What is Marriage? – Children
We’re having some useful discussion on the previous thread about the George et al paper on Marriage. I want to turn our attention to looking in detail at some of the issues raised.
Let’s begin by exploring where the procreation and rearing of children fits into the modern understanding of marriage. Let’s assume we have two couples – one is other-sex and one is same-sex. Both want to get married. The George et al paper says that the procreation and rearing of children is one of the necessary goods of marriage and that therefore the same-sex couple cannot by definition be married because they can never procreate.
Setting aside issues of infertile couples etc, let’s turn our attention to the core issue – is the procreation of children a necessary good of marriage? You might want to conisder the following questions to help our discussion.
- How does the established research that indicate that children fare better if they grow up with married parents who conceived them fit into the argument?
- If the procreation and rearing of children is not a necessary good of marriage, how should the state view the procreation and rearing of children? Would any reference in law to the different treatment of the children of a married couple (eg, the fact that it is easier for married couples to register the birth of their child then unmarried couples) undermine a view that procreation and rearing was not a necessary good of marriage?
- Can it any way by logically tenable to treat procreation and rearing of children as a good in some marriages but not others? Wouldn’t this by definition creating two different forms of marriage?
Please try and stay on topic – I will be vigilant in making sure we stick to the issue of the necessary good of procreating and rearing children.
This became an issue in "Sex and Gender" at Theological College when "the procreation and rearing of children is one of the necessary goods of marriage" was raised. It did cause some upset for the member of the group who was unable to conceive and was in a marriage that would likely not rear children as they had decided not to adopt.
At this point I threw into the mix that I could well have children but didn't want any. Environmental reasons and selfish reasons. Hmmmm. No, not selfish reasons. How can I be being selfish in relation to a hypothetical person? Anywho, we have no desire to have children. We have been married 12 years. Until someone declares it null and void on the grounds of voluntary procreational sidestep, marriage can't be about having children.
However, I am speaking as an Anglican. In the Church of Rome, it is not permissable to have a marriage that doesn't allow for the possibility of procreation for contraception is not allowed and sex is needed to consumate the marriage. There is an obvious disparity between the vatican "dreams" and the "real world practice".
Have you read the original paper? A couple who decide not to have children (for lots of reasons) but could still perform coitus and procreate in an ideal world are properly married.
"acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction, thus uniting them as a reproductive unit."
Wouldn't the consistently use contraception negate this principle? We are denying our status as a "reproductive unit".
"And this union occurs even when conception, the bodily good toward which sexual intercourse as a biological function is oriented, does not occur. In other words, organic bodily unity is achieved when a man and woman coordinate to perform an act of the kind that causes conception."
But the thrust of this argument relies upon the "biological function" being "oriented" towards conception. By consistantly using contraception we are not orienting ourselves in that direction. Something that is covered in the next paragraph…
"Because interpersonal unions are valuable in themselves, and not merely as means to other ends, a husband and wife’s loving bodily union in coitus and the special kind of relationship to which it is integral are valuable whether or not conception results and even when conception is not sought. But two men or two women cannot achieve organic bodily union since there is no bodily good or function toward which their bodies can coordinate, reproduction being the only candidate."
There are many things in which heterosexual couples engage that would be considered a sexual act. Are these permissable as part of a married heterosexual relationship? Are they not permissable as they don't orientate towards conception? Are they inconsequential?
It is actually intriguing to see such modern legal wrangling over something that in the past just happened without questions. Over time we have tried to box ourselves in further and further.
From page 256 and 257 of the paper.
Whether you accept the last paragraph or not will affect your response.
Peter,
In our present society is it not essential to recognise that a great deal of procreation and child rearing happens outside marriage.
Therefore, in general society these three things (marriage, procreation, child rearing) are seen as pretty much independent. As I understand it you are trying to build an argument for a definition of marriage using mostly non faith arguments that excludes a huge percentage of people.
So let us consider a few situations that I have come across.
– the married couple with children where the wife is being abused.
