agree generally with your political points. I would not vote for gay marriage, and given the choice (please God that we might have such a choice) I would support the reform of family law to eradicate most of the destructive elements of recent decades (divorce on demand most importantly).
But although political change must accompany the healing of our society, politics has no solution.
Sexual behaviour in adults is impossible to change from the outside. Any of us who've struggled with any sin of the flesh will know how consuming they are. It takes an intense internal upheaval to confront what has sin has done to you (note that being gay is no worse than any other type of adultery). And only the power of the living God can restore what has been taken away, no amount of rational argument will do that.
The gay person is really the victim in all of this, as was very rightly pointed out in "The Last Bastion of Sentiment", a victim of a grossly sexualised, traumatised society.
(Like most simple minds I tend to think in tacky similes, so here's one:)
They're all lost and battered puppies, there's no use yelling at them. You have to entice them back with soft words and and some morsal to feed their hunger.
And those churches that offer a little of the true nourishment of the spirit (and let's be honest, what church offers more than a few crumbs these days), find that souls are drawn to them, and such miracles of redemption do happen.
There's a hunger out there. If you have ever been out there, you'll know that.
Posted by: Kip Watson | August 10, 2006 at 08:10 PM
Kip,
I've been on these boards and offered them morsels. Believe me when i say they bite!
There is something to be said for the parable of the Prodigal Son. Let them decide to come back when they see what their ways have brought them.
Posted by: Bobby Winters | August 10, 2006 at 09:31 PM
But although political change must accompany the healing of our society, politics has no solution.
Sexual behaviour in adults is impossible to change from the outside. Any of us who've struggled with any sin of the flesh will know how consuming they are. It takes an intense internal upheaval to confront what has sin has done to you (note that being gay is no worse than any other type of adultery). And only the power of the living God can restore what has been taken away, no amount of rational argument will do that.
Amen. And well said.
The only change I would make is to add that having homosexual attractions is no more a sin than any other temptation to evil. Feeding and watering those attractions is a sin, but no more so than when feed and water the temptations to which we are subject. (Like when we watch TV shows which highlight upscales homes (e.g., HGTV, a station which is to envy what the Playboy channel is to lust), what I call "envyography.") Acting on those attractions is a grave sin, but no more so than when we act on our temptations to pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. That should cover most of us, probably several times over.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a [homosexual]. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this [homosexual]. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get." But the [homosexual], standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
It is not what your sins are or have been, it is whether you fail to recognize them or, if you do, fail to take them seriously, or whether you are convicted of them cry out to God, "Be merciful to me, a sinner!"We do have a duty, in love, to confront our friends who are in sins. I would guess it was harder for Nathan to confront the King of Israel than for us to confront a friend. At worst, we risk losing a friend; Nathan risked losing his head. We also, however, have a duty to confront ourselves and to do so especially before we confront someone else.
Posted by: GL | August 11, 2006 at 10:29 AM
Well put, GL. We walk a fine line between being Pharisees and being, as Dr. Esolen said so aptly, "spiritually slothful."
Posted by: Bill R | August 11, 2006 at 11:49 AM
Bill, GL, and everybody:
We're verging here upon the distinctions between what is possible, or necessary, in the political realm; what is prudent as a matter of public (not necessary legal) encouragement or discouragement; and how we are called upon as Christians to minister to our fellow sinners. I think I will have to post a separate blog on that. For instance, there's a confusion out there in Christian America between the charity that I extend to the particular sinner (say, the drunk who lives across the street), the public condemnation of the sin, and the legal means by which the sin may be restrained, deterred, or palliated.
I'd also say, not to you guys but to a few of our more tenderhearted posters (and I am not intending to be sarcastic there), that we ought to remember to observe some order in our compassion, and some clarity in acknowledging where the offense lies, who is committing it, and who suffers from it. So then, in my capacity as a citizen (not as a friend or the man across the street), these people seem to claim my compassion, in this order:
1. The victims of crime.
2. Those who might, for my negligence, become the victims of crime.
3. Those who might, for my negligence, become criminals.
4. Criminals who have repented of their crime.
5. Criminals who have not repented of their crime.
I don't mean that the unrepentant criminal has to wait around until I have treated all the rest. I mean instead that the order helps to determine what sort of action I take -- that, for instance, I can never allow my compassion for 5 to undermine my compassion for 1 or 2.
In the case of homosexuals that publicly flout the traditional moral order, we are really talking about an offense to the community -- note for instance the aggressiveness of a gay pride parade. Our first care, as citizens (that qualification is important), is to those who suffer most directly from the offense. Those would be children -- as I will argue in points 9 and 10.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | August 11, 2006 at 12:12 PM
Having been away for almost three days to a wedding (a real wedding, between a man and a woman, and both being dedicated Christians), I belatedly return to find Mr. Hart’s posting. My thanks to Ethan Cordray for his response in my absence.
In order to make his own argument, Mr. Hart necessarily misrepresents what I wrote. As before, it unfortunately requires close analysis of language to explain how.
1) As Prof. Esolen has already noted and argued, a true union is one between complementary opposites, so I am not engaging in “redefinition”(unless Prof. Esolen and countless others are likewise guilty). As already demonstrated in my response to Mr. Hart to Prof. Esolen’s initial installment in this series, such a tactic is Mr. Hart’s specialty, not mine. At bottom, what Mr. Hart really objects to is precision in definition (e.g. his call to “ratchet the formality down a notch”), since, as I previously pointed out, he can makes his arguments appear plausible only if the terms are made so vague and elastic that anything can be smuggled through them. That is also the point to Ethan’s last post.
2) My critical observation on “commitment” likewise does not originate with me, but with my good friend, the theologian and estimable Touchstone contributor Dr. Peter Toon. As Dr. Toon has pointed out, “commitment”, when applied to marriage as a substitute for the proper Christian concept of “fidelity”, implicitly reduces marriage to a non-exclusive contractual relationship of limited duration dependent upon human will (since the persons involved negotiate the terms of the “commitment” and on person can decide to terminate the “relationship” by terminating his or her “commitment” to it). Fidelity, by contrast, is a exclusive and life-long pledge of loyalty between two persons, regardless of conditions, wherein two persons are created, brought, and sustained by divine grace (not human will) in “relation” (an objective and permanent state) rather than a “relationship” – the latter a term that characterizes only the subjective state of two persons in relation. (This distinction is likewise due to Dr. Toon.) I once saw a bumper sticker which unintentionally revealed the import of “commitment” and 'relationship” in modern culture: “WANTED: COMMITTED OVERNIGHT RELATIONSHIP”. In short, “commitment” and “relationship” are two terms that, in the current worldly climate, orthodox Christians would do well to avoid with reference to marriage – though, contrary to Mr. Hart’s assumption, I do think the word has proper applications in other contexts (e.g., I am a committed opera-goer). Two others terms to avoid for similar reasons are “initiation” instead of “incorporation” for baptism and “community” instead of “communion” for the Church and the Eucharist.
