Damon Linker and "The Gay Fixation"

I think the perceived obsession with homosexuality is that more people comment on the homosexuality posts than the other posts. Just a thought

Chris Mills

Just out of interest, how does Linker categorize himself nowadays, religiously? I mean, I know he was born into a non-observant Jewish family, but was the Catholicism of his First Things days a complete facade to get inside a supposed Theocon citadel, or at least something lightly worn that the slightest wind could shift? Rod at least has the Scandal to blame for his loss of faith, but since Linker's post is meant at least in part to trumpet his own homophilia, I doubt that's any part of it. And "Father Neuhaus is trying to overthrow the Constitution!" is a poor excuse for falling off one's horse on the way to Damascus...

Nowadays ekeing out a pittance blogging at Martyland he positions himself as a tribune of a complete wall of separation, not only between church and state, but even between one's private religious beliefs informing one's public opinions and duties (at least if those private beliefs might cause you to vote for a Republican). But I suspect most readers of Rod's blog would see that as an ontologically impossible feat, and regardless, Linker must have some affirmative beliefs now, apart from "Down With The Pope".

Well done, Rod. It's nothing more than a shabby attempt of Linker's to silence you.

Damon Linker is to the commentariat community what the trolls about to hijack this thread are to the combox community. He does not deserve to be fed, nor do any of this less "credentialed" troll-brethren. As for Linker's religion or affirmative ideal, it's sitting at the cool kids' table in the cultural food court.

Good rebuttal.
Yet it seems needing to be said that conservatives are concerned about sex and more precsiely about sexual relations because of the power of the sexual instinct. It can be creative or the undoing of civilizations. Liberals via their radical egalitarianism simply think that sexual identity is engineered and not a function of biology. Somehow all can be made equal and thus all is acceptable and there is no judgement to be passed sociologically on any behavior at all. But the finality of egalitarianism and liberal ideology leads to a base animalism that is the undoing of civil relations and civil relations are what make for peace. Sex is a prime driver, when unhinged from civilization, to a reversion to the animal instinct. Once it happens the world as we know it either starts over again or completely unglues. Picking on homosexuals because they do overtly depict the extremes of the behavior possibilities and if you doubt it go search out photos of the Folsom street fair in San Fran. All people have the propensity when restarint is unleashed and it is only the two parent family and marriage that has historically kept things intact. Sex needs to be more then pleasure to be metaphysically beyond and uniguely human. It needs symbol, it needs sacrifice, it needs sanction and it needs offspring that demands and reinforces these things.

I think you create a false dicotomy around sex. You seem to think if sex is not based on strict traditional mores, which emphasize procreation, sex would be nothing more than a nihilistic excercise in short-sighted lust. Why can't you see the possibility of a middle ground? Surely sex provides concrete benefits, beyond procreation and sexual gratification: it allows two people to share and express a deep emotional, and often times spiritual connection. Even in the absence of procreation, it binds couples together as a more cohesive unit--something considered a virtue by most religious folk (at least when heterosexuals are involved).

I do agree many modern trends surrounding sexuality are corrosive, I just do not count homosexuality per se among them. Surely you would not deride sex between an infertile or post-menopausal married couple as empty hedonism (would you?). Similarly, I think it is wrong to say the same about committed, monogomous homosexual sex.

"So what am I? Where do I fit in the debates about modernity and sexuality? The strict dichotomy view does not allow for much nuance and subtlety."

Cognitive dissonant? Are you nuanced and subtle, or do you just want to have things both ways, and don't recognize that maybe some of your deeply held beliefs are at war with other deeply held beliefs?

Some things are dichotomies and no amount of wishful thinking will change that.

I think the 'read all comments' link is broken-can you fix it?

also, my first comment was Your Name at 1223

Allow me to make a few observations:

I think we have to distinguish between a homosexual orientation and the various forms of homosexual behavior. This should not be a terribly great leap; the Catechism itself makes this distinction to a certain extent.

I think that a big part of the problem here is that Rod (and many others here) unconsciously buy into the stereotype of how homosexuals, and gay men in particular act. They suppose that all homosexuals lead a life of pleasure-seeking, never-ending libertinism; nothing but drug-fueled orgies with barely known or unknown partners all night long.

I'll be the first to admit that many gay men do indeed act that way (it's an exaggeration, but not too much of one). I'll also be the first to admit that the most visible aspects of our subculture (the Pride parades, the leather and S&M events, the bear runs, etc.) reinforce that stereotype. I've also seen first hand the harm that that kind of lifestyle can inflict, especially if you are poor and unemployed or underemployed. And I'll also be the first to say that Rod is quite fair to characterize that as "nihilistic".

What's unfair is to presume that all homosexuals act in the same way. And that presumption, I think, is at the root of the arguments against gay marriage.

But it ignores the very real moral commitments that actually do exist in many couples. When two people come together and make a financial commitment to support each other, when they come together to help raise a family, when they come together to make a lifetime commitment of monogamy and emotional and psychological support to each other, those are all moral choices.

What is the moral choice when your husband or wife is lying sick in bed with the flu? What is the moral choice when your husband or wife gets laid off from work and can't contribute to the household finances? What is the moral choice when your sister dies in a car wreck and her kids need a home? What is the moral choice when you're away from home on a business trip and lonely and would like some sexual companionship?

Nihilism would dictate looking out for one's own, pleasure-seeking interests first, yet married couples make the right and moral decisions every day. But homosexual couples can and do make those very same choices every day. Not all of them, true. Not all the time, true. But then straight couples can and do fail to live up to those ideals as well.

As Rod says, we see nihilistic behavior coming from all sides these days. Which is what makes it inexplicable to me that social conservatives wish to actively dissuade people who actually want to buy into leading a moral life.

To anticipate some objections: many gay people will get married and then carry on acting as they have before, with "open relationships", cheating, and all kinds of bad behavior. My answer is, so what? Lots of straight couples get into "swinging" or hire prostitutes or whatever. Yet we don't use that behavior to deny them marriage rights.

Another objection: homosexual relationships are based entirely on sexual attraction. This is true, at least initially. How many relationships start with a long look from across the room at a party or bar or wherever? I would submit that most relationships begin this way. That doesn't mean that they don't grow into something far more deep, meaningful and moral.

Rod, I agree with your critique of Linker and your defense of this blog's attention to issues of homosexuality and sex in general. Frankly, I wish I could ignore our society's approach to these issues. But I can't, because I am convinced that its one aspect of a larger dysfunction, a dysfunction that is ruining society in general. As our bud Wendell Berry has argued for more than 30 years, the acceptance of industrialized, commodified sex has paralleled the acceptance of industrialized, commodified food. Berry is cheered when he critiques the eating habits of Americans, noting that eating (a very "personal" matter) affects the health of the earth upon which we all depend as well as the health of society. He insists that, as to both sex and food, we need to return to our cultural roots and re-orient ourselves.

The vehemence with which Linker, et al respond to Berry, Dreher, et al is testament to the way in which the libertarian, materialist, postmodern mindset has permeated our society. These folks see humans as totally autonomous, totally rootless, fully econocentric consumers, and therefore analyze human behavior solely in contractual terms. They feign great shock when someone points out, as John Muir once said, "that everything is hitched to everything else."

Just one very minor suggested clarification of a portion of your post today, where you say that except for "mainline Protestant churches...no Christian church argues for the licitness of homosexual relations." As you probably know, most of the mainline churches are officially on record in opposition to same-sex behavior, and most of the rank-and-file in the pews strongly support those positions. And by the way, the battles raging in the mainline churches over the past 30 years go much farther than issues of sexuality. Fundamentally, they are disagreements over how to interpret Scripture and how to be "in the world but not of the world."