– the infertile married couple who adopt children
– the couple who choose not to have their own children but instead foster and/or adopt other children
– the single parent who marries and the step father takes on a full parenting role
Note the danger of focusing on procreation and child rearing as the definition of marriage. In these real examples only the abusive marriage passes the test of being a real marriage. That does not seem to be very helpful for society. I would strongly argue that the other 3 examples are beneficial for society as a whole while the first is not.
We need to establish the general principle first. Your four examples are all covered by George et al's paper, but let's quickly go through them.
i) The issue in this one is not procreation, it is marital abuse. Clearly the husband is breaking the marriage, but it has NO relation to the issue as to whether coitus is or is not an integral part of marriage
ii) If you want to argue this, please engage with the exact situation as it is argued in George's paper. If you can't do that then drop the example.
iii) Are they capable of coitus? If so they are exercising the act which points to the good.
iv) Are they capable of coitus? If so they are exercising the act which points to the good.
None of this actually grapples with the underlying question whether procreation and rearing of children is a necessary good of marriage. All you are doing is citing examples of cases which can easily be covered by George et al's paper. What you need to do is start tackling the deeper fundamental question – what is the relationship between marriage and the procreation of children?
It's the hang-up on intercourse which disturbs me, as if those who are not capable of intercourse for one reason or another, and therefore not capable of being parents – no, sorry, childbearing – should, then, not get married. That seems to be the implication.
Have you read the paper? What is your response to George et al's discussion of this matter?
I have, and I am disturbed by the hang-up on intercourse. I am not disagreeing that one reason for getting married might be to bring up a family – but i am concerned that if a man and a woman come to me to get married I need to ask, in my own mind at least, are they capable of coitus. An elderly couple might not, a disabled person might not, an impotent person might not – but I would not want to let that stop me marrying them.
Can I refer you to this reply above.
But my argument wasn't about having or not having children, it was more about having intercourse – what about husbands and wives who, for one reason or another, cannot unite bodily?
I think what George et al are pointing towards is that male and female is the only union that can perform coitus which may lead to procreation. The fact that a particular male/female union cannot perform coitus because of whatever circumstances the find themselves in does not undermine the fact that coitus, were it able to be performed, would lead to procreation. The husband and wife therefore represent the procreative potential of all marriages.
Of course, if the husband and wife have no intention to perform coitus even if they were able, then I don't think (according to George et al) that they are properly married. However, accidental (rather than purposeful) inability to perform coitus does not in anyway negate the fact of the general principle that coitus leads to procreation and that only male-female unions can perform coitus.
I'm not sure that they do imply that – they seem to talk more about infertility than inability – but I bow to your greater wisdom.
I think there is a problem for George et al in the what you say in your last paragraph. Catholic theology of marriage insists that the act of coitus – consummation – is how the sacrament of Holy Matrimony is actually bestowed on each other by the couple. But there is an exception. Where a couple takes vows of celibacy before their marriage they can still be validly married in the eyes of the Church and receive the sacrament. The origin of this idea is founded in the marriage of Mary and Joseph which Catholics believe was non-coital, but nonetheless real for all that. I would be interested what George would say about whether this was a marriage in his model, if so how he would argue for it in terms of the game. Maybe Mary and Joseph could play virtual baseball on their laptops? :-)
Unless, of course, George really is cutting himself free of Catholic sacramental theology in the promotion of his New Natural Law Ethics……..
OK, at the risk of being the annoying child in class who is trying to come up with the case where the rules don't work, hypothetically:
I am a 23 year old veteran who has been involved in an explosion. I lost both my legs and my reproductive organs. Fortunately they said "we can rebuild him, we have the technology". Unfortunately I will never be able to engage in coitus.
Can I get married to the lovely blonde girl I left at home who has stuck with me through thick and thin?
But I suppose that we need to remember what Jesus said about even thinking it is engaging in it.
Hello Peter and all,
I realise challenging the terms of discussion is a tedious way to begin… but here goes anyway… I don't think we can simply set "aside issues of infertile couples etc". After all, one way to "establish the general principle" is to apply it to different cases and see how it 'cashes out'.