3) I wrote that marriage was “a means for sanctification by humiliation.” Nothing in that statement asserts or implies that the means accomplishes its goal automatically or by magic, as Mr. Hart disingenuously misrepresents me to say.
4) Mr Hart writes further: “If it were a simple truth, as Mr. Altena avows, that ‘Scriptures ... give us the necessary objective standards against which to measure all of our thoughts and desires, to determine whether they are godly or fallen,’ then there would be no need for interpretation, commentary and discussion, and a great many people after the closing of the canon, not to mention a great many of us here, have wasted a great deal of time. The level of certainty and confidence in one’s own inerrancy in reading the Word, or even the mind, of God, is dangerous.”
First, some truths are simple and some are complex. Do you deny, Mr. Hart, that God has indeed given us in the Scriptures any objective standards against which to measure our thoughts and desires as being godly or fallen? And if not, do you deny that the fact of that gift (as opposed to its application – see the next paragraph) to be a simple truth?
Second, this fails to make the simple logical distinction between the objectivity of God’s standards and our potential or actual fallibility in apprehending the same. Mr. Hart’s final sentence is, of course, the standard tactic of theological revisionists of seizing upon this distinction to then fallaciously suggest that because no one’s understanding of objective reality and truth is infallible, therefore all position must be accorded equal validity. This is obviously false. The professional astronomer has a true perception of the objective reality of the movements of the solar system that the card-carrying member of the local Flat Earth Society chapter, relying upon “common sense” and “personal experience.” does not. The freshly arrived rescuer in the Sahara Desert who sees nothing but sand for hundreds of miles around likewise has a true perception of reality, in contrast to the man he is rescuing who insists that his mirage of an oasis just ahead is real. And similarly the virtuous man who stands outside of evil beholding it – be that evil drug addiction, sexual immorality, slavery, or genocide – has the true perception of evil that the self-justifying sinner unrepentantly immersed in it does not.
It apparently needs commenting that “evil” in the objective sense used here refers to all things contrary to the will, intention, and purpose of God. It encompasses misfortunes such as killer tsunamis (allowed to occur as a result of the Fall by God’s permissive will, as distinct from His perfect will) as well as intentional acts. I am well aware that longer-term gay partnerships (not “unions”), as opposed to one-night stands, have complex dynamics that involve real affection between the two persons. Nor would I ever disclaim that those persons are do not have manifold other moral virtues such as being kind, caring, generous, industrious, loyal, etc. And, if you have read some other posts I have made on this subject under other blogs, Mr. Hart, I have pleaded with others not to base objections to homosexuality on personal revulsion, or to reduce gays to one-dimensional caricatures of sexual predators. But those other things do not legitimate their homosexual conduct, which is, objectively speaking, evil. The goodness or badness of the thing is not determined solely by the subjective intentions of the actors, but also by the intrinsic nature of the acts, which the Vatican statement (and I am not a Roman Catholic, by the way) rightly describes as “objectively disordered.” Prof. Esolen is not the first Christian to present a “natural law “argument against homosexual conduct – St. Paul did it in Romans 1.
Mr. Hart’s further comment about “level of certainty and confidence in one’s own inerrancy” is further designed to suggest that I am relying upon my own reading of Scripture in a manner that would make me guilty of an extreme sin of hubris, or imply that I can be written off as a stereotypical “fundamentalist” bogeyman. However, I am not relying on myself here, but upon almost 2,000 years of sound judgment by men infinitely wiser and more saintly than myself. As with Startled Saint, it is Mr. Hart instead who “in effect denies the Fall, and sets us [sic] your own mind as superior to the mind of God as revealed to us in Scripture” by rejecting that accumulated and tested wisdom and unanimous testimony as to the actual meaning of Scripture. Every one of us, including both myself and you, is subject to that sin in spades, Mr. Hart. The difference between us is that I confess it and submit myself to the consensus of the Fathers on Scripture as superior to my own devices. By contrast, pro-gay apologists such as yourself, Mr. Hart, repeatedly have asserted that St. Paul and all the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and modern expositors of Scripture who followed him up to the last 50 or so years were ignorant of the true nature of homosexuality, did not have the superior enlightened modern understanding of it, etc., etc. In other words, Mr. Hart, you assert that the understanding and compassion of you and your fellow pro-gay advocates here is superior to them all, and to those of us who adhere to them. “Wow” indeed.
5) In his second post Mr. Hart writes: “If Mr. Altena’s categorization of the relationship in question is drawn from the historic position of the Church, it lies outside the scope of Dr. Esolen’s series, which sets out to be without reference to religion.” This again a distortion. What Prof. Esolen actually wrote was: “. . . I'll offer ten objections that have nothing to do with any religion at all, except insofar as the great religions of the world happen to reflect the nature of mankind.” Insofar as I (and Prof. Esolen and others) have argued from it, the historic position of the Church is grounded precisely in natural law arguments as to “the nature of mankind” and thus lies within the scope of the series.
6) Our “commitment to [our] principles” is not “at times too firmly attached to an understanding of revelation which requires a willful denial of the facts on the ground.” On the contrary, Mr. Hart, it is you who are in “willful denial of the facts on the ground.” The empirical data is all in our favor – e.g., the overwhelming practice and preference by gays for anonymous and casual sex (per statistics I previously cited); the epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug abuse (about 35% and 25% respectively, according to several government reports and academic studies); AIDS and venereal disease in the homosexual population; and an average life expectancy for gay men of about 43 years, as opposed to 74 years for heterosexual men. Need I go on?
I previously asked you to supply contrary factual supporting evidence for your position, Mr. Hart. You have not done so – instead, you only offer vague generalizations and allusions to anecdotal experience. So, Mr. Hart, I’ll ask you again – where is your documented evidence that homosexuals have monogamous partnerships that equal heterosexual marriages in duration? Where are your documented studies to show that gays are no more promiscuous than heterosexuals? Or their abuse of alcohol and drugs is no greater? Or that the life-spans of gay men are on average equal to those of straight men? Provide such evidence, and I’ll retract everything I’ve written on this topic.
