+Rowan on homosexuality

I think the archbishop is getting things a little backwards in his comparison of Scripture regarding divorce and homosexuality. One can create a small amount of scriptural wiggle room on homosexuality by way of the fact that our interpretive categories (e.g., the concept of homosexuality itself) aren't those of the ancient world and the Bible. Maybe you can't get very far with that much wiggle room, but it's a legitimate question of interpretation.

As to divorce, well, I'd say that one's treated about as unambiguously as any kind of relationship or sexual issue--it's just that we'd rather not see it. It's a fair criticism from the gay rights crowd (and certainly not only from there, but this is a common response to condemnations of homosexuality on the basis of Biblical authority) that Christians seem to have quite conveniently lost their discomfort with divorce. If something treated so clearly can become murky for us, I'd say the authority of Scripture is in fact well in question even among so-called conservatives.>

Franklin, gay marriage is ultimately about sex, because marriage as an institution is about sex. Of course, there are celibate marriages, marriages between people of advanced age who are presumably (for the most part) not having sex, etc. But if we were not a species that reproduced sexually, marriage as an institution would not exist. Marriage is about circumscribing the sex drive, providing a structured environment for the rearing of children, and defining the legitimacy of children for inheritance purposes.

Yes, marriage is about commitment -- between sexual partners. It is about the economics of running a household that, in most instances, includes children. It is about family -- which is most instances was created by the sexual relations of the marriage partners. It is about community -- and in particular about raising children to find a place in that community.

I'm certainly not saying that it is impossible to construct a good legal and moral argument for recognizing gay marriage. But gay marriage is about sex, because all marriage is ultimately about sex.>

Maybe that's why so many marriages are on the rocks. If you think it's all about sex, then guess what happens when you no longer experience the passion that once naturally flowed?

I agree with the bishop. If Christians would focus on themselves and stop blaming "society" for aborting, rutting, and divorcing, the world would be a better place.

That's probably why Jesus focused so much on removing your own planks.>

CS,

Please be at ease. Your questions are welcome, as always. I do not post anything in public that I'm unwilling to discuss.

My point about the chronology of my daughter's birth is that my wife and I agree that we never needed a piece of paper after a ceremony to be married. Marriage ceremonies, in our view, are for the families involved. The couple is just the excuse. Certainly other couples don't share this view. :)

Sex is a primary motivator for becoming a mated couple. This is true regardless of the genders involved. It is not, by any stretch, capable of being the only reason for a marriage to continue to exist. I submit that sex is the primary motivation for the objections to same-sex and plural marriages, and the rest of the list gets ignored or, worse, it is claimed to be not applicable or attainable by any pairing beyond one man and one woman.

Marriage is not just about sex. The marriage debate, I would agree, is all about sex.>

Franklin says marriage is not only about sex, nor should it be primarily about sex. (I will avoid asking Franklin on what he bases this statement, unless he wants to take this bait and tell us).

I'd throw in that marriage is primarily about how sexual activity is ordered. The luckier ones of the human race have many people in their life whom they love -- family, friends (both life-long and long-lost), including people of the same gender and people of different gender. Many people would sacrifice much for their non-spouse friends. Many help their loved friends and family financially, share holidays and important events with them, remember them in their wills, etc.

But (I guess I'd better say -- according to tradition) what distinguishes a spouse from one of our other loved friends, is sexual attraction and activity. Marriage provides the vehicle through which sex expresses exclusive and everlasting love, including the obligations and joy of a child, should one result. And we have the public commitment ceremony of a wedding to cement that bond.

OTOH, sex outside of marriage is all about selfish pleasure -- no commitment beyond the moment (or the bar bill, or the next rent payment, or so on . . . ).

Perhaps, as Franklin says, marriage should not primarily be about sex. But it is sex (and, I'd say gender complementarity) that distinguishes marriage from other interhuman relationships.

But maybe I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy.>

"I mean, look, what the gay-rights movement is asking for flows naturally from the premises of the sexual revolution... you will want to see social and moral strictures relaxed so that individuals can choose to do what they like... If sex has no intrinsic meaning outside of the individual's experience, why not?..."

If that were the case - that gay rights is all about wanting free reign to have as much sex with whoever you want, why are gay people TRYing to flock to the altar?!?