A few more thoughts:
"Let’s assume we have two couples – one is other-sex and one is same-sex".
– OK. For the other-sex couple, are they going to use contraception? Am not sure if this thought 'works', but if contraception is used doesn't that make procreation inherently, not accidentally, impossible? On the other thread I suggested that Prof George at al use that distinction without arguing for why it should have moral weight. In their usage it seems that if procreation is inherently impossible, then such a relationship cannot be validly seen as a marriage. But is it the case that they don't mention contraception? I think it's worth asking how that fits into their argument. I'll look at their paper again.
"The George et al paper says that the procreation and rearing of children is one of the necessary goods of marriage and that therefore the same-sex couple cannot by definition be married because they can never procreate".
– but as I said on the previous thread, there's a little more to it, isn't there? When Prof George et al talk about infertile couples, they say that the "eesential dynamism" towards children comes from having penile-vaginal sex (see p268 I think), and that this is so regardless of whether the couple in fact have any children. So their logic seems to be that: procreation is a basic good of marriage; only penile-vaginal sex leads to procreation; therefore penile-vaginal sex is essential to a marriage. But it seems to me that when it comes to infertile (straight) couples, they want to (need to?) disrupt their own logic, because if it were followed, infertile couples would not be recognisable as married. And if sometimes penile-vaginal sex can't lead to procreation, but can still be a key part of relationship that's validly seen as a marriage, one might ask why relationships featuring sex that can't lead to procreation, cannot validly be seen as marriages…
"Can it any way by logically tenable to treat procreation and rearing of children as a good in some marriages but not others?"
– I don't think you responded when I said on the previous thread that, even setting aside any question of same-sex relationships, 'treating procreation and rearing of children as a good in some marriages but not others' is in effect the status quo.
in friendship, Blair
That is a much more eloquent way of expressing what I was trying to say about contraception.
Perhaps a helpful way of looking at this distinction that would enable us to move past the question of infertility would be to discuss the ramifications for the creation of family. If, as it were, marriage is that which creates one family–one flesh–then presumably a pro-creative orientation must be a part of the forging of that family, even if the pro-creation itself is unable to be carried out. To go back to the baseball team analogy, members of a baseball team might look like any other tight knit group of people in that they share camraderie, have a common story, talk in a similar language, and even live in a certain place. But what separates the baseball team from the other group is that the team is oriented towards the game of baseball and its telos which is winning. The others, even if they were to try to play baseball, would not share that.
Fr J, you can come back and comment any time you want!
Fr J. But if the second group, the non-professionals, decide to team up and play a game of baseball, who is to say they are not playing baseball? They may not be in the class of the Blue Jays but in the end they can have an orientation to the good of the game whose telos is winning. This is where the analogy breaks down, surely like all analogies do when pressed too hard. George et al are trying to establish more than a qualitative difference, even an ontological one, between the two groups of marriage 'players' which the baseball analogy can't provide.
I think you're misreading the analogy. There is no second group of non-professional baseball players. It refers to all baseball teams, professional or not, because all baseball teams have a telos towards winning at baseball. The other group in the analogy are all social groups who aren't baseball teams.
I see your point, but what constitutes a professional baseball team or any other team that merely meets up to play the game? Presumably a team becomes professional when enough people are prepared to pay to see them play, they give up their day-jobs and become baseball stars. But as you include ALL teams that play baseball what's to stop a group of footballers or cricketers, say, deciding to adopt baseball after all? This is where I think the analogy gets wobbly when pressed too far.
As I said above, if George stuck only to people who CAN have coitus when their junk is lined up, even if only once, he'd be on a better wicket. He knows though, that the state could never allow such discrimination in secular marriage. If George is arguing for the American state to take over Natural Law Ethics, which he is, he doesn't want to suggest that the state police the coital aspects of the marriage as closely as the Catholic Church might in the case of people who can't go through with coitus for whatever reason.