7) Finally, Mr. Hart writes: “ I am puzzled by what seems to me an almost compulsive focus on the sexual component of marriage on the conservative side of the chasm. . . .I bring this up because it would seem that certain kinds of sex, without regard to anything else, are sufficient to make a relationship evil to some folks.”
The insinuation that conservatives are obsessed with sex is yet another standard canard in the arsenal of pro-gay rhetoric. It is of a piece with Mr. Hart’s previous insinuation (already addressed by me earlier in this series) that most of the bloggers on this site must have been fornicators. This claim was neatly disposed of years ago by Touchstone editor David Mills in an essay from his Anglican days published in the “Evangelical Catholic,” wherein he noted that this is the equivalent of the pyromaniac who goers about setting conflagrations and then accuses the firemen of being obsessed with arson.
On the contrary, Mr. Hart, it is the pro-gay apologists such as yourself who are compulsive about focusing on sex. It is gays such as “Bp.” Vicky Gene Robinson who publicly declare that sexual preference is what defines them as human beings (in contrast to being e.g. a rational being in the image and likeness of God). He denies the distinction between the sinner and his sin, because he first denies his sin to be sin, and hence denies the Fall, for he does not wish sin to be an aspect of his present nature that needs to be transformed, as opposed to merely mistaken choices of free will.
Perhaps unlike many of those posting to this site, my previous contact with an HA-type group meant that I had occasion to obtain and peruse gay publications – the ones that present themselves as mainstream media (e.g. “Philadelphia Gay News”), not explicit pornography – in order to ascertain their nature. The contrast with comparable “straight” media publications could scarcely be more striking. The gay newspapers and magazines are absolutely saturated with sex, sex, and more sex. Page after page is devoted to articles and ads for bars and bathhouses for anonymous sex pick-ups; “phone sex” ads showing naked men pleasuring themselves; columns of classified ads seeking partners whose contents almost invariably include detailed specifications of desired particular body types, race, and sexual fetishes. (And I do mean fetishes – leather dress and other costumes, S&M, B&D, “fisting”, “rimming”, and other things too odious to define here.) In short, “mainstream” gay media presents the kind of material that one finds among “straights” only in soft- and hard-core pornography.
Of course, I suppose Mr. Hart may find some way of coming back and insinuating that my brief mention of such things shows in me the compulsion regarding sex that he slanderously attributes to conservatives in general, just as he did previously with reference to fornication. Professional psychologists assigned a name to this conduct long ago – “projection.” The homosexual takes his own obsession with sex and projects it onto heterosexuals instead, in order to justify his own conduct.
Yes, Mr. Hart, certain kinds of sex are intrinsically evil by nature. For the moment, let’s leave homosexuality aside. How about bestiality? Necrophilia? Pederasty? Incest? Rape of any sort? Let’s have a straightforward answer here, Mr. Hart. Do you deny that such things are intrinsically evil by nature? For if you do deny it, then it becomes a matter of social and cultural convention, which can be changed. In that case, on what objective grounds would you claim that these, too, could not and would not then be legitimated by the same kinds of arguments now being advanced to legitimate gay sex? That point is a crux of Prof. Esolen’s entire series. It has been made by Prof. Esolen, Ethan, myself, Sen. Santorum, and a host of others. It has yet to receive a real reply, as opposed to evasion and dissimulation behind accusations of bigotry, “homophobia”, and all the other usual cliches.
Yes, Mr. Hart, certain kinds of sex are intrinsically evil by nature. And that also includes homosexual intercourse. And as Christians we are obligated to name and oppose evil for what it is, for what God has plainly declared it to be – even as we distinguish the sinner from the sin, and seek to deliver and redeem the former from the latter.
Posted by: James A. Altena | August 12, 2006 at 08:44 PM
In addition to my spell-checker (or my eyes, or both) not working properly at various points in my posts to this blog, my post above lost part of a sentence in point 1) referring to Ethan's last post. For simplicity, just change "Ethan's post that" to "Ethan's last post" and let it go at that.
Posted by: James A. Altena | August 12, 2006 at 09:28 PM
Ethan Cordray:
Love is, I assume all would agree, a necessity to a healthy marriage. But that is not to say that love = marriage, or vice versa. My point was that sex should not be the criterion by which we judge marriage.
I would indeed not sanction the scenarios that you present as marriage -- though not because of the sexual fault, objectionable though it be. Rather, I would say that marriage should be between peers, those who can have roughly equal roles in caring for each other. That is, in essence, the distinction I would make that separates the hypotheticals that you describe from the loving committed partnership between adults.
By the way, I thank you, truly, for the vote of confidence that I'm moral and compassionate, despite my position on this question. (Being compared to the serpent in the Garden by Mr. Altena in an earlier thread was bracing, to say the least.)
Posted by: John Hart | August 12, 2006 at 10:28 PM
>>>Rather, I would say that marriage should be between peers, those who can have roughly equal roles in caring for each other. <<<
"Equal", or "identical"?
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 13, 2006 at 03:22 AM
"...marriage should be between peers, those who can have roughly equal roles in caring for each other."
Would this raise questions about the reality of a marriage between an elderly man (in good health) and a woman with alzheimer's? What if she also was bedridden? These people cannot have anything remotely approximating "equal roles" in caring for each other.
You might suggest that such a couple would most likely have married when such "equal roles" were closer to reality, which is probably true. But this does not answer the question, for two reasons:
1) They might not have.
2) Previous reality of the relationship does not change the fact that now the "criterion by which we judge marriage" no longer applies to this relationship.
Is it no longer a marriage?
With all due respect, I'm afraid your definition leaves something to be desired.
(A definition based solely on sexual activity would also fail to answer in this case; therefore a marriage, however we define it, must mean something more than simply the presence of sexual activity, or even a particular kind of sexual activity. If that is how you understood the "conservative" Christian position -- I'm not sure if it is or not -- you are, I think, misunderstanding.)
Now, you might argue that "commitment" is what makes this a real marriage. I do not necessarily share my fellow-poster's dislike for the term in this context, but what if the woman involved is no longer committed to the man, if only because she cannot remember who he is? (It might be a more recent, second marriage -- I recently read about a similar relationship, so I don't think this is too far beyond the pale, though I'll readily grant it's an unusual situation and somewhat hypothetical). If the woman is not committed, would one person's commitment then be definitionally sufficient to qualify a "marriage"? If I commit myself to a woman, to care for her (in a roughly equal role), but she has no interest in caring for me (in any role whatsoever), is that a marriage? I would suggest not.
Incidentally, a brother and sister might well fulfill your definition of "peers... who can have roughly equal roles in caring for each other."