I guess it would be easier for me to accept Rod's arguments if he and his readers were actively lobbying the government to make divorce and sex outside of marriage illegal. The argument that acceptance of homosexuality is just the final straw, the capper on a long tradition of decline in respect for traditional sexual teachings, and is therefore critical to oppose, just smacks of so much "it doesn't apply to me, so it's easy for me to go all traditional against it."

The fight against homosexual acceptance and normalcy, pitched as a critical battle, loses all merit when we on the sidelines see how you all like to moan about the decay in heterosexual morals while doing virtually nothing about it. That, of course, would clear the pews even faster than they are now emptying. You might not like heteroseuxual misbehavior, but you need to put your money where your mouths are. Gays are too easy a target and we can see right through it.

On an unrelated note, if I click on the link to view all comments, I get sent to a 404 error page, link not found. What's up, Beliefnet?

...homosexuality, is a big deal because how one comes down on those related questions has a lot to do with how you view the authority of Scripture and Tradition....it goes to the heart of how believers understand ourselves, our relationship to God, and to the nature of truth. This stuff matters.

Indeed. Consider that the same argument was made regarding Galileo's contention that the earth revolved around the sun. It was also made about the status of slaves and kings. Both of those contentions have fallen by the wayside despite "Scripture and Tradition" because they no longer comported with observable reality and the wider culture's sense of itself. And both resulted in believers changing how we understand ourselves, our relationship to God and the nature of truth. From a 13th century perspective, we are totally unhinged, but from a 20th century perspective those earlier understandings of the world are quaint at best.

(An aside: Even now the Vatican observatory is laying the groundwork for finding intelligent life on other planets, and the possibility that no salvation is necessary there because no fall occurred. That's so far from the pre-Galileo teaching that it makes the head swim.)

If homosexuality is shown to be an element of God's divine plan for humanity, one that is created when the sperm hits the egg "from my mother's womb" and not a moral choice, then there's some serious rethinking that the Church needs to do. Did God screw up? If not, what does it mean that God created a class of human who are at a moral disadvantage from birth? If homosexuality is an "objective disorder" does it mean that moral guilt is inherited from one's parents? Are we back to the question "Whose sin caused this man to be born blind...??"

Or, have we been misunderstanding the scriptures for all these millennia? Our understanding has been shown to be wrong in the past, are we wrong again?

This stuff does matter, Rod. The questions being raised and the answers we're learning tells us a world about ourselves and our surety of things. How high above our ways are God's ways? We may be learning that modern Christians are no less prone to misapprehending things than those of the 12th century.

Kevin J. Jones has made a number of assertions:

As for homosexual politics, let's note that gay activists have pushed Catholics out of facilitating adoptions in Massachusetts. That is simple tyranny, and some aspiring tyrants are hiding their malicious powergrabs behind accusations of "homophobia."

As for social conservative politics, let's note that religious activists have pushed gays out of facilitating adoptions in Arkansas (and Florida and others). That is simple tyranny, and some aspiring tyrants are hiding their malicious powergrabs behind accusations of attacks on religion.

Homosexual activists and their enablers have also usurped the Democratic Party. I was at the GLBT caucus at the DNC. I saw the delegates' rude treatment of a labor representative.

Social conservative activists and their enablers have also usurped the Republican party. I was at the state convention. I saw the delegates' rude treatment of a Log Cabin Republicans representative.

Wow. That was fun. Now that we've gotten all of the outrage and chest thumping out of the way, do you actually have an argument? Or just ad hominem?

Back in the '90s, people would talk about "tolerance." And trads like me were dumb enough to believe them.

Bull. Social conservatives have been harping on homosexuality for decades. If they've become more shrill, it's because they understand that they are slowly losing the argument.

One reason we can't oppose other bad things like divorce and fornication is because gay issues are distracting us. One can't cause or enable a distraction and then complain in good faith that people are being distracted by it.

This doesn't even make sense. You're trying to say that you can argue on more than one topic at a time? Even if the consistency in your position with respect to the second argument would enhance your argument on the first point?

Bull. You don't want to bring up divorce and fornication because it's much easier to rail against a minority that a lot of people don't like anyway and that's outside your own tent. What was that quote again? "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Jesus knew why. Do you?

To Linker's confusion about the "fixation" on sex, I'd argue that sex is important because human beings are important. Jesus and test tube babies excepted, everybody came through the world through sexual union. The strength of one's ethical judgments about sex is a sign of the importance one places on it and its fruit, humanity.

True, but what's your point? Are you saying that by allowing gay marriage, everyone else will stop producing kids? Do you advocate denying marriage rights to the infertile or the elderly? No? Well what's the difference? They can't produce kids either.

And frankly, I feel nothing but pity for any spouse of someone who regards marriage as nothing but a baby factory.

Geoff: agree. Kevin: keep it up. Keep up the focus on gay sex instead of gay relationships. Keep up the power politics arguments. Keep up the claim that the gay fixation is because the gays are getting so darned mouthy and demanding and they have to be dealt with. Your arguments aren't working on the moderate religious types you hope to reach.

You need to convince families that are frightened about moral decay that you have a balanced view of relative threats. Tax-paying, law-abiding gays with children who want the same societal benefits for their relationships that you enjoy - with NO strings attached - may seem like the boogeyman to you, but many level-headed parents don't agree with you. They might prefer to see you foaming over the Jonas Brothers, I expect.

Oh, great suggestion - why be content with denying gay people marriage and legal parenthood? Let's invalidate the marriages of those who are divorced and remarried as well. (Shall we forbid them from adopting or being foster parents, too? It would be consistent, at least.)

While we're at it, let's also make it illegal to have sex outside of marriage; criminalize adultery too, and impose a legal penalty on those whose full-term babies are born too soon to the wedding date. And if there's no wedding date, let's fine/punish both the parents even harder.

Further, instead of being mealy-mouthed about it, I challenge anyone with this point of view to say it loud and say it proud. No more hiding behind a facade of civilization. You want the 15th century, have at it. It would be nice to know, on the public level, who among our public figures, commentators, intellectuals, etc. precisely does feel this way.

Draw the line in the sand; call all things by their proper names.

Yay--I can finally see the comments.

Elizabeth at 12:23 wrote: "Surely sex provides concrete benefits, beyond procreation and sexual gratification: it allows two people to share and express a deep emotional, and often times spiritual connection. Even in the absence of procreation, it binds couples together as a more cohesive unit--something considered a virtue by most religious folk (at least when heterosexuals are involved)."

This is very true. But the reason *why* it is true is the reason why, as a Catholic, I must oppose all sex outside of marriage, and oppose homosexual activity as well.

Why?

Let's look at the nature of the sharing and expression, the emotional and spiritual connection of sex. The "language" expressed by two people when they engage in sexual intercourse is thus: I give myself as a free and total gift to you, and I receive you, your whole self, as a free and total gift to me.

Now, in order to be a *total* gift the two people must be giving and receiving that which is inherent to the gift of sexuality, and the centrality of that gift is the new generative power that alone has the ability to "incarnate" the love of the two into a new human person, brought about by this act of total and complete giving and receiving. This does *not* mean that every act of sexual intercourse must be fruitful, as the ability to bring forth new life does not reside alone with the couple, but ultimately with God Who alone can bring new human souls into being--but it *does* mean that the act itself must be that act which is theoretically capable of bringing new life into being.

Those who object that if the Church is serious about restricting marriage to heterosexuals she should also bar the infertile or the elderly don't understand this point: the Church *does* in fact bar from marriage those who are incapable of the *act* of sexual intercourse. Whether God chooses (even miraculously, as in the case of the elderly women Sarah or Elizabeth in the Bible) to bless a marriage with children or not is His business, but the Church has no power to recognize the union of two people who are not capable of this particular kind of physical union, the kind that is directed toward reproduction.