The pedant strikes again :)
…but I don't see how your comment moves things on, Fr J. You say, "If, as it were, marriage is that which creates one family–one flesh–then presumably a pro-creative orientation must be a part of the forging of that family, even if the pro-creation itself is unable to be carried out". But that seems to me to simply restate the argument of Prof George et al. And "if the pro-creation itself is unable to be carried out", why 'must' a pro-creative orientation be necessary in every case?
in friendship, Blair
The original Natural Law argument about marriage dates from the times when they knew about barrenness (in women) not the condition of infertility which is possible in either sex. It was always the woman's 'fault' if conception did not take place. But the key idea in whether a marriage was true or not lay in the act of copulation not in the successful conception. And the initial act of coitus, not the subsequent acts, sealed the marriage as sacramental. George would find it a lot easier to make his case watertight if he took this harder line an jettisoned the unfortunate couples who could not perform full coitus, like my hard-line Catholic priest did when he refused to marry the quadriplegic man.
Children are a good of marriage, maybe a longed-for one, but not a necessary one. Where George causes offence is that he thinks the biological relationship to the child is superior than an adoptive one. It does look dangerously like reducing the meaning of marriage to mere biology – a reductionism he accuses his critics of when they talk about the unitive goals being of equal or greater importance.
The Catholic Church is against IVF, but once achieved is a couple who bear DNA-related offspring non-coitally really not in the same category as those who achieved it through old-fashioned rumpy-pumpy? If George says no they are not then he must prove it. Prove that children brought up to adoptive parents are always at some kind of spiritual disadvantage to those born naturally.
"If George says no they are not then he must prove it. Prove that children brought up to adoptive parents are always at some kind of spiritual disadvantage to those born naturally."
Neither George, nor the Catholic Church, argue that children born through IVF are at any spiritual disadvantage, nor are they in any way less valuable or less human. And the coherence and correctness of the Catholic position does not depend on proving that they are.
I know that is the Catholic Church's view but I posed an 'if' statement because I read George to imply something different. Show me where I am wrong, please.
Peeps,
Let's assume then that the procreation and rearing of children is not a necessary good of marriage. How would you respond to bullets two and three above?
Don't you mean one and three?
No, I mean two or three. I guess one rather falls into redundancy having been examined and rejected in making the decision that procreation and rearing is a necessary good for all marriages.
I did make a short comment on three above… ;)
in friendship, Blair
PS. WC how do you respond to what I posted above about vowed-celibate marriage?
To kick off a thread on your first bullet point.. Not only is it known that children do best when raised by their biological parents, it's also known that children have a strong drive to identify with their biological parents.
Many single people and people in same-sex partnerships find themselves with a strong desire to have children, but doing so involves deliberately exposing those children to conditions that are likely to give them poorer childhoods and outcomes (all other things being equal) AND likely to leave them with a poor sense of identity (all other things being equal again).
This dissonance between the "good" desire to nurture children and the desire to be in a same-sex partnership shows that there is a problem with wanting to be in a same-sex partnership – it damages the "good" of nurturing children.
This problem of dissonance between sexual desires and the "goods" normally associated with sex [plus the various "bads" associated with various sexual desires] is, I think, a huge weakness in current society's liberal approach to sexuality and sexual behaviours.
Peter
Thanks for posting this paper which is one of the most carefully though out and developed arguments that I've read in favour of maintaining the traditional heterosexual understanding of marriage. I see its main strengths as being:
– Marriage is not a right. There are numerous examples of marriage being correctly restricted because it would damage its key role as a place for the raising and nuturing of children (e.g. close relatives, polygamy, polyandry).
– Marriage is rooted in the potential of a husband and wife to have children as the primary, time-tested way of raising the next generation and imparting love and strong values. In this way it is a social good.
– The lack of the fulfilment of the potential to have children does not invalidate marriage as the key defining feature of marriage is the physical complementarity of husband and wife to create a unique, permanent and faithful bond for their good as well as the good of others.
– Marriage is rooted in the physicality of this unique, permanent and faithful bond between husband and wife. We are defined as people by our bodies and we experience the world through our bodies. Other forms of relationships are not marriage as they deny the 'natural' evidence of our bodies.