I still think incest (like homosexuality) is "objectively disordered."
Posted by: Firinnteine | August 14, 2006 at 11:58 AM
"Objectively disordered"? How then are we defining incest, exactly? and more particularly, what do we do with Adam's children marrying each other? I'm willing to grant that the practice has been unlawful at least since Sinai, but I'm not sure I want to say it's disordered in the same sense. There's a difference between "become so dangerous as to be immoral" and "categorically unnatural."
Posted by: Alieus | August 16, 2006 at 10:42 PM
James Altena:
I fear that again, my post has driven you past the point of distraction to where you're unable to grant the benefit of the doubt that I'm an honest interlocutor. I don't think it likely that others will be very interested in our tit for tat, but there are a few points that I feel compelled to try to clear up.
The redefinition in question is of the word evil, not the word marriage. I find it impossible, without reference to, in your words "the will, intention, and purpose of God" to classify a relationship as evil simply on the basis of the sex of the people in it. It seems to me rather like Dr. Seuss's war between those who eat bread butter side up and those who have it butter side down. And, as I understand it, Dr. Esolen's series, being as it is, "without reference to religion" is without reference to the will of God. If, as you suggest, Natural Law arguments, apart from religion, were conclusive in branding homosexuality as evil, there would be no need for Dr. Esolen's series.
“2) My critical observation on “commitment” likewise does not originate with me, but with my good friend, the theologian and estimable Touchstone contributor Dr. Peter Toon.”
I'm sure your friend Dr. Toon is estimable, but that has no bearing on question of commitment. Again, is there an objection to the term "committed Christian"? It seems to me that we're just slicing words here. It seems self evident, that whatever label we apply to it, effort is required by both parties in order to make a marriage work. It may be "sustained by divine grace" but absent the "human will" that you dismiss, short of God making puppets of the pair, it won't be much of a marriage.
It has occurred to me in the interval that the suspicion attaching to the word "commitment" might stem from the ceremonies that gay men and women have instituted, absent the possibility of marriage, generally known as commitment ceremonies. Is that perhaps why an otherwise virtuous concept has fallen out of favor?
The bumper sticker you saw: it gets its punch (such as it is) from the irony involved. If the words "committed" and "relationship" did not have the force that they do in society, it wouldn't be much of a joke. Not that bumper stickers are weighty evidence to begin with.
“First, some truths are simple and some are complex. Do you deny, Mr. Hart, that God has indeed given us in the Scriptures any objective standards against which to measure our thoughts and desires as being godly or fallen?”
The problem with this question is the claim that the scriptures are objective standards. I think on re-reading my post you'll find that I have not made the claim that "because no one’s understanding of objective reality and truth is infallible, therefore all position must be accorded equal validity", though that is the standard and unoriginal charge leveled against relativism. I'm not denying that there is truth in the world. But if all it took was a read through of Scripture -- whose scripture?, and which translation? -- to discover with certainty the mind of God, then there would be one Church, not a multitude, and blogs like this one would be out of commission. There would be no need for discussion or debate or reflection. Your objection that support for gay rights flies in the face of "St. Paul and all the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and modern expositors of Scripture who followed him up to the last 50 or so years" could have just as easily been, indeed were, employed by American preachers in former days regarding slavery, or women's suffrage. Things do change, and God willing, humans move in the direction of more enlightenment. It is hubristic of us to imagine otherwise, to feel that we have already reached the pinnacle of development and understanding, that we have nothing left to learn, and therefore that all change must be for the worse.
“The empirical data is all in our favor – e.g., the overwhelming practice and preference by gays for anonymous and causal sex (per statistics I previously cited); the epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug abuse (about 35% and 25% respectively, according to several government reports and academic studies); AIDS and venereal disease in the homosexual population; and an average life expectancy for gay men of about 43 years, as opposed to 74 years for heterosexual men. Need I go on?”
I may have missed it, but the only study that I recall you citing specifically is the infamously misappropriated Bell & Weinberg study, and your citation of it suggests that you're looking for what you want to find. For those who don't know, this study was conducted in the 1970s, in San Francisco, in gay bars and bathhouses. As evidence for the typical life of a gay person in the US today this study is meaningless at best, but has been used to demonize gay men practically since it was issued, despite it's authors' objections to this slanderous misuse of their work. I would guess that your life expectancy figure is also out of date, but provide links to a reputable source and let's see.
As for AIDS (and life expectancy because of AIDS), well yes, that scourge has hit the gay population brutally. But to suggest that they are morally deficient for that reason would be the equivalent of suggesting that those who live in the jungle may be reproached because of the high rate of malaria in their society. And haven't we wandered rather far from the topic at hand? How does life expectancy bear on the question of the value of marriage?
“I previously asked you to supply contrary factual supporting evidence for your position, Mr. Hart. You have not done so – instead, you only offer vague generalizations and allusions to anecdotal experience. So, Mr. Hart, I’ll ask you again – where is your documented evidence that homosexuals have monogamous partnerships that equal heterosexual marriages in duration? Where are your documented studies to show that gays are no more promiscuous than heterosexuals? Or their abuse of alcohol and drugs is no greater? Or that the life-spans of gay men are on average equal to those of straight men? Provide such evidence, and I’ll retract everything I’ve written on this topic.”
I asked these questions myself in an earlier thread, and though Mr. Altena has made general reference to "several government reports and academic studies", the only citation was Bell and Weinberg, and a newspaper article he remembered reading. Give us all some links, and let us go read them.
I will say that the concern about promiscuity seems off base to me. Once again, it comes back to sex, as opposed to any of the other characteristics of the couple, which as I am heartened to learn, Mr. Altena acknowledges can include many fine qualities. If the openness of the sexual aspect of the relationship is not of concern to the individuals involved, and doesn't in fact diminish the strength of their partnership, I'm baffled as to how it pertains.
“It is of a piece with Mr. Hart’s previous insinuation (already addressed by me earlier in this series) that most of the bloggers on this site must have been fornicators. “
I let Mr. Altena's misreading of my earlier post pass before, but since it's come up again I feel I should put it to rest. I was objecting to the characterizing of the standard dynamic between men and women as the man in the role of "sexual agressor" and the woman needing weapons in her "arsenal" to resist.
Here's what I said:
"Are you suggesting that all, or even most, acts of coitus outside of marriage are only the result of the boyfriend's wishes and the girlfriend's concession? That would come perilously close to classifying all extramarital sex as rape, and run counter to a great deal of evidence from popular culture, and I daresay the personal experience of many here."