The Church's objection to homosexual acts and gay marriage can be understood in the context of the Church's teaching about sex as the free and total, potentially fruitful gift between two people. Premarital sex and marriage after divorce tells the "lie" that two people are giving each other a "total" gift when in fact they plan to reserve this gift to themselves in order to bestow it upon one or many more different people; contraception also tells the "lie" that two people are giving a total gift when they are deliberately thwarting the inherent and central reproductive possibility of the gift. Homosexual acts, like other acts removed from the act of reproductive sexual intercourse, do not contain the physical "language" of mutual, concurrent total gift and total receipt of gift. They are of a different order, and not oriented toward the emotional or spiritual--or even physical--unity Elizabeth speaks of.

In writing in this philosophical way in a combox, I'm running the risk that some people might think I'm saying that homosexuals can't have strong feelings for each other, feel a sense of bonding and connection, etc. This is not what I am saying at all. But the Church speaks of the "unity" of husband and wife in a way that simply isn't possible for a same-sex couple--because at the heart of the Church's teaching is the understanding that the physical unity of a man and a woman in sexual intercourse is a sign and symbol of the reality of their actual unity, and this same level of physical unity, sign, symbol, and reality does not transfer over to relationships which are not capable of this physical act--which is why heterosexual people who for some physical reason are not capable of the act of reproductive sexual intercourse are *also* not capable of entering into a valid marriage in the Church.

It really *is* all about sex: what sex is, what it isn't, and how at levels that are central to our being as humans we engage in, and accept responsibility for, our sexual behaviors, in the context of this understanding of what the "language" of sex really means.

I'm one of the (mildly) liberal media types of whom you speak, though I live in a bastian of conservatism, including conservative and very religious fellow journalists, who make me believe your fear of the "gay agenda" is wildly exaggerated. Gay marriage is currently legal in two states and civil unions are legal in a handful of others. The big debate in my state at the moment is over whether the state should pass a law saying gays can't be discriminated against when it comes to where they live or work. I doubt the Legislature will pass it. Gay marriage is completely out of the question. If you're gay you might be lucky just to keep custody of your child, given that district court judges have awarded custody to the other parent when one is gay.

I think there are several arguments I want to make here. First of all, whose definition of "Christian" is going to win out? I am a Christian. I don't agree with you on this issue. Neither do other Christian denominations and some liberal Catholics, including priests and nuns, though the official Church teaching on the matter will probably prevail there. Second of all, why should "traditional Christianity" define civil marriage laws and the laws of society as a whole, as in the examples I gave above? Exactly whose standard are you enforcing here and why should your views prevail instead of mine?

Third, if we are going to talk about the "sinfulness" of a gay lifestyle to a person's morals, I would point to the sin and instability of a promiscuous lifestyle for heterosexuals as well as for gays. Gay marriage is GOOD for society because it encourages stable, long-term relationships and married gays and lesbians are more likely to be home owners and thus payers of property taxes that fund schools and roads and other community needs, to have health insurance, to be taxpayers, to contribute to the community and are less likely to be filling up the county jail or spreading disease throughout the community. In short, they cost society less and contribute more when they are married, just like heterosexual married couples do. If anything, I think society needs to make marriage more desirable and divorce a lot more difficult and more stigmatized. It is people who divorce and remarry trophy wives and drag their children through ugly custody battles who do greater damage to society. Gay marriage should be encouraged; gay divorce should be DISCOURAGED as well. Promiscuity should be frowned upon in both heterosexuals and homosexuals. Most pragmatists know that the Church's preferred celibate life for a homosexual with "disordered" desires is highly unrealistic and probably impossible for most people, particularly in a time when they're discouraging gays from entering the priesthood out of a fear that they might be pedophiles (irrational, since homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things.)

Fourth, even the Church acknowledges that homosexuality is one among many sins. There are a lot of other sins I find more egregious, quite frankly, and I think more time spent concentrating on the sins against the poor and the sins of violence might be well spent.

I hope for your sake AND the sake of your kids that none of them turn out to be gay. I don't think you'd deal with it well, though I hope you'd love and accept them regardless.

Ever since the word "homophobe" entered the lexicon, it has been nearly impossible to publicly discuss homosexuality with anything other than an uncritical tone. No, it's gotten worse than that. Fail to voice your appreciation of the homosexual lifestyle as a brave, virtuous and noble decision for the greater good -- on par with a religious calling or vocation -- and you will be swiftly branded a homophobe. Discussion over.

This is unfortunate, because the verbal manipulation both distorts the clinical understanding of true phobias and locks out the principled and defensible position that the homosexual lifestyle hurts both practicing homosexuals and the broader society.

I don't know whether the once culturally conservative Damon Linker is motivated by a desire to avoid the hopelessly uncool "homophobe" label, a la Sean Penn, et al. I do know that people like Dr. Joseph Nicolosi are the real brave ones in the current climate:

http://www.narth.com/docs/niconew.html

Saying what he says, so visibly and so generously refusing to enable a set of behaviors he believes destructive to all involved, takes real courage.

Irenaeus
March 24, 2009 11:45 AM

Yes, you are right on. I've always found it a bit rich that we conservatives get assailed for being fixated on sex, when it's cultural liberals who have pushing the sexual revolution down our throats and the throats of our children for decades now. We didn't pick the fight; it was foisted upon us, and forgive us for fighting back and not lying down quietly.

Keep playing that victim card.

"We didn' start tis! Teh Gayyzz got mouthy an' wanted equul rahts an' sech..."

I, for one, don't foist anything on anyone, unless you count the demand that I be left alone. It's your side that wants into our bedrooms, into our private family lives and into our finances, health care policies and legal rights.

But don't let reality get in the way of a good sob story, by all means.

Zach

Ever since the word "homophobe" entered the lexicon, it has been nearly impossible to publicly discuss homosexuality with anything other than an uncritical tone. No, it's gotten worse than that. Fail to voice your appreciation of the homosexual lifestyle as a brave, virtuous and noble decision for the greater good -- on par with a religious calling or vocation -- and you will be swiftly branded a homophobe. Discussion over.

You seem a little faint of heart, methinks.

Let's compare that with some of the things folks on your side have said to me to "end the discussion", shall we?

I have been called a "c**k s**king f*gg*t" in person, along with being immediately threatened with bodily injury and death. I cannot really even try to print the other things that were said at that moment.

Along with..

demonic
perverse
pervert
sick
pedophile
molester
child rapist
satanic
criminal
disordered

Note that I am a parent. Obviously, being accused of horrible crimes by fact of being a trans woman is hurtful and damaging beyond belief.
I might be a little more inclined to be sympathetic to you if it weren't for the damage I keep taking from people on your side of the cultural divide. As long as people keep using my gender to attack me and my spouse and son, threaten to rape, maim or kill me and so on....I am not going to get real excited because you are upset about being called a "homophobe" for having an unpopular viewpoint.

Deal with it. No one on your side has apologized to me for anything that has happened or been said to me.

"Jack, what you say about conservatives "letting the cat out of the bag" by tolerating divorce is only partially right. It's true conservatives "tolerate" divorce, but toleration is not the same thing as celebration. Even though we no longer stigmatize divorce, we still see it as an undesirable turn of events. In other words, conservatives don't uphold divorce as a condition "equal to" – or as beneficial as – marriage. We still uphold the ideal of lifelong marriage, even though some of us fall short of that ideal."