I especially appreciate the way in which this argument is progressively built through the paper to, firstly, develop a very clear understand of what traditionally defined marriage is and how it provides both an individual and societal good and, secondly, to show how popular arguments in favour of same-sex marriage are rooted in misunderstanding of the role and importance of marriage. It accommplishes this without directly using religious arguments and, as you've argued, this adds a strong additional dimension to the argument in favour of traditional marriage.
However, I take the point from posters like Dave W and Tom that the argument leans heavily on natural law. And while natural law is not directly religious, it has been developed most fully within Catholic moral philosophy. And this is both a strength and weakness of the paper.
Although I am no expert on natural law and I'm certainly no theologian, I have been very convinced by the limited numder of articles that I've read. There is a 'natural order' to creation and to our relationship with it and that order points in turn to a moral order of permissible and prohibited acts.
But natural law presupposes a moral universe of purpose and morally discernible cause and effect. In short, it presupposes a biblical worldview! So the paper assumes in turn that the majority of people understand and share this biblical worldview.
Now I certainly think that would have been a correct assumption 100 or possibly even 50 years ago. But in this day and age, certainly in Europe and North America (E&NA), I do not think that the majority of people any longer have a clear understanding of what the worldview of the Bible is, let alone share it!
Let me give you an example that leapt out at me right at the start of the paper.
Revisionist View: Marriage is the union of two people (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who commit to romantically loving and caring for each other and to sharing the burdens and benefits of domestic life. It is essentially a union of hearts and minds, enhanced by whatever forms of sexual
intimacy both partners find agreeable. The state should recognize and regulate marriage because it has an interest in stable romantic partnerships and in the concrete needs of spouses and any children they may choose to rear.
I genuinely think that in our post-Christian culture in E&NA this is now the majority cultural view of marriage. It is based upon romantic love (the Victorians have alot to answer for) rather than the Bible. It provides an unstable foundation for marriage as it does not provide the resources for working through difficulties in marriage rather than separating. But it is a fair reflection, I think, of what most E&NA people now believe about marriage.
And as the paper is based upon a development, defence and amplification of the benefits of the traditional definition of marriage, it suffers right at the start from incorrect assumptions about the post-Christian culture to which it is speaking. It is an elegantly phrased and powerful argument that may well change the views of some secular E&NA people for which the cultural inheritance provided by Christianity is still important. But, much as I might wish it to be so, it is not a game-changer! E&NA culture has already drifted too far from its Christian moorings.
Philip, I think you're quite right about the strengths and the weaknesses of this. It's a problem I find that I'm constantly turning over in my mind, how to make the completely secular, pluralistic case for the morality of this or that aspect of family life. But while it is possible to make a moral argument that is free of overtly religious concepts or language, it is next to impossible to get outside of the framework from which such concepts and language spring.
You note quite rightly that the modern understanding of marriage is based on romantic love and a couple's agreement to keep a home for their mutual fulfillment. Sex and the raising of children, while highly regarded for what they bring to that vision of marriage, are not inherent to it. This is what marriage has to look like in a world without God.
Note, I'm not suggesting that everyone who believes in this vision of marriage is secular. There are plenty of people who believe in God, who would even identify as Christians, who nevertheless opt for the secular view of marriage as outlined. But in a pluralistic society in which the decision has been made prior to the fact that no worldview is better than any other, all decision making must come down to the lowest common denominator. So the rules for marriage must be such that those who hold a Christian worldview are not privileged over those who hold a secular materialist worldview. The result is that the secular materialist worldview is enshrined in law, because the assumption is that the Christian can still have his kind of marriage in the secular materialist society while the secular materialist cannot have his kind of marriage in the Christian society. But the assumption is wrong on two counts. First, because the reality is that Christian marriage becomes much more difficult to maintain in a secular materialist society. But second, and most importantly, because the initial assumption upon which the whole system is based is false. Worldviews are not all equal. The idea that all worldviews are equal is in and of itself a worldview, and therefore it defeats itself on its face.