Mr. Altena took this to mean that I was somehow casting aspersions on myself and others, when in fact I was doing my best to remove the onus of sexual aggression from men as a group, and of sexual oppression and resignation from women.
“On the contrary, Mr. Hart, it is the pro-gay apologists such as yourself who are compulsive about focusing on sex. It is gays such as “Bp.” Vicky Gene Robinson”
Bishop Robinson was duly elected by his congregation. Mr. Altena may disapprove, but the scare quotes and the gratuitous diminunizing of his first name puts me in mind of schoolyard name-calling. I submit that it is Mr. Altena who has reduced Bishop Robinson to a symbol of his sexuality, and not the Bishop who has claimed that his sexuality defines him completely.
“The gay newspapers and magazines are absolutely saturated with sex, sex, and more sex. Page after page is devoted to articles and ads for bars and bathhouses for anonymous sex pick-ups; “phone sex” ads showing naked men pleasuring themselves; columns of classified ads seeking partners whose contents almost invariably include detailed specifications of desired particular body types, race, and sexual fetishes. (And I do mean fetishes – leather dress and other costumes, S&M, B&D, “fisting”, “rimming”, and other things too odious to define here.) In short, “mainstream” gay media presents the kind of material that one finds among “straights” only in soft- and hard-core pornography.”
A perusal of the Yellow pages will yield a bumper crop of Escort agency and Massage parlor ads. Do we call the phone book non-mainstream?
“Yes, Mr. Hart, certain kinds of sex are intrinsically evil by nature. For the moment, let’s leave homosexuality aside. How about bestiality? Necrophilia? Pederasty? Incest? Rape of any sort? Let’s have a straightforward answer here, Mr. Hart. Do you deny that such things are intrinsically evil by nature? For if you do deny it, then it becomes a matter of social and cultural convention, which can be changed. In that case, on what objective grounds would you claim that these, too, could not and would not then be legitimated by the same kinds of arguments now being advanced to legitimate gay sex? That point is a crux of Prof. Esolen’s entire. Series. It has been made by Prof. Esolen, Ethan, myself, Sen. Santorum, and a host of others. It has yet to receive a real reply, as opposed to evasion and dissimulation behind accusations of bigotry, “homophobia”, and all the other usual cliches.”
Of course there are things that are intrinsically evil. The cultural relativist for whom all is permissible is a figment, a bogeyman of the right. Lacking divine mandate is not the same thing as lacking principles or morals.
Rape and incest do harm to another. Gay sex between consenting adults does not. Those are my basic grounds, without evasion or dissimulation. And I'd ask that you not invent "accusations of bigotry, "homophobia", etc. that I have not made. Though I may have slipped up here or there, I'm doing my best to be both plainspoken and courteous.
Posted by: John Hart | August 18, 2006 at 08:32 AM
Mr. Hart says:
Rape and incest do harm to another. Gay sex between consenting adults does not.
Mr. Hart,
I agree with your first sentence and reject your second. Why do you say incest between consenting adults does harm? I have no problem making that statement for reasons very closely related to why I believe gay sex between consenting adults causes harm. I cannot, however, understand how you can assert the former is harmful and deny that the latter is harmful. I'll be very interested in seeing how you distinguish the two in a way that defends your position.
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 09:05 AM
"Gay sex between consenting adults does not."
Yes it does. Anal intercourse is physiologically harmful. Read a gay man's medical records if you don't believe me. To put it bluntly, that ramp was made for egress, not ingress.
Deviant sex in general harms society and its members, as Mr. Esolen's series has amply demonstrated. And at best, that's all your argument can amount to: "Straights engage in deviant sex as well!"
>>>"Bishop Robinson was duly elected by his congregation. [Diocese, more accurately--D.]"
He may have been, as was the serial polygamist out in California. However, as the Scriptures clearly proscribe homosexuality and polygamy, and as the Episcopal Church subscribes to the Nicene Creed, his election can only be invalid. There is simply no way for a church to describe itself as "one holy catholic and apostolic church" and at the same time sanction practices that are proscribed by the Apostles and other authorities.
Posted by: Douglas | August 18, 2006 at 09:06 AM
Stuart Koehl:
You asked “Equal or Identical?” Roughly equal, as a model from which, as they say, “mileage may vary”. Every partnership has its own contours, and there are many roads up the mountain. But the basic distinction, in my view, between marriage and other forms of loving relationships is that ideally each partner has, and is capable of having, equal standing with the other. But see my reply to Firinnteine's cogent critique, below:
Firinnteine:
You posit very sound counterexamples to my general principle. I would respond that it is exactly that, a general principle. I’d be the first to say that the real world intrudes on the theoretical.
You say:
“A definition based solely on sexual activity would also fail to answer in this case; therefore a marriage, however we define it, must mean something more than simply the presence of sexual activity, or even a particular kind of sexual activity.”
I entirely agree -- that’s the case that I’ve been trying to make throughout. It seems to me that some folks are ruling same sex marriage out of bounds precisely because they have a definition of marriage, as you say, “based solely on sexual activity”. If a partnership between two men, or two women has all of the characteristics that we would like to see in any heterosexual marriage -- commitment, care, compassion, you name it -- why should it be unrecognized, indeed vilified solely on the basis of their sex?
I going to pass on incest question, except to say that if gay marriage were to become the law of the land, I don’t envision a sudden rush of siblings knocking on the gates of City Hall. Though I do think that we ought to consider some form of civil union, separate from marriage, that would recognize other forms of households, and grant some of the benefits of marriage to, say, two retired sisters who have a home together. In truth, I don’t think that the state should be in the marriage business at all. Churches ought to have every right to decide what they hold sacred and wish to consecrate, and the government ought only to have responsibility for ruling on civil partnerships.
Posted by: John Hart | August 18, 2006 at 09:16 AM
John replies:
I [am] going to pass on [the] incest question, except to say that if gay marriage were to become the law of the land, I don’t envision a sudden rush of siblings knocking on the gates of City Hall.
John,
That is a cop out and I believe you know it. If same-sex couples are permitted to be married, why not a brother and a sister (at least if they are sterilized to avoid any problems to potential children), or two brothers, or two sisters? I can think of no reason why their claims to be married and have sex with each other are not just as valid (or invalid, as I believe) as those of the same-sex who are not related so long as no child who may suffer genetic disorders is possible. And if that is permissible, why not a brother and two sisters, or three brothers, or four sisters?
I believe you refused to address the question because you know where your position would logically lead. You must, therefore, either refuse to answer the question or reveal the illogical nature of your position or reveal that their are few limits you would place on who may be married.
Would you please address the issue?