Not sure I can concur with that. Divorce is more common in the Bible Belt than in New England, and more common among people who report having been "born again" than among the rest of the population. It is also lots more common among conservative political leaders than among their liberal counterparts. Some of the most eminent conservatives can only be described as serial wife-dumpers. It is not extravagant to conclude that if the Pope were a Republican, divorce would be the 8th sacrament. Most of the trashing Hillary Clinton got from the conservative media was for NOT divorcing Bill.

"Cultural Conservative",

I wouldn't call you a conservative at all- I'd call you a common-sense social moderate in the culture wars, which is somewhat what I call myself too. While I'm an Anglican, and you're an atheist, I agree with much of what you say below, although I _do_ think that abortion should be criminalized.

In other words, I don't think that birth control or premarital sex within the context of a loving, long-term relationship is necessarily wrong. I believe in gay (civil) marriage and gay adoptions, and I'm open to the argument that some types of homosexuality may not be wrong at all. I am, however, strongly against abortion, casual sex, pornography, and things like that, and I fear the consequences of a world run by libertarian ethics where we think we can do whatever we like. I would agree with you about objective standards of value, and about sexual promiscuity.

I don't think there's anything cognitively dissonant in your beliefs or mine, except that I think if you believe that abortion is wrong you _should_ support its criminalization. (It's not a self-regarding sin, it's homicide). It's true, and sad, that there isn't much room for moderation in the culture wars- it's Amanda Marcotte on one side, and Mr. Dreher on the other.

Bryce:

What makes so many moral traditionalists -- Christian and otherwise -- so unsympathetic to the gay community as a political bloc or special interest group, as opposed to gays individually, is that even among what I believe to be the significant minority of gays who reject the libertine promiscuity that you describe, there is no opposition to that libertine promiscuity on the part of morally "traditional" gays that is in anyway commensurate with the opposition of gays both libertine and "traditional" to any opposition on the part of moral traditionalists -- and especially Christian ones -- to the gay culture of libertine promiscuity.

Fair enough.

How about this to counter?

What makes so many gay, lesbian and trans people so unsympathetic to the Christian social conservative community as a political bloc or special interest group, as opposed to Christian conservatives individually, is that even among what I believe to be the significant minority of conservative Christians you describe, there is no opposition to those who engage in gay bashing, overt hatred, character sabotage and accusations of molestation, stalking, physical violence and rape.

"Christian" people, and I use the term loosely in this case, keep doing and saying horrible things to glbt people because they believe they have some degree of societal and Biblical mandate to do it.

I wonder where they get that idea.

By the way:

I despise depraved promiscuity, and the antics of leather wearing gay men at the Fulsom Street fair are, well, sickening. Just my two cents as a parent, veteran and life long republican who is also a transgendered woman.

Rod, I'll skip over the combox because I know how heated it gets, indeed I've gotten very heated there myself. But I want to reiterate how much I appreciate the laserlike focus on what it is that you disagree with in terms of sexual morality and its impact on society with nontrads. I agree with Damon that your apocalyptic excesses don't convince, and I have a hard time believing that you believe them, but I will take you at your word.

What I do not see in your posts on the subject is any real acknowledgment of the damage that the traditional biblical interpretation has caused in real people's lives, specifically the religiously based hatred and violence that you eschew, but minimize and the patriarchal system that kept women and children as property, and the sexual repression and secrecy that results in multi-generational horrors like the priest sex scandal.

I know you have talked about the sixties and feminism as "having come from somewhere." But my question is, do you really understand the damage caused by this stuff?

And finally, do you really feel that we cannot survive as a society while finding a way to live that doesn't cause so much damage?

If the crunchy cons blog is fixated on anything it's the ever-looming apocalypse rather than homosexuality

Andrea:

Whatever they choose to do in private ought to be their own business and they ought to have a right to form a legal marriage if they so choose, provided they both enter freely into it and are above the age of consent.

I completely agree. However, mostly naked men cavorting in public, groping each other and trying to provoke hostility do not really help our side in getting equal marriage rights IMHO.

Those of us in the glbt community who have careers, families and children and live responsibly are constantly trying to fight off the nonsense that comes out the libertine leather crowd. We can't turn around without Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly or Malkin waving a bizarre picture and trying to make that represent all of us.

No thanks.

I don't want to live in a society that outlaws what consenting adults do together, up to and including BDSM if they so choose and no permanent damage is done.

Neither do I.

Religious institutions don't have to sanction gay marriage or sexual behavior it frowns upon, but we're all endangered when someone starts dictating private behavior and, I would argue, preventing society from encouraging and promoting long-term partnerships between gays.

My beef here is that agitators on the other side have somehow gotten the notion that the 1st Amendment to the Constitution has been repealed, and that clergy will be forced to officiate at drag queen spectacles, pastors will not be able to say we are damned to the outer darkness and kids will be coached into believing that pederasty is really, really great.

I don't know if they actually believe this sick hogwash, or if they are just cynical enough to feed that to rubes on Sunday morning. In any event, I am not at all interested in restricting the freedom of the clergy, or anyone else, to speak and associate as they wish. I recall swearing an oath to defend the Constitution, and that means defending the right of people to say really bad things I don't agree with.

So says this lifelong Democrat who is personally incredibly conservative and reactionary when it comes to my own personal life.

I don't know if I am reactionary about my private life, but my general attitude is:

Leave my family alone.
Leave my guns alone.
Leave my property alone.
Leave me alone.

'nuff said

I somehow doubt that the message about contraception is truly being heard among girls and women who are most at risk of unwanted pregnancies, particularly with the rise of "abstinence-only" education in public schools, but I'm not an expert. I'm also not an expert on whether contraception is working *so well* as a deterrent to abortion (it seems to me that to get an accurate read on that one would also need to know how many women who did not want to get pregnant were informed about and using contraception), but it does seem to me that the best way for women to avoid being in the position of carrying a child that they do not want to birth/raise would be to effectively use contraception.

I actually only asked to confirm a hunch: I find it fascinating that the vast majority of the folks I meet who are moral absolutists about their anti-abortion stance (i.e. not even in the case of rape, young girls, incest, etc.) are also, generally, opposed to the use of contraception.

Rod, I think liberals like myself like reading your blog because you're a con we can relate to; you're an intellectual, you're well-read, you're reasonable, you're kind of a nice guy compared to the many scarily angry conservative folks that we are exposed to. (I realize these folks may not be representative, but man, they sure are noisy!)

You are right that it is the liberal commenters, not you, who are fixated on homosexuality. Many of us feel honored to be witnessing (and possibly working for) the historic expansion of equal rights in America to a long persecuted minority group. We're proud of ourselves! We like to argue with [insert whatever the PC word for "homophobes" is].

So there's that (which I will admit is not an entirely altruistic motivation), and there's also the fact that your posts about homosexuality, however rare they are, have frequently been jarringly anti-intellectual, unreasonable, and petty.

Case in point 1. "A teenage murderer turns out to have possibly been involved in bisexual activities. Not to connect bisexuality and teenage murder, but...well, I'm just going to write about this *probably* totally specious connection and post it under the 'homosexual' heading"

Case in point 2. "Drunk lesbian woman tries to forcibly inseminate partner...is this what we can look forward to when those goofy gays get what they want?" (Is it similarly amusing when a drunk man forces "procreation" on his wife or girlfriend? Because I'm pretty darn sure that happens on a daily basis in America, and no one is chuckling over it and saying "oh, those goofy straight couples")

Case in point 3. "Those who want Prop 8 donor lists made public (per the previously established and consistently accorded law) are simply unfairly, cruelly and violently involved in persecuting Prop 8 supporters" (Oh, this one was ironic; I believe you may have posted it the same week that a pair of brothers were beaten to death in New York because their attackers thought they were a gay couple)

But I digress. So, despite case in points 1.-3., YOU just want to have a conversation about this issue in which each side takes the other seriously. If I'm not mistaken, that has just occurred, at Damon Linker's instigation. The exchange here is not about some odd headline that popped up in Google when you enter the words "lesbian" or "gay." It is, as far as I can see, a serious and genuine debate.