What I fear, much more than changes in the law that relate to marriage and family, is what happens when the other strands of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition are unwoven from our societies, as they will necessarily have to be if the "all worldviews are equal" worldview continues to hold sway. How do you keep people from taking life arbitrarily in a society in which it is impossible to argue that life has intrinsic value?
Fr.J
I fully agree with you that the real issue is not gay marriage per se. As you say, the view that one has of marriage will depend upon the worldview that you have. And the key issue, at least in Europe and North America (E&NA) is one of contested worldviews in which both legislation and cultural practice are quite rapidly coming to assume a supposedly neutral, but in fact secular materialist worldview.
Although I'm British, I actually live in South Africa and work as a development economist in a variety of countries in southern and eastern Africa. African Christianity has many problems and there is also much spiritual immaturity, as you would expect in a continent where Christianity has only reached throughout in the last 150 years. However, some of the most clear-sighted and committed Christians that I have met have been on the African continent.
I am frankly shocked when I visit the UK and talk with mainstream Christians that I know. There seems to be such limited understanding of a biblical worldview of creation, people and God, the relationship between them, and the implications that result. The talk is all of love and compassion and witness into a secular culture, without, it seems to me, any deep understanding of the principles upon which that love, compassion and witness must be based. Far too many people have lost any real understanding of a biblical worldview and the resulting claims of Christ over people, culture and the world in which we live.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is no such thing as a neutral worldview. It is this type of nonsense, in my view, that is busy privileging secular materialism in E&NA. I am always most interested in the ideas and presuppositions that underly any belief because it is out of these that actions will be developed. Here's a quote that I often like to slip into these sorts of discussions:
J.M. Keynes, ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’: ‘Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slave of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. …. Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or ill’.
Try as I might I cannot get round the logic error of the position. It is stating the obvious that children are the product of heterosexual rather than homosexual relationships. It is not at all clear from the paper nor any of the above discussion why the word marriage must be limited only to such relationships nor why the raising of children must be restricted to them.
As the to claim that children do best when raised in a heterosexual again I fail to see the relevance to the world in which we live. Not all children CAN be raised by heterosexual couples so even if that claim is true it may be better for some children to have loving homosexual parents rather than none at all.
Also I think we need to be careful about yet another naturalistic fallacy. Having homosexual parents may not be the best at present because of the still largely negative attitude of society and culture to homosexuality. The present state of affairs should not be used to define morality – an 'is' shouldn't define an 'ought'.
Is there no-one who, disagreeing with the idea of the procreation and rearing of children as one of the goods of marriage, wants to tackle the bullet points in the original post? The impression is that no-one wants to deal with the implications of their position.
I am hovering on the word 'necessary' in the bullet points. If we substitute 'essential' then I think you do get into trouble with the marriages that can't or won't have children. One of the things Eve Tushnet says (see my post to Niall on the Civil Partnerships thread) is that Pope John Paul in his writing about the body discusses the first childless marriage – that or Adam and Eve in Eden before the Fall. She doesn't say it but I have a vague idea that some of the Church Fathers thought that sex was a consequence of the Fall….and thus children! I am sure you parents with two-year olds might at times be tempted to think so.
So if the adamic marriage is the ideal it was created for him so he would not be alone (not to have children). John Hare points out that when God offered him a partner to be with him he offered every animal, bird and finally woman. But the choice was Adam's, not God's.
So from that perspective I think we are led to the conclusion that children are a good but not a necessary one.
OK, so saying it is one of the essentials of marriage means you accept that a same-sex couple cannot therefore be "married" (even if they have, say, a civil union of some kind)?
No, I didn't say that. I hope I didn't imply it either. I was pushing the definition to destruction, if you like, to show it won't work. When Adam chose woman that was his choice not God's – a possible consequence of this selection of a mate might have been different. What if he'd chosen Steve not Eve – then they'd still be in Eden!