The desire to be able to get married to the person I love is NOT an expression of an anything-goes sexuality, anymore than your marriage is. I want to be RELATED to the person I am in love with, have been with almost 7 years, am house-shopping with, and plan to stay with until I die. How horrible of me!>

KK, thank you for chiming in. You wrote, eloquently and succinctly, what I've been struggling to find the words to express. You're better than a cup of coffee this morning.

:)>

pikkumatti: People had sexual relationships for thousands of years and in many different ways all over the planet before someone in the Middle East 4000 years ago decided to tell everyone what God thought about it. And even then, the prohibitions against adultery and the like were based on economic concerns.

If you do a comparative study of ancient cultures, you will see that binding one man and one woman - or one man and several women - in an exclusive sexual contract occurs at the same time as the advent of settled agriculture, when people were, for the first time, able to aquire significant inheritable wealth. To put it simply, men wanted to be sure that the kids who would inherit their land and wealth were their own offspring.>

Franklin, I accept and agree with the common ground that you state, with the addition that we must always keep our minds open to the existence of objective truth (i.e., there may be some limits beyond which compromise should not extend).

Most importantly, in the common ground that you state, is the partnership connection between sexual morality and the institution of marriage. This is a radical idea (relative to our current culture), and an idea that has much strength and meaning. Well stated.>

Franklin, thanks. I accept your addendum to my addition, with no further appendices.

Thought for the Day: Perhaps truth is what makes us really happy.

I challenge your definition of compromise, tho, from my experience in raising our two kids. Often the best and fairest compromise is the one that leaves both kids crying.>

Further to the above...

When Victor Morton posted: "After gay marriage, it's still a race between pedophilia and polygamy. My money's on the latter.", why does NO ONE question how vile that is?

Would he have posted a generation ago, 'After interracial marriage, it's still a race between pedophilia and polygamy. My money's on the latter."???

Hateful. Pure vicious, mean-spiritedness. This 'slippery slope' argument is no more valid than saying milk is a 'gateway drug'. After all, every addict I've ever heard of started with milk, progressed to sodapop, then to coffee, then to alcohol, then to pot, then to heroin and crank.

Pedophila causes HARM. It lacks consent.

Polygamy, arguably, also causes HARM (unequal treatment, lack of commitment, what about inheritance rights, what about forcing underaged children into marriages, what about kicking teenaged boys out of the polygamist compound, etc.?).

My marriage has harmed no one, and it never will.

Sheesh.>

pikkumatti,

Compare that to one or the other running away from home. Both crying fits my definition in that case. :)

Seriously, though, it's an axiom in conflict resolution. Allaying the tensions and succeeding in getting people to understand each other does not necessarily include or lead to agreement or compromise. Sometimes, just getting the crying to stop and some actual listening to happen is as much as we can expect. I don't know how old your two are, but my three (14, 20 and 23) turned out pretty well despite the tears and disappointments we heaped on them. In an unguarded moment, I think they'd all agree with me on that.>

c and c,

The issue here is complex. Please understand that my disagreement is with your conclusions, not your grasp of the facts. You conflate societal/economic issues with issues of the heart.

I will hazard to say that you've never been personally acquainted with (as in, shared life events with) a triad (mff or fmm). I promise you, such relationships are based on equality and consent, not on coercion. The ones I've known (and still know) prove the premise that love multiplies and adds, not divides and subtracts. I ask you to count the number of people you love, just with that term in mind, not considering how or under what circumstances. Take a slow, close look at how you express your love to each of those people, and ask yourself: do I love more validly and completely the person with whom I have sex, because I have sex with him? Is my love of those other people lessened or corrupted because I have sex with him? Is sex the only criterion on which I base the definition of love?

There is no trick to this, no right or wrong answer. All I'm asking you to do is extend your perception to the notion that I can love two people and have sex with them, and they can have sex with other people, without diminishing that love or changing its nature. I'm not asking you to agree with it or accept it as a part of your life. I'm just asking for understanding.

The rest is societal conditioning (on your part) and a mature approach to practical matters (on the part of the triad). You are being challenged to not assume abuse, infidelity or deception when you view a triad, to in fact see a complete and healthy relationship consisting of three hearts and minds, equal in all respects, each of whom loves and is in love with both the other two. A triad is challenged to find a way to circumvent or mitigate the disadvantages of having an arrangement not covered by the legal standards, by using available but often very inconvenient means like power of attorney, or incorporation as a business. You'd be surprised (being gay, maybe not) at how much a business partnership resembles a marriage in the eyes of the law.