This is what we have been waiting for!

Unfortunately for us silly Libs here, you are not going to change your mind (at least not in the next five or ten years, although I'll be very curious about your opinion on the matter in 20 years). You believe that legitimizing homosexual relationships is akin to the manifestation of complete sexual nihilism, and that it can cause a "death of the soul." (And if I read you correctly, you are simultaneously asserting that in saying these things you must not be interpreted as intending any offense to gay folks, because you actually have nothing against them personally?)

Well, it's as we all should have expected. We are not going to change your mind with self-righteous appeals to our precious "reason." And despite seeming sane and morally upright to us in almost every other way, you are not going to make any sense to us on this matter. Why even debate further?

Moreover, the question is moot because, as you acknowledge, the case for equality and legitimization is winning. In 20 years, more or less, it will seem distasteful and perplexing to most Americans that some would've advocated for institutionalized discrimination against gay people.

Well, here's another question, which may turn out to be more pertinent to those of us who consider ourselves liberal Christians: In the near future, when the question of whether or not to legally ostracize citizens because of who they love seems (even more) silly and obsolete, will some souls continue to seek out the Catholic church, or Christianity in general, for succor and sympathy? Will people look to the church for spiritual guidance and a worldly community centered on Christ's main tenants (you know, the actual Biblical "'love God and one another' and 'care for the helpless'" stuff, not the "'gays shall not marry' and 'God hates condoms'" stuff)...??

Will Christianity survive the gay marriage issue? Rod, from your essay it seems you have a pessimistic view on this. For my part, I hope that Christianity (as in, the teachings of Christ that unite us, not those that divide us) and a Christian culture of spiritual participation and relevance will continue to offer future generations a template for hope, love, and acceptance. Maybe that's what we're really arguing about here.

But aside from mainline Protestant churches and liberal Catholics who dissent from their own Church's authoritative teaching, no Christian church argues for the licitness of homosexual relations. Prior to the mid-20th century, as far as I know, no church of any size anywhere did. That's because it is impossible to do from Scripture, without torturing the arguments into submission.

When you choose some canons of Scripture to fight for, tooth and nail, and others to ignore or even routinely violate in your daily life, "because the Bible says so" stops being an intellectually honest argument. It's not about Scripture, it's about you, and your personal policy opinions. Now, maybe you can make a case on the merits as to why one particular verse of Scripture will lead to better outcomes as a policy matter than another, and maybe that's why you focus on it instead of the other. In fact, it looks like you've tried to make that case here, though it's pretty heavy on speculation and pretty light on evidence. But even throughout the policy discussion, you maintain the pretense that you're Just Doing What The Bible Says. You're not. You're piecing together a policy platform from selectively chosen snippets of the Bible, and you're pretending the Bible itself supports you in this endeavor.

How many blog posts have you had in 2009 about stoning adulterous daughters? Zero. How many about America's impending doom for its liberal lobster-eating habits? None. How many about the evils of American Apparel, weaving the fabric of America's downfall with its mixed-fabric looms? Zilch. It's next to that that your repeated posts about gay people is revealed as fixation.

This blog does have a heavy fixation on homosexuality, by posters other than yourself, Rod. I've been wondering whether I want to wade through their hostility any more. While your own posts don't often dwell on homosexuality, your readers/posters too often do. E.g., Bernie Madoff stiffs Ellie Wiesel, and the posters want to drag the readers through a homosex rant. Not that it matters, but much more of this fixation and I'll just move on. You control what appears here.

Will Christianity survive the gay marriage issue? Rod, from your essay it seems you have a pessimistic view on this. For my part, I hope that Christianity (as in, the teachings of Christ that unite us, not those that divide us) and a Christian culture of spiritual participation and relevance will continue to offer future generations a template for hope, love, and acceptance. Maybe that's what we're really arguing about here.

This is really beautiful, Maeb, and you said for me what I cannot. Apparently.

I get into these gay-right fistfights not because I'm gay - I'm not - but because I really and truly care deeply about both the message and the person of Jesus Christ, and I hate to see either one confused with the small-minded bigotry and just plain irrational panic that Rod's posts sometimes exhibit. To hear him and some other people here talk, the instant same sex civil marriage is legal, well, you can just kiss Christianity and all of Western Civilization goodbye, Final Night Has Descended.

But it won't, you know. Erin has assured me that the sanctity of my own marriage will be irrevocably compromised if my next door neighbors are allowed to marry, but has been so far quite unable to explain exactly how that works. At least not so that I understand it. Someone else, to support the idea that I am in immanent peril in this matter, told me that if an unmarried woman next door had a child and then went on welfare I as a taxpayer would have to support that child, but why this would be relevant to the inquiry at hand is baffling at best.

I hate to see the churches associate themselves with all this fear and anger. I'm having a hard time reconciling all that with the teachings of Jesus.

Mr. Dreher,

What you do not address, at least to my satisfaction, is this question posed by Mr. Linker, "Why, given the myriad ways that our society and culture diverge from the long list of archaic norms, practices, and beliefs upheld in the Bible, does homosexuality inspire such anxiety, even panic?"

This is the central question if one needs to oppose homosexuality on God's words.

comments busted. I think I saw my last post here, but now it's gone.

go figure.

"In other words, if the Lost Children of Rockdale County are wrong, why are they wrong? What could you possibly tell them to convince them to turn away from their orgies? "Because you'll get the clap," is hardly convincing."

You felt it necessary to mention a high school orgy in the midst of a somewhat serious discussion of homosexuality's acceptance in modern society? You confess that, in time, you expect to lose the larger argument. I should say so, if that's one of your tactics.

My desire for legal recognition of my monogamous relationship with an adult who happens to be the same gender has nothing at all in common with an orgy of teenagers. Is that so difficult to understand? What's more, any argument predicated upon that sort of thinking is offensive. Not because I'm gay, but because I have a brain.

Rod of course you're perfectly correct. The Church has pretty much stood in the same place for 2000 years it is society that has moved and probably looks like off a cliff. Mary Eberstadt in First Things was completely persuasive on this point.

I admire that you are doing your Christian duty and being salt and light keep up the good work. I'm sure Eve Tushnet and John Heard, both highly intelligent young celibate homosexual Catholics are grateful that you are working to keep a cultural space open for people like them. Here is a good presentation of the arguments from people within the Christian tradition. (Eve wins!!)

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1957

Like I said, I expect to lose this argument on a broad cultural level. But maybe I'll save my kids.

I wonder what will happen if one of them turns out to be gay. Will you still think that "tolerance" is adequate? Will your son be happy with that? ("Thanks a lot, Dad, for nothing.")

You think it can't happen to you.

I don't know you, Rod, or your children, but homosexual orientation seems to arise more or less at random (so far as we know) in a certain percentage of the population (different people will give you different numbers), and so far as we can tell it always has. Previous theories that it was all the "fault" of the parents have fallen apart, and so far as I know no specific genetic markers have been identified.

The "old culture" you are defending would mandate that you ostracize such a child, or at least view any of his alliances with distaste, demanding that he maintain celibacy. But celibacy doesn't even seem popular among the self-selected voluntary group of Catholic religious.

You might come to ask yourself in such a case what exactly you are "defending," and what you are proposing to "save" such a child from.

Here's an attempt to answer some of your objections. I hope stupid CAPTCHA will not ruin this.