Peter
I guess what I'm trying to say, unfortunately, is that our E&NA post-Christian culture has left your three bullets behind. We're not speaking the same language as we do not have the same worldviews. The Christian culture of a 100 years ago, despite having weaknesses and blind spots in many areas, had the virtue of nurturing and protecting marriage as an individual and social good. Because there was a a broadly shared culture of marriage being a social norm that protected the foundation of society through the having and raising of children, people were encouraged and supported to follow this social norm.
But your three bullets are asking questions that can only be answered coherently with the presupposition of a biblical worldview. And, as abundantly clear from many of the posts on this thread, many people do not accept the idea of biblical norms that are valuable for individuals and society.
In short, we need to transform the culture to transform the debate! And that means going to foundational principles of how we view ourselves, God, culture and society and the relationship between them.
Bullet Point One is irrelevant. If reliable research shows that this is the case there are many possible reasons why it is so and it doesn't follow that it need be caused by the very existence of same-sex marriages. A society which accepts same-sex marriage on a par with heterosexual marriage could be equally proactive in encouraging good parenting regardless of sexuality.
Bullet Point Two. Society has moved on. The state's responsibility is to support and protect children based on a 'Rights and Responsibilities' agenda. It is not for the state to discriminate on the basis of the moral principles of one group or section in society.
Bullet Point Three. Not in terms of reaction. Children, and the relationships which produced them, should be treated equally. There may well be different kinds/forms of marriage (stating the obvious again) but it is not for the state to discriminate in any detailed manner above and b beyond the basic protection of human rights. Marriages should be freely entered into, with legal provision for just divorce with as little interference from the state as possible.
On the contrary, bullet point one is completely relevant. Same-sex partnerships are by their very nature not capable of creating children, which is an essential characteristic of marriage, so they just aren't the same as marriage. Just because many married couples can't, or don't want to, have children does not remove that essential characteristic .
However, as Philip argues, I think that that sort of reasoning is foreign to most people in E&NA. We probably need to start at least one step back and argue from the essential differences between men and women as individuals, before going on to point out that because women and men are different types of human being the union of one man and one woman is different from a partnership of two men or two women.
That you need one man and one woman to create children is possibly the easiest argument to make for this view, but there are several others: eg men and women have different essential characteristics (which complement each other), a union of one man and one woman together connect the two halves of humanity etc etc.
The obvious counter argument is that men and women are not all the same, and that everybody expresses some feminine characteristics and some masculine characteristics.. But I think most people would, in reality, know of few people they would say are actually more like someone of the opposite sex than their own, and if they do know someone like that they might well wonder what has affected them in that way.
Fortunately modern science is coming to our aid on this. The Independent (hardly right wing) recently reported scientific work that measures why "men and women show differences in behaviour". It turns out that "their brains are physically distinct organs … Male and female brains appear to be constructed from markedly different genetic blueprints." <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/womens-brains-uareu-different-from-mens-ndash-and-heres-scientific-proof-870849.html” target=”_blank”>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/womens-brains-uareu-different-from-mens-ndash-and-heres-scientific-proof-870849.html
Hello David,
but some kinds of sex between a man and a woman, including any where contraception is used, are inherently unable to create children, and yet they are still deemed validly part of marriage. What is the moral difference between these, and same-sex sex in an adult partnership?
"because women and men are different types of human being the union of one man and one woman is different from a partnership of two men or two women"… there's debate to be had there I think, partly about what "different" means in that context. Different but equal in worth, because the same kind of self-giving could be embodied in each? Different but inferior? Different in a way not meriting legal recognition? etc…
Lastly, one article may not be enough to bolster your case on gender – the book linked to below, apparently suggests the science can be read rather differently:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-…
in friendship, Blair
Hi Blair
To answer your questions:
1. I was talking about the essential characteristic of same-sex partnerships. – that they cannot naturally produced children of their own (even if they are both fertile, and want to have children). That's nothing to do with sex acts.