There are ways. The big deal is in debunking the standing myths concerning polyamory (many loves), the inability to see beyond swingers and philanderers. In some ways, the struggle of polyamorists to be respected is not much different from the struggles of the LGBT community, though I hasten to stop there and not claim direct parallels. I have too many gay friends' stories in my head to diminish that struggle one iota.>

Sorry, pikkumatti, but your restrictive definitions and conditions make your assertions a strawman.

Consider: we have no lack of stories from the "free love" 60s and 70s, of the angst of one partner when the other one wants to "experiment" with an "open relationship". Your strawman implies that the angsting person is somehow entitled to make the free-lover change hir ways, or somehow their relationship is more important than the ethics that each person brings or lacks.

Polyamory is a positively, constructively built relationship. It is founded on mutual agreement and informed consent. There is no coercion involved in a PA triad; or let me put it this way: if there was any kind of coercion, in the mildest form, then it is NOT a PA triad. It is a power play by the person who insisted on having a threesome.

The other main aspect to your strawman is that everyone must be prepared to participate in a triad. That's still coercion, just as a presumption instead of a contemporary aspect.

Polyamory is an order of magnitude more difficult than a pairing. No triad I know approaches their relationship non-chalantly. Triads do not form on a lark. The first blush of the possibility of a third (that being when one member of a couple meets a potential mate) is never done in secret. The other member is immediately made aware of the possibility, and must form his or her own relationship with the third before becoming a triad is even a possibility.

In fact, the dynamics of a triad are no different than the dynamics of a couple. They involve one more person, with the attendant increase in permutations within the relationship. The need for open and honest communication is no different. The need to be cognizant and considerate of another person is no different. I could go on.>

re: Polyamory

Again, drawing upon my anthropological knowledge: Politicians and religious leaders and other folks who keep stating that a monogamous relationship of one man and one woman has been the foundation of human society forever have no clue what they are talking about. Looking at cutures all over the world throughout history, the human norm would have to be deduced as polygamy.>

pikkumatti,

The covenant of committed exclusivity is a substantial difference, and a dynamic that is not present in the triad.

"The covenant of committed exclusivity" is a recent innovation in the history of human civilization. Before it came along, concubinage, hareem and other variations were widely practiced, including the Christian theocracies the came after the fall of the Pagan Roman empire.

Sigh. I was a homophobe. I couldn't imagine what two men would or could do together that didn't make me sick. Then my best friend Carol and her sister Janet introduced me to a gay couple (whose names, sadly, are victims of my sieve-like memory) and through gentle insistance showed me just how very mundane, normal and familiar they were, compared to my experience with girlfriends, in the conduct of their relationship.

I have no onus to provide you with the same gentle presentation of what is to me obvious. All I ask is that you make the intellectual concession that it is possible for three or more people to have a loving, committed, integrous relationship.

For the rest, KK is much better qualified to present the facts. I'm just a well-read layman.>

That's OK, Franklin. I appreciate your efforts in explanation, which I frankly had not previously heard. And I will agree with you that love is love, and we humans can recognize love when we see it.

But one thing struck me as I was mowing the lawn thinking about this -- that you seem to be referring to some sort of "orthodoxy" regarding PA relationships. You've explained what PA triads are, and what the parameters are, and now who is suited and who is not suited to be in such a relationship. So my question is: What is this orthodoxy based on? What is it, outside of the wants and desires of the individuals themselves, that establishes what is a "good" PA relationship and what is not? Who establishes this? What happens if someone doesn't want to adhere to this orthodoxy, or doesn't believe it, or just goes through the motions?

Seems like the polyamory "movement" or whatever it is, is looking toward an orthodoxy in order to establish some legitimacy, or perhaps gain acceptance.

But I would submit that orthodoxy must be based on objective truth, objective right vs. wrong. If the orthdoxy just depends on what someone or some people themselves subjectively want, then the orthodoxy will turn into a power play. The 20th century is filled with those establishing an orthodoxy based on themselves, rather than on Truth. If there is no such thing as Right and Wrong, the only thing that matters is power.

So I will be interested in the basis for this PA orthodoxy.

I have no idea what KK is getting at, beyond the obvious appeal to authority, and the rendering of all cultures equivalent (so that we can just count them, and draw no distinctions among them). Sorry, but I suggest that the data indicates that Western Civilization has enabled human beings to best reach their potential than the other cultures so far. We can look to art, science, literature, law, justice, and so on and so on as evidence. To not favorably weight Western Civ. more than others renders the exercise irrelevant, IMHO.