Geoff G.: Now Rod's not an ordained minister. It's not his job to articulate Orthodox moral teachings. But just to throw a couple "moral" questions that seem to be less important to Rod and social conservatives in general, we find things like:

Not fair, Geoff -- and in fact, a form of the ad hominem fallacy. Andrew focuses a lot on torture, on Bush administration policy, and on politics. He rarely if ever writes about Darfur, the plight of Tibet, breast cancer, or any other serious issues that he might write about. For whatever reason, Andrew, I, and other bloggers have a set of concerns that capture our imagination. I don't ever see Andrew, or Ross Douthat, or many of the popular bloggers weighing in on food issues. So what? It's illogical of me to criticize them as morally deficient because they ignore food and agriculture issues to post about Washington politics, or whatever else interests them. I see this argument crop up from time to time in response to conservative criticism of this or that gay-rights thing: "If you were a real Christian, you'd be concerned about [fill in the blank] instead of gay marriage." Well, it wouldn't be fair to gay Christians and their allies to whom gay marriage is an important issue to tell them they have no right to their own concern, and to express it, because to do so takes away attention they ought to be giving to homelessness, poverty, disease and the like.

Dave B., in a similar vein: I guess it would be easier for me to accept Rod's arguments if he and his readers were actively lobbying the government to make divorce and sex outside of marriage illegal.

I would argue that divorce should be made harder to obtain, but even that is politically non-viable, at least right now. We live in the real world; politics is the art of the possible. Who, by the way, is arguing for the criminalization of homosexual acts? Some do, of course, but that is hardly on the agenda. I don't think gay sex should be criminalized, and I hardly hear this come up at all on the pro-trad marriage side. Speaking for myself, I am most concerned with gay marriage as it will likely drastically curtail religious liberty. It's a real concern, as Chai Feldblum, the lesbian Georgetown law professor and advocate of same-sex marriage, openly states. She at least takes traditionalist concerns seriously, even as she disagrees with us.

Matt, quoting me: "In other words, if the Lost Children of Rockdale County are wrong, why are they wrong? What could you possibly tell them to convince them to turn away from their orgies? "Because you'll get the clap," is hardly convincing."

[Matt:] You felt it necessary to mention a high school orgy in the midst of a somewhat serious discussion of homosexuality's acceptance in modern society? You confess that, in time, you expect to lose the larger argument. I should say so, if that's one of your tactics.

This is another familiar tactic from the pro-SSM side: "How dare you compare my relationship to [some revolting sexual disorder]!" Sorry, won't work. What I'm trying to do is find the philosophical rationale behind the push for the legitimization of same-sex marriage, and extend it to other areas. If we come to see sex as merely expressive of individual desires, and come to see consent as the only valid standard to guide our collective judgment of its moral status, then we logically have to permit (or at least not pass judgment on) things that strike most of us as wrong. Rather than yell "How dare you!", why not make a case why allowing one doesn't in effect force you to allow the other? Again, if mutual consent is the only binding standard for judging the morality of sexual acts, who are we to tell the teenagers of Rockdale County their orgies were wrong?

I wish I could answer more of your objections, but I have other work. Sorry.

"It is to lock in, and, on a legal front, to codify, a purely contractual, nihilistic view of human sexuality. I believe this would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human."

What defense do you possibly have for this thesis that homosexual relationships are any more focused on sex over love, commitment, and caring than heterosexual ones are? And in this era, how would you purport to prove that even a majority of heterosexual relationships are not "contractual" and "nihilistic," or at the very least, not self-serving, distant, and unfulfilling?

Geoff G. and Dave Bartoletti, I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to you yesterday; no matter how many comments the main page said there were to this post I never saw more than 31 comments on this thread, and gave up trying to keep up with the comments after a while.

Geoff, I would agree with you that the Church has more to do in the realm of civil marriage. In point of fact, the Church does see purely civil marriages as invalid for Catholics; that is, a Catholic who marries before a justice of the peace in defiance of the Church's laws governing marriage is not validly married, even if he was free to enter a Catholic marriage in the first place.

But the question as to why Catholics and some other Christians see a more serious social problem arising out of gay marriage than out of other forms of invalid marriage is simple: when Mr. and Mrs. Brown are introduced as husband and wife, a married couple, to my children, I don't have to consider the impact on my children if Mr. and Mrs. Brown are not validly (in the eyes of the Church) married. Assuming that my children never knew Mrs. Brown when she was Mrs. Gray, and assuming that my children don't know Mr. Gray, and assuming that I myself don't know if the Grays were invalidly married, annulled, and then allowed to remarry without asking a lot of questions that I don't have the duty to ask them.

But should Mr. Green introduce his male companion to my children as "My husband, Mr. Green," then my children are being asked to countenance a lie that they will know immediately and certainly *is* a lie; whereas they can't know if Mr. and Mrs. Brown are validly married or not, they can instantly see that the Misters Green are not what any traditional Christian would ever call "married." By our sincerely held religious beliefs they know that two men cannot by any power in heaven or earth be "married" to each other. Forcing children to accept and parrot this kind of lie for the sake of social peace is exactly the sort of spiritual blackmail I referred to in another post.

Now, those who believe two men or two woman can marry each other will say that for them, it's not a lie--it is "their" truth. But that is only true for those who accept relativism as the default philosophy--and why should relativism get to impose its morality, its vision of the nature of truth, on the rest of us without our consent?

Dave, you said, "I would hope you can recognize the clever wordplay of a sentence like: "but it *does* mean that the act itself must be that act which is theoretically capable of bringing new life into being." which is a very tortured way of interpreting scripture to allow a lot of leeway for heterosexuals, which you happen to be."

It's not clever wordplay, Dave--it's an understanding that there is an ontological difference between sex acts which are known, ordinarily, to be capable of producing children as their natural and expected result, and sex acts which have never, can never, and are not even ordered to do so. Considering that the "leeway" you speak of means, for Catholics, no sex outside of marriage, rules about sex inside of marriage including a complete prohibition on artificial contraception, and the expectation of fidelity to one person for life, I'm not sure how you define what Catholics believe as "leeway for heterosexuals."

Erin,

It seems to me that you have a pretty simple solution re: your children.

"Honey, you are going to meet a lot of people who will try to tell what is right and wrong, or who believe things we simply don't agree with. A lot of different people believe very different things from what we believe, and some of them will seem to you to be good, decent people. Don't be afraid to ask me questions when you encounter people who say things that contradict what we've told you. I'm alwayw ready to answer your questions.

When Mrs. Smith down the street tells you she's the mother of her children, you know that she's the *step* mother, and that their real mother abandoned them a long time ago. Children can only have *one* mother. When Mr. Jones refers to his friend as his husband, you know that is impossible. No man can have a husband. When Mr. Haddara refers to Jesus as a great prophet, you know that Jesus is the divine Savior of the World."

You make it sound like gays are the one thing in this world you cannot prepare your children for. Your children will meet all sorts of people who will challenge their beliefs. You are not a fearful person and seem very eloquent at explaining your beliefs. Are you really worried you are not up to the task?

Jim H, I appreciate the tone of your reply.

But we both know this goes way beyond what I can and do teach my children, and how I teach them to interact with the world around them--and it does so in part because of the push to make gay marriage and gay rights the new "civil rights" battle of our age, and in part because you can't set out to destroy traditional morality without intending to eradicate all of it.

In Massachusetts, a man who taught his children as I teach mine wanted the right to be informed when his children were going to be exposed to gay issues in the public school classroom. He was denied that right--the State of Massachusetts believes that it has a compelling interest to override parents' values and teach children that Heather can indeed have two mommies, and that when Daddy sleeps with his roommate it's because they are married just like other children's mommies and daddies are married.