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 09:31 AM
GL:
I'm not going to be drawn in to a defense of incest (see my reply to Firinnteine). But briefly, I assume that we would agree that parent/child incest is a clear abuse of the power that the adult has over the child, and a betrayal of the emotional trust that the child, one hopes, has in the parent.
Incest between two adult siblings is a more complicated issue, but one that is simply a red herring in any discussion of gay marriage. As I said to Firinntiene, it's hard to imagine a flood of Incest Rights groups barricading the streets as a result of gay marriage recognition.
Posted by: John Hart | August 18, 2006 at 09:39 AM
GL:
You were quicker off the mark than I, and your most recent post hit before my response to your first. But I think you're right, barring the issue with children, there is no logical bar to the scenario you describe. And? I think you may be intent on focusing on this as a way to elicit an "eww" from the galleries, but I repeat that it doesn't have bearing on the larger issue. There doesn't seem to be a large (or small) constituency demanding the right for siblings to marry. When there is, let's talk.
Posted by: John Hart | August 18, 2006 at 09:47 AM
In truth, I don’t think that the state should be in the marriage business at all. Churches ought to have every right to decide what they hold sacred and wish to consecrate, and the government ought only to have responsibility for ruling on civil partnerships.
I once held this position, then I came to realize how much damage such an arrangement would cause. It is in fact, the very thing many who support same-sex marriage really want, no rules at all and no marriage at all which society as a whole must recognize. If I can find a "church" which will bless whatever arrangement I want to have, then it is none of society's business. It has become painfully obvious that many such "churches" are available and if one cannot be found which would bless a particular arrangement, one that would could readily be created.
It would be, in fact, the destruction of the very foundation upon which human civilization has been built. "[I]f the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" That's why the righteous must resist these proposals and why the unrighteous support them. John, I do not know your motives, but if you are an orthodox Christian, please think through the implications of what you propose. If you are not, repent.
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 09:48 AM
I think you may be intent on focusing on this as a way to elicit an "eww" from the galleries, but I repeat that it doesn't have bearing on the larger issue.
But it does have a bearing on the larger issue? Read, for example, the arguments against permitting contraception 75 years ago. All the "red herring[s]" predicted by the opponents (and more) came to pass. If same-sex marriage is permitted, Katy bar the door. I shudder to think what will be permitted (or more to the point, not prohibited, as John proposes a world with no rules in this area and no rule maker), 75 years hence. The red herring is to dismiss the logical consequences of one's position as a red herring.
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 09:58 AM
Remove the question mark from the end of the first sentence in my last post and make it a period.
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 10:00 AM
[B]arring the issue with children, there is no logical bar to the scenario you describe.
Thank you for that admission.
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 10:02 AM
Douglas:
I think that you are engaging in a bit of sleight of hand by equating the "does harm to" of rape, with the perils of anal sex. I'd have an easier time believing in the "anal sex is bad" argument against gay marriage if:
1. Gay male sex always involved anal sex.
2. Lesbian sex involved anal sex (usually).
3. Those who decry it were also campaigning to have anal sex videos (a burgeoning sub-genre) banned.
4. Laws against heterosexual anal sex were general, and were enforced where they exist.
5. Marriages whose sexual component involved other sorts of risky behavior were ruled invalid. (And how would we enforce that sort of law?)
On Bishop Robinson: his diocese (thank you) -- no fly by night newcomer to the religious sphere -- clearly interprets scripture differently than either you or Mr. Altena. That's no excuse (despite ample precedents provided by revered theologians) for schoolyard taunts.
Posted by: John Hart | August 18, 2006 at 10:02 AM
Laws against heterosexual anal sex were general, and were enforced where they exist.
Marriages whose sexual component involved other sorts of risky behavior were ruled invalid.
At one time, nearly every state in the Union, if not all, had such laws. Of course, they were difficult to enforce because violations were difficult to detect. Society, as a whole as demonstrated through the laws enacted through popularly elected legislatures, viewed such conduct correctly as sodomy. In her concurrence in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice O'Connor voted to strike down the sodomy laws of Texas as unconstitutional because sodomy was only prohibited as to couples of the same sex and not to couples of the opposite sex. She recognized, I believe correctly, the equal protection required that men and women who together commit sodomitic acts must be subject to the same legal prohibitions as are two men or two women.
May I take from your post, then, that you will join with me in calling for reenactment of such laws?
Posted by: GL | August 18, 2006 at 10:11 AM
>>>Bishop Robinson was duly elected by his congregation. Mr. Altena may disapprove, but the scare quotes and the gratuitous diminunizing of his first name puts me in mind of schoolyard name-calling. I submit that it is Mr. Altena who has reduced Bishop Robinson to a symbol of his sexuality, and not the Bishop who has claimed that his sexuality defines him completely.<<<
I am afraid that Bishop Robinson did that himself by exalting his status an an active and "out" homosexual.
With regard to the legitimacy of Bishop Robinson's election, it matters not at all what his congregation did if that action is contrary both to scripture and to the canons by which his particular denomination is governed. The scriptural requirements for a bishop are quite clear--he must be a man of impeccable character, and husband to only one wife. The canonical prerequistes for a bishop go a bit further than that (even leaving aside the canons of the Quinisextunct): no man can be ordained who has been divorced. On three counts, then, Gene Robinson was disqualfied from the office he now holds: by his admission of and lack of contrition concerning ongoing homsexual relations (condemned repeatedly in the Old Testament and the New alike); by his abandonment of his wife and family; and by having his marriage dissolved by divorce. Even within the Anglican communion, this last has been considered a disqualifying condition. So, the action of the ECUSA is illicit both in regard to the Tradition of the undivided Church, and by the statutes governing the Anglican communion. Here endeth the lesson.
>>>A perusal of the Yellow pages will yield a bumper crop of Escort agency and Massage parlor ads. Do we call the phone book non-mainstream?<<<
Excuse me, but the location of my office puts me in close proximity to one of the landmarks of gay culture in DC, the Lambda Rising bookstore, while the entire neighborhood is plastered with free copies of the Washington Blade, and I assure you, without getting into details, that the materials on display, and the subject matter involved, are far more explicit than anything you will see in the Yellow Pages. No purpose is served by such fatuous comparions. Nor is it possible to deny that the homosexual subculture is far more hypersexualized than the culture as a whole. Nor is it possible to claim that homosexuals are far more promiscuous than heterosexuals (even lesbians have significantly more sex partners than heterosexual women). As Pat Moynihan noted, "Every one is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts".
>>>The cultural relativist for whom all is permissible is a figment, a bogeyman of the right.<<<
You keep telling yourself this. Maybe someday it may be true.