I am also intrigued by KK's appeal to tradition (i.e., "cultures all over the world throughout history") to support "a vast array of family types". I didn't realize how avant garde one-man one-woman marriage is! Makes for a disingenuous argument, tho, to rely on the tradition of "cultures all over the world throughout history", ignoring the advances from Western Civ., to overcome the definition of traditional marriage. My head hurts.>

KK,

Nope. Not what I said.

I think you and I are just talking past each other.

Regards,>

Hmm. I wasn't aware that someone whose first words about me were basically to call me stupid -- the ironic "suddenly an expert" moniker about my "uninformed guess[es]" -- would suddenly need my explicit validation as "not his enemy." Whatever.

And c and c can call me "vile," "hateful" "pure vicious, mean-spiritedness" until he's a nice azure-calypso shade in the face.

It is still a fact that we're seeing advocates of both pedophilia and plural marriage using exactly the arguments that advocates of gay "marriage" did and citing the Massachusetts Court's "reasoning" as a precedent.

The first steps have already been made (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6494&R=C81329C85) in the socially with-it country Holland; liberal-left intellectuals are signing (http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20060808-104605-1600r.htm) the petitions; (http://www.acluutah.org/pluralmarriage.htm) the ACLU is on board; state courts are (http://www.marriagedebate.com/2005/02/utah-ban-on-plural-marriage-questioned.htm) hearing cases (that particular one was rejected, but only a 2-1 vote); the plural marriage community is coming out of the closet, demanding their rights, cutting-edge law review articles are being published (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200504180745.asp) as factually reported here; we have people here making the argument with a straight face from the "pro-gay" side (Franklin).

Pedophiles are making the same arguments in the (http://www.getreligion.org/?p=1840) New York Times and (http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/southpark/season4/southpark-405.htm) SOUTH PARK.

And before you repeat your "OF COURSE IT'S WRONG!!!!" sputtering, keep in mind that within my lifetime (and I'm only 40), homosexuality was also considered an "OF COURSE IT'S WRONG!!!!" But consciousnesses get raised, autonomies asserted, the "sez who" yelled, views get stigmatized as outdated and phobic.

If one is going to argue for gay marriage from the space of personalist autonomy (the Casey "mystery passage" basically) -- and that is what people did and do -- then there is no space to deny the polygamist and the pedophile. The same arguments one can cite against them were cited against homosexuality once upon a time, and were flicked aside or shouted down (not rebutted).

But ... hey, it's all my hatin' imagination.>

Victor, sigh. I can understand why you cannot accept me at this point. All I can say is you might consider the separation between attacking a person's ideas and attacking the person. I will admit to doing both with you, and I could have moderated my own feelings and avoided the personal part, if it makes you feel any better.

But while your conclusions may be seen by some as hateful, I don't think that you are hateful. Misinformed, prejudiced, closed-minded in some regards, but not hateful. And no, I don't think you are stupid.>

Same-sex marriage, polyamory, and pedophilia.

Which of these things cause unfettered harm to the individuals involved, and which do not?

It is an insult to intelligence (sorry, Victor, but that is my view) to insist that an obviously harmful practice of sexual dominance necessarily follows from two practices based on the accepted norms for relationships (we can argue about the details until the cows come home, but say what you will SSM is identical to "traditional" marriage except for the gender combinations, and PA is identical except for the number of participants). You don't have to like SSM or PA, but no one is forcing you to participate in it, and those who do participate do so as fully informed, consenting adults. Pedophilia involves children. Our culture determines the points at which we acknowledge informed consent, and those points do not include childhood.

Listing those three together is not only a strawman, it is offensive.>

Don't be sorry. Tension and conflict are the fuel of discovery... assuming we can get past our egos, of course.

A healthy dose of frustration, that being in small quantities of limited duration, is an excellent motivator. I've found so with my children, and I must concede that it's true for me too. ;)>

I don't think that you are hateful. Misinformed, prejudiced, closed-minded in some regards ...

Please.

If that's your idea of not attacking me personally ... there is nothing left to say.>

"Western Civilization has, even with its warts, so far been the culture in which humans have best achieved their potential."

Saying that Western Civilization is the best, and therefore the way we have always done things is right, is not necessarily true. Please explain how disenfranchising gay people and not allowing them to form legally protected families with the people they love has helped to advance Western Civilization.>