In California, school books and materials are being rewritten to feature pictures of gay couples and the children they are raising; the language used is often "Mrs. and Mrs. Thusandso and *their* children..." etc; the children do not have a father, because men are reduced to being sperm donors, but that's supposed to be a good thing for society. I'm not sure how long it will be before high school biology classes have to feature units on "alternative/assisted human reproduction" in order to avoid the taint of "heteronormative views" but it can't be long, now.

In discussion after discussion on gay marriage and gay rights, the word "bigot" is thrown at those who live and believe according to traditional morality. How long will we be allowed to teach our children what we believe, without interference from the State, I wonder?

How long before it's considered child abuse to teach one's children that two men or two women are not married to each other no matter what they, the law, the culture, etc., say? I know there are some here who already believe that it is--that teaching our children what we believe about human sexuality is potentially abusive and dangerous.

It's not about what I teach my children, or how I prepare them to deal with a world that will attack the very notion of virtue, surrounding them with the prevailing cultural theory that anybody who doesn't gratify his every desire with any consenting person on every possible occasion is just foolish. It's about the reality that our culture's opposition to virtue is already crossing into the territory of being opposed to those who believe in, and teach about, virtue, and to the very notion that virtue even exists. The very insistence that those of us who believe in traditional morality are "fixated" on this topic is telling--we're supposed either to acquiesce in and embrace the cultural destruction, or at least shut up about it (with a grudging acceptance that we might talk about it in church--followed by threats about tax exempt status).

As we abandon the concept of virtue, we're entering into a darkness that goes beyond anything we've experienced before. The financial crisis is just one manifestation of that darkness--because if we're going to throw away virtue, we're going to throw away all of it, and the lying and greed and the rapacious self-centeredness at the heart of so much of our present economic woes are just someone else's truth--and who are we to impose our financial morality on *them*? If traditional sexual morality doesn't matter, then why should any of the other nine commandments matter? Aren't we ready to move beyond all that "Christianist" nonsense, and go back to the glory days when it really was every man for himself? Shouldn't the Randian hero be ours, and the Randian idea of morality, that the only proper moral purpose of life is the pursuit of our own individual happiness, be allowed to win out over the weakness that unites love of God with love of neighbor, or accepts the possibility that "But this is what I want!" might *not* be the highest and best and most noble of all principles?

When our slowly rotting culture has succeeded in bringing down morality altogether, not only in the arena of sex but in every area of life, it might be too late to complain about unscrupulous bankers defrauding the public, violent criminals preying on the poor, or any other examples of self-directed people taking what they want without apology or consequence; they should be our heroes, in the world where the only underlying moral principle is "I want."

In California, school books and materials are being rewritten to feature pictures of gay couples and the children they are raising; the language used is often "Mrs. and Mrs. Thusandso and *their* children..." etc; the children do not have a father, because men are reduced to being sperm donors, but that's supposed to be a good thing for society.

In California, my son and his wife are in the process of adopting a child from China. Their family picture will say, Mr. and Mrs. [Name] and "their" child, but you know, Erin, that they should not be allowed to do this, since my son is not the biological father of this child, nor is his wife the mother. This isn't a good thing for society, lying like that.

when Daddy sleeps with his roommate it's because they are married just like other children's mommies and daddies are married.

The couple next door to me on the other side are both divorced ex-Catholics, no annulments, so they're just sleeping with their roommates too. Their children and the rest of the children in the neighborhood should not be taught, you say, that these two people are married just like other children's mommies and daddies, because according to you they aren't validly married.

As a Catholic you are certainly free to hold these views and teach them to your children, but I would question your right to impose them on the rest of society.

The couple next door are validly married according to the State of California, and it's legitimate for the neighborhood to treat them as "married." My son and his wife will be the legal parents of their new child, and it's legitimate for the neighborhood to speak of them as her parents. If the two men who live together on the other side are allowed to marry under the civil law, it will be appropriate in California, as it is already in Massachusetts, to refer to them as "married."

I just can't understand why any of this involves "entering into a darkness that goes beyond anything we've experienced before."

So... the financial mess we're in as a nation is more connected to homosexuality than it is to the (largely) Protestant elevation of usury from sin to high art?

There are many children who never know their biological fathers, or their biological mothers, or sometimes both. Sometimes this happens - actually, often it happens - because some adult or adults in the situation have behaved in some way, as you put it, to "satisfy their own desires," whether it be not to take care of a child one has borne (which we abortion opponents actually think a good thing, or better, at least, than murdering the child in utero), or to run off from responsibility for a child whom one has fathered, or for any number of other reasons.

Are fathers optional? Or mothers? Well, a lot of times the father and/or mother are not around, for whatever reason, and this has always been the case, by the way, and then responsible adults who ARE around pick up the ball and raise the child. Many children now are conceived by IVF - you and I don't approve of this, but we'd be blind and deaf if we pretended it wasn't happening - and in some of those cases the resultant infants are not in fact the biological children of the woman who bore them or of the man who so fraudulently goes around calling himself the father.

Children are raised by women without the assistance of men, and by men without the assistance of women, all the time, and this has been going on quite a while, what with death and desertion rates being what they have always been.

I'm struggling with the idea of you as the Biological Police, going from house to house examining the bona fides of the marriages like the one next door, questioning the biological relationships among step-parents, adopted parents, parents by virtue of IVF, foster parents...the possibilities are endless. One of my college roommates and her husband are even raising a grandchild, because their (adopted) daughter - the horror in this situation is multiple - is a drug addict and the father is unknown. These grandparents are obviously a fraud on the community, and this family is going from bad to worse.

Every child has only one father and one mother. Adoption doesn't count, step-relationships don't count, foster parentage doesn't count. That's the decree. And no matter what else is going on, those two biological parents should be on site raising the child, and if they aren't, well, we're out into that outer darkness I guess.

Good rebuttal.
Yet it seems needing to be said that conservatives are concerned about sex and more precsiely about sexual relations because of the power of the sexual instinct. It can be creative or the undoing of civilizations. Liberals via their radical egalitarianism simply think that sexual identity is engineered and not a function of biology. Somehow all can be made equal and thus all is acceptable and there is no judgement to be passed sociologically on any behavior at all. But the finality of egalitarianism and liberal ideology leads to a base animalism that is the undoing of civil relations and civil relations are what make for peace. Sex is a prime driver, when unhinged from civilization, to a reversion to the animal instinct. Once it happens the world as we know it either starts over again or completely unglues. Picking on homosexuals because they do overtly depict the extremes of the behavior possibilities and if you doubt it go search out photos of the Folsom street fair in San Fran. All people have the propensity when restarint is unleashed and it is only the two parent family and marriage that has historically kept things intact. Sex needs to be more then pleasure to be metaphysically beyond and uniguely human. It needs symbol, it needs sacrifice, it needs sanction and it needs offspring that demands and reinforces these things.

Yes yes, very interesting.

You have every right to criticize homosexuality so long as it doesn't cross the line into hate crimes (which I'm not suggesting you're doing) but the fact of the matter is that neither you, nor conservatives nor anyone else have the right to legislate these people's lives. Marriage may be a governmental issue, but there is a separation of church and state that says the government absolutely may not create laws based on religious ideology. There is no factual information you can provide that will stand up in court pertaining to why these people may not be married. Because of your lack of reasoning, and it is on you that the onus of proof lies, homosexuals must be allowed to marry.

Sorry, Erin, but you fall into that strange belief that once gays are given a few rights, the collapse of civilization is sure to follow. It is this strange terror that you hold that we gays find alternately frigtening and funny. We really have that power to destroy the world? Surely, that is an overwrought argument.

Here's an experiment: Find two children in your neighborhood, and make sure one of them knows nothing about gay people, and another who has no problems with gay people. Any difference? Is one showing evidence of beinga serial murderer, and the other a potential saint? I doubt it.