>>>Lacking divine mandate is not the same thing as lacking principles or morals.<<<
Of course not. On the other hand, everyoe has principles and morals. The issue is whether those principles and morals are consistent with objective truth. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians were principled, moral people--that didn't stop them from sacrificing first-born children to Ba'al. The Spartans were the most moral and prncipled of all, but they exposed infants that didn't live up to their standards of perfection, and treated the Helots like cattle. Hindus are moral and prncipled people--but it took British muskets to supress suttee. It isn't a question of principles and morals, but of good principles vs. bad principles, good morals vs. bad morals. I'm not a multiculturalist. I'm not a cultural relativist. I believe in a society founded on Judeo-Christian moral principles, which in turn are founded on a divine mandate. Absent that mandate (or the moral capital accumulated form that mandate by society over a period of some 2000 years), there is nothing to keep us from sliding into barbarism. In fact, attempts to discard that divine mandate through a variety of secular ideologies in the 20th century resulted in more death and carnage than in all the preceding centuries of human existance.
>>>Rape and incest do harm to another. Gay sex between consenting adults does not.<<<
On what do you base that assertion? If we follow your logic regarding the lack of necessity for a divine moral mandate, how can you justify that? All of your so-called "objective" moral deductions in the end turn out to be based on Judeo-Christian revelation about the nature of man, of God, and of good and evil. Without that, all you have is a weak societal consensus.
There are, for instance, cultures in which rape is an acceptable form of courtship. There are others in which incest is tolerated. Indeed, even in this country, the incest taboo is being assailed by consenting adults of near consanguinity who ask why what two people who love each other do behind closed doors should be prohibited by society. Once you remove any overriding societal interest in the regulation of sexual relations, and reduce sex to a means of expressing between two or more people (or species)--the "Sweet Mystery of Life" theory used in Lawrence v. Texas--then there is no logical barrier that can be used prevent a slide into "anything goes". Because, other than "it's wrong because God says it's wrong", there is no overriding authority or rationale.
>>>And I'd ask that you not invent "accusations of bigotry, "homophobia", etc. that I have not made. <<<
No, you haven't come right out and said it. You have, however, practiced an arcane art that I call "insinuendo".
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 11:22 AM
>>>In truth, I don’t think that the state should be in the marriage business at all. Churches ought to have every right to decide what they hold sacred and wish to consecrate, and the government ought only to have responsibility for ruling on civil partnerships.<<<
This, of course, has it absolutely backwards. The Church was not in the marriage business for almost 400 years; it merely recognized and sanctified marriages that were administered by the state under Roman law. Only in the reign of Theodosius was the Church given (much against its will) the responsibility for administering marriage within the Roman Empire. It took a few more centuries after that for the Church to begin formulating a coherent theology of marriage (in the West, this didn't actually finish until the 13th century). So, at least from the patristic perspective, marriage was very much a state concern in so far as the sacrament has an earthly manifestation and requires regulation. The interests of the state in regulating the institution are rooted in the desire to ensure order and stability within the family. Empirical observation and long custom have shown that marriage really only works as a life-long union between one man and one woman.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 11:28 AM
>>>On Bishop Robinson: his diocese (thank you) -- no fly by night newcomer to the religious sphere -- clearly interprets scripture differently than either you or Mr. Altena. That's no excuse (despite ample precedents provided by revered theologians) for schoolyard taunts.<<<
Hence the centrality of ecclesiology. Although each local Church (i.e., diocese) has the fullness of the Catholic Church through the celebration of the Eucharist by a bishop ordained in the Apostolic Succession (which of course, begs the question about Anglican orders, the validity of the Anglican Eucharist, and Anglicanism's adherence to the Apostolic Tradition as a while--but no matter), even Orthodox theologians (e.g., John Zizoulis) recognize that a diocese by itself does not constitute the entirety of the Church, but must be united to other Churches through the sharing of the Eucharist, which in turn demands unity in faith.
If a single diocese decides to interpret Scripture in a particular way concerning an issue that involves all the other dioceses, then it cannot be in communion with other dioceses that do not hold that interpretation; it has separated itself from the body of the Church.
Even the Anglican constitution requires the various provinces and dioceses to act conciliarly with the other members of the Communion--but apparently not in Vermont.
Suppose then, that instead of a groin issue, we were dealing with an episcopal candidate who denied Nicene theology (oh, wait--the Episcopalians have been down this path, too!), and he is duly elected by his dioccese: does this mean that, in that particular diocese, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not consubstantial? And yet, you would, using your principle of diocesan autonomy, accept the legitimacy of his election? How silly can you get?
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 11:39 AM
Lest anyone mistake what I am saying for what I'm not saying:
I do believe that a certain sexual relationship is not sufficient to define the existence of a marriage. This is relatively self-evident.
However, it does not necessarily follow that certain sexual relationships or acts are not sufficient to deny the reality of a marriage. (I'm not entirely certain I would accept this argument, but it is in fact a different argument from the one I was making, and would have to be discussed on its own merits).
"If a partnership between two men, or two women has all of the characteristics that we would like to see in any heterosexual marriage -- commitment, care, compassion, you name it -- why should it be unrecognized, indeed vilified solely on the basis of their sex?"
Well, it lacks at least two characteristics we (I) would like to see in heterosexual marriage. The first is a natural-law argument (and thus within the purview of Dr. Esolen's project) -- children. Of course there are marriages which cannot produce children. However, for a mature man and woman, the only reason they would be unable to produce children is if their sexual organs were malfunctioning somehow. (I consider death to be a malfunction, and aging to be the biological process of death -- which is wildly oversimplistic and I may regret later, but let me posit it for the sake of the argument.) A man and a man, or a woman and a woman, cannot produce a child through ordinary biological methods whether their sexual organs are functioning rightly or not. That is precluded to the couple, as such, acting as a couple, as such.
But I will readily grant that line of reasoning is open to attack from several angles, and while I think it's generally valid, I don't have good answers to all the critiques yet. And I do not believe that marriage is defined as "that relationship which produces children."
The second thing lacking in a homosexual marriage is a distinctively Christian point, which is why I left it second; but it is (I think) categorical -- you may disagree with it, but you can't accept it while still allowing homosexual relationships to constitute marriage: that is the nature of marriage as a representative symbol of Christ and the Church. For this to be meaningful, the relationship of a man and woman must be the complementary union of two different people; that is, the man must relate to his wife differently, in some respect, than the woman relates to her husband. The wife cannot represent Christ and the husband the Church.