The fact is that children are being raised all over the place who know about gay people, and even gay married people. Somehow, they all survive without trauma.

It is strange, though, that you are so concerned about making sure that your children know the 'lie' about a gay couple being married and having to explain it, but you have no problems having your children be ignorant about the lie of divorced catholics being married. Why the double standard? I realize that with gay couples, it's obvious, but not obvious about the divorced and remarried catholics. But if each are equally invalid in the eyes of the church, why does only one terrorize you but not the other? Why does one mean the end of civilization, but not the other?

Surely, if Jesus meant that gays are the end of the world, he would have said a bit more about it, no?

"If homosexuality is legitimized -- as distinct from being tolerated, which I generally support -- then it represents the culmination of the sexual revolution, the goal of which was to make individual desire the sole legitimate arbiter in defining sexual truth."

This statement makes me wonder if you don't understand what sexual orientation is. Its not only biological its simply logical that there would be people of both genders who would naturally be attracted to either gender. Discard the false dichotomies that pervade historical models and look at the situation from what we know now: all humans have the genetic code of a female, men and women are not opposites but rather men are modified women, women with an extra 'Y' chromosome who's expression can be variable genetically and modified epigenetically.

So men have all the genetic potential of women, and women have all but one chromosome of men. That there would be men attracted to men is almost a given considering genetic presentation variations, while women might be missing some of the attraction mechanisms encoded on the 'Y' chromosome. So this model would suggest that men would be more developed in their attractions to men, having the full genetic complement of women, and women attracted to women might be less developed, missing whatever might be on the 'Y'. And empirical evidence shows that is exactly what we find - men attracted to men rarely deviate from their attraction and women are more flexible in the gender to whom they are attracted.

So people are not attracted to their opposite or same gender - they do not on any level check in their pants before being attracted to others - our human biological attraction mechanisms are to male or female, not same or opposite.

And so if it is right for people to be attracted to someone who happens to be their opposite gender because of their biology, it is just as right for them to be attracted to one that's the same as each are following their biological destinies as genes, chance or the gods have determined.

As to the 'culmination of the sexual revolution', as I understand it that was the total divorcing of sexuality from any requirement of affection or permanency - casual orgies would be its culmination. People wanting to marry their spouse, regardless of their gender, is a repudiation of the sexual revolution, not its culmination.

"It is to lock in, and, on a legal front, to codify, a purely contractual, nihilistic view of human sexuality."

As I've stated above, people wanting to marry their spouses who they naturally and biologically love and cherish, is the opposite of nihilism and the foundation of what makes sexuality beneficial to the individuals, their families and society regardless of the married couples gender combination. if you want nihilism look to the historical models of women being contractually sold to men as chattel wives in 'traditional' marriages across the world. Giving people who are individually ensouled the right to choose each other for marriage is stepping away from the nihilism of the past and saying that each and every person deserves know the fulfillment of giving themselves totally to another and cherishing them above themselves for the rest of their lives.

"I believe this would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human."

And saying some cannot marry their spouses merely because of something as trivial as their gender, that they must turn their backs on their own biological humanity is really the profound distortion. Its totally natural for humans to be attracted to and marry men and women, that some are of either gender is also totally expectable and natural. I can understand how it would be convenient for your world view if they would cater to your beliefs, but how is it objectively better for the world that they deny their humanity to satisfy you?

Bob, the obvious answer is many don't. Let's face it, a mere act that doesn't even carry over to the afterlife (there is no sex in heaven per Jesus) is probably small potatoes compared with idolatry, avarice, hard-heartedness, self-righteousness, prejudice and all the other sins that could, and many Christians realize this. The Christians I know and respect look at the their role in the same way they did when teaching us emergency medicine - their obligation isn't to make things perfect, but to make them better than when they found them.

I'm sure most have seen the list of condemnations of left-handiness that can be found in the bible, couple that with the finding that lefties live 9 years less than righties on average, they are more prone to mental illness, yadda yadda, and you see the makings of exactly the same kind of prejudice that exists for same gender attraction - its just hasn't been popular for a few centuries and would nowadays be dismissed by most Christians.

Hopefully someday the totally natural attraction of a few to those of their same gender will be likewise recognized as wrongheaded by an even larger majority of Christians, it just isn't today.

I just don't follow your reasoning that allowing gay marriage is like countenancing orgies or inner-city irresponisibility. I think we can all agree that sex is best left to a committed, loving, long-term, one-on-one relationship. What does a committed, loving gay couple wanting to spend their lives together, forsaking all others, have to do with orgies? I just don't follow.

What do you mean by "sexual truth"? I don't understand this expression.

How about accepting women as "fully human" by giving them full-equality in the Church and religion? I'd love to see a female pope, US president... half the preachers being female and such. I think if we accepted and practiced female equality - we would find it easier to practice gay equality.

For example - only because women have the same sexual desires beyond family instincts as men does not mean that they will spend all their lives sleeping around.. it might also not mean that they will all marry their childhood sweetheart and live happily ever after. We all have to figure out how the world and ourselves work and what makes us and those dear to us happy or sad... we all have to learn what can and cannot be changed by us. There is not only one path and view just as there is not only one sex, color or belief.

I for one wished for more confidence. A confident man or women would not be afraid that, due to homosexuality, "individual desire will become the sole legitimate arbiter in defining sexual truth". Individual desire in straight man and women exists "fully" independent of the fact that homosexuals apparently seek long-term relationships and even marriage.

There's a reason why the churches today are breaking apart over homosexuality, and it has to do with the plain fact that there can be no compromise on this issue, as it goes to the heart of how believers understand ourselves, our relationship to God, and to the nature of truth

It seems to me that there's a contradiction inherent in this sentence; the churches (assuming good faith, as I think it's fair to do) would not be breaking apart over this matter if there were available "plain facts" obvious to all Christians reasoning in good faith from scripture, tradition and basic morality.

I agree that compromise is difficult on this issue. But it's not difficult because the question is easy - it's not the kind of "no compromise" response that Christians would make if we had a faction of any church telling us that Christ died and was not resurrected. There would be no need for us to reconcile our faith with even the possibility of such a belief, to enter into argument with those who have such a view; it would be simple heresy because it contradicts the foundations of the faith itself. The Creed resolves all such questions for us. Anyone who says that Christ died and was not resurrected is right only if the entire Christian structure of thought itself is wrong; such a belief cannot even be contested within the framework of our faith.

Unfortunately, the Creed doesn't resolve the great problem of what to think about gender for us. The kind of direct Scriptural authority we have for the Church's most traditional position on gender relations is the same kind of Scriptural authority we have for the Church's traditional position on collective Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ. Many of us have abandoned the interpretation of the Gospel of St John that leads to a belief in a collective Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion on the basis of its inconsistency with the deeper meaning of more fundamental beliefs. Many people are now making the same argument about the status of women, the nature therefore of marriage, and the related issue of homosexual marriage. For me, personally, it boils down to how we are to interpret the Two Commandments as they relate to marriage: what version of erotic love is the fruition of charitable love, love that serves God's purposes for us, and what version of it is the opposite? It's a difficult question. It's hard to compromise on the answers once we've reached them. But it isn't an easy black-and-white and I think it's a bit disrespectful to other Christians to suggest that their different answers are frankly heretical, and easily dismissed as such, when this is actually the one of the hardest questions the churches have addressed since the problem of slavery.

*sigh*

The fact that you continue bashing my people for loving others for WHO they are is your failing, not mine. Don't get defensive about it all just because you can't see through your own smoke screens.

Oh, and doesn't this article kind of contradict itself by fixating on mention of fixation? That's a bit unfortunate...

I definitely agree with Daniel.I am a bit too puzzle about the things