Now, there is no elemental reason why these positions could not be interchangeable in a homosexual relationship, which is why two men cannot represent Christ and the Church in the same way; the difference that allows the beauty and glory of the union is lacking. One might argue coherently (if, I believe, blasphemously) that a homosexual relationship symbolizes the members of the Trinity (though that also seems to miss the apostle Paul's point). The Trinity is much more the aspect of marriage's symbolism which emphasizes sameness and equality in the midst of difference of roles. But the relationship between Christ and the Church emphasizes the difference between husband and wife.
This intrinsic connection between marriage and the relationships A) between Christ and the Church, and B) within the Trinity, is what Christianity believes and teaches is the meaning of marriage -- not the presence or absence of some sexual act or other. That's why a man and a woman having anal sex may still be married (though committing a sin), while two men (or two women) are not married, whatever other conditions apply, even if at the same moment they are committing a very similar sin.
(I appear to be saying that Dr. Esolen's argument is right insofar as describing numerous dangers or disadvantages to redefining marriage to include homosexual couples, but an absolute definition -- other than the common-sense one, which does not seem to be permitted -- is going to require the introduction of theological elements. Am I mistaken in thinking this?)
Posted by: Firinnteine | August 18, 2006 at 02:52 PM
>>>Well, it lacks at least two characteristics we (I) would like to see in heterosexual marriage. The first is a natural-law argument (and thus within the purview of Dr. Esolen's project) -- children. <<<
I have a problem with this approach, in that it is not consistent with the Orthdodox perspective on marriage (see John Meyendorff, "Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective", according to which marriage is first and foremost a "mysterion" or sacrament that has (to use Meyendorff's words), "no utilitarian purpose". By this, he meant that marriage cannot have as its rationale either procreation or securing of property, or any other "secular" objective. Its sole purpose is to serve as a sign of the relationship between God and man, Christ and the Church and the persons of the Trinity with each other. He points out that before the New Covenant opened immortality to all, man attempted to gain vicarious immortality through progeny (and also by increasing the fortune of his house through advantageous unions). With the New Covenant, this rationale falls away. I suppose this is why "natural law" arguments against homosexual marriage do not satisfy me either intellectually or spiritually.
Rather, I would prefer to get down to brass tacks and say that "homosexual marriage" is an oxymoron: from time immemorial, in all places, in all cultures--even those that tolerated homosexuality--marriage has always been considered the union of man and woman (or women); never man and man, never woman and woman. From a Christian perspective, it can never be anything else. Other cultures might have utilitarian reasons for this being so (family stability, procreation, passing of property, etc.), but as a Christian, I realize that none of these applies to Christian marriage. Instead, as a Christian I reject the concept of homosexual marriage not only because homosexuality itself is sinful, but because the union of two people of the same sex cannot meet the criteria of the sacramental theology of marriage, which requires the complementary union of two different hypostases to form one flesh.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 03:05 PM
>>>First, it does not explain the evidence. That evidence shows that homosexual activity is far more prevalent among some cultures than among others; that in the same culture it is more prevalent among some groups than among others (for instance, living in the countryside places the boy at a significantly lower risk of experiencing serious homosexual attraction); that some people spend years engaging in homosexual activity and then give it up, often becoming happily married (John Maynard Keynes was one).<<<
Dr. Esolin has failed to state that even in cultures where homosexuality is more prevalent, even tolerated, there has never been (until now) one that recognized homosexual "marriage" in the anthropological sense; i.e., a legal state solemnized by ritual that imposes mutual obligations and rights upon each of the parties, including the conveyance of property and jurisdiction over offspring (the latter, until now, having been a moot point).
The Greeks tolerated homosexuality, yet they did not recognize the union of two men as "marriage". The Theban Sacred Band consisted of 150 pairs of bonded homosexual lovers (wiped out to a man at the Battle of Chaeronea), but they were not considered "married" to each other. Other primitive societies likewise tolerate homosexual relations either between adolescents or between older mentors and younger proteges--but all of them insist that as he comes of age the boy must be wed--to a woman. Whatever kind of relationship these men (and/or boys) have with each other, it isn't recognized as marriage. Similarly (although more rarely) in societies where women are segregated from men, lesbian relationships are quite commmon--but even moreso such unions are not legally recognized or considered to be marriage.
If homosexual men want to live with each other, let them do so. If they want to give each other power of attorney over their property and bodies, let them. Whatever kind of relationship this is, it cannot be marriage, nor can it be a "civil union", since this is merely a euphemism for marriage. The fact is, all marriages are civil unions, and marriage as such predates the Church's administration over it. The theology of marriage in the Latin Church implicitly recognizes this: the couple "marry each other" (they are the ministers of the sacrament), and then the Church blesses their union (the priest serviing as witness). In ancient Rome, that was the form--the marriage is performed by a magistrate, then the couple would go to a priest to be blessed. In most secular states, civil marriage is the only kind recognized. If the couple so wishes, it can then have a religous service performed. Civil union thus being another term for marriage, a "civil union" of homosexuals is also just an oxymoron.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 03:20 PM
>>>ames Altena feels qualified to pronounce on whether Startled’s lesbian friends have a “true union” or not, going so far as to say that what sounds like a stable and loving relationship is evil. <<<
Someone has a problem discerning the difference between substance and superfices. Something can be aesthetically pleasing, pleasurable, even alluring. That doesn't mean that it is good. That apple, for instance, sure looked yummy. How could something so lucious be the cause of evil?
As for whether James Altena is qualified to pass judgement, there is no need. That judgement has been passed by a much higher power (and I don't mean me).
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | August 18, 2006 at 03:25 PM
Mr. Hart,
As Stuart well puts it, you practice the art of the "insinuendo."
Fortunately for me, GL, Stuart, and others have answered you on my behalf, so I need not weary myself in so doing. I will content myself with saying only two things:
1) You have not driven me to desperation (an example of your "insinuendo"). You have merely given me occasion to dissect in detail an example of the disingenuous arguments advanced for moral legitimation of homosexual conduct. Your evasion of the question of the objecitve authority of Scripture (which you deny while trying to avoid saying so openly) is typical of all your other evasions.
2) I did not make the comparison of your rhetorical strategy with that of the serpent lightly. From my previous involvement in an HA-type group as an interested observer, I have too much experience in dealing with the deceit of pro-gay apologetics. I recognise it for the deception that it is, and am not afraid to name it as such. For, as Stuart noted, I do not do so of myself, but only state that which Scripture plainly sets forth, however much you try to deny that.
Posted by: James A. Altena | August 19, 2006 at 06:18 PM