2. Obviously everyone is equal, we are all human beings! But there are two different forms of human being – a female is not just a feminine male (see above for some supporting data). So a male-female marriage is different in its essence to a male-male or a female-female partnership. Not just because it could potentially give rise to the next generation.
ps The probem with Fine, and many people with an axe to grind nowadays, is that they insist on simplistic either-or outcomes to debates. She is obviously right that culture and upbringing affect every area of our behaviour and even our characteristics (including our sexuality – the evidence actually points to a much greater effect of upbringing, culture and experiences than genetics!) BUT that doesn't mean that males and females are the same – they are measurably different physically, brainwise and emotionally etc etc etc..
Peter,
I felt my original comment did address the bullet points, but I'll try again.
First, I believe that procreation and rearing of children are goods of marriage, just not essential nor the only goods of marriage.
Peter, I think Andrew Holden has answered this beautifully just above your comment.
If same sex couples have not been allowed to marry and rear children then how can we claim it has been proven to not work.
The reality is that many children have been reared "successfully" by couples other than their birth parents from grandparents, to other relatives, to adopted or foster parents.
This bullet point is based on a very modernist view of the family. In the past children were reared within an extended family, in fact to a large extent by the whole community (especially true I would think in poorer communities).
Sorry this implies a view of British law that is without foundation, it is not some benevolent, perfect and independent thing guiding us. The law relating to marriage and children came from property law with key concerns about inheritance. It is about the wife being seen as property (given away by father …) it is about giving legal protection to the children of a marriage when there were likely to be many children born outside that marriage.
You can't build a view of what marriage should be about from these laws.
a) There are always different forms of marriage because we are all unique and we believe created that way by God. Jane and I have a unique marriage, our God given personalities, gifts and graces are a different mix to every other marriage there has ever been. The things that are "goods" in our marriage are different (maybe in subtle ways) from others.
b) The bullet point is not responding to the criticisms of this paper. For example I am not saying "good in some marriages but not others" I am saying "not essential good" and "not only good". We need to have multiple and varied "forms" of marriage already to cope with complex situations (adoption, marrying a widow with children being two that even the strictest understanding of "procreation and child rearing as essential good" would recognise).
c) If we believe that marriage is good then we need to encourage all who are married to see it as that so that we encourage marriages of equals, where there is lifelong, love, companionship, fidelity, sex, … This will create a good stable, strong place in which to bring up children.
I wonder if we can turn around your point and say that "rearing children is not an essential good of marriage" but that the essential goods of marriage (love, companionship, fidelity, lifelong etc) create a family which is a good place to rear children.
The paper says a great number of things about marriage as it is traditionally understood between one man and one woman for life as the basis for family life and the raising of children. I have no problem with any of this – and indeed rejoice in it particularly as it applies very much to me!
That said I am so completely not threatened by the notion that same-sex couples, who similarly contract to love each other exclusively and for life should call their relationship a marriage. Even if the sex they enjoy cannot bring children into this world the love that it represents and nurtures can provide a great context for children to be raised. My marriage is not changed, undermined or denied if they can use the same term.
Of course I could insist that this would be a redefining and extension of what marriage traditionally meant and refuse to allow it. Can't think of any reason at all to be so ungracious, personally.
Gay marriage will not have any effect on marriage in the same way that large wodges of counterfeit money will have no effect on the economy, eh Andrew?
Huge wodges, Jill? I thought the whole gay population was supposed to be about 1% of the whole. I doubt if 100% of gay people is likely to want a marriage, so even if your analogy of counterfeit coining could be made to work, what amount of wodge are we actually looking at?
I should have thought that the real danger to marriage was in continuing a situation where we have two currencies but only one is acknowledged as genuine. If they are both legal and valid you can have a proper rate of exchange (respect and understanding) between them without any problem.
Perhaps we should be more worried by the much greater numbers of people who don't get married or enter into any real relational commitment and those who do so with no real understanding of or commitment to the Christian foundation of marriage.
Same-sex couples who wish to enter into a formal, lifelong intended and legally committed relationship with the blessing of God and the Church are no threat whatsoever to anyone – whatever that realationship gets called.
I beg your pardon – should have said large wodges.
By the time you have factored in all the other kinds of relationship which are not the 'one man/one woman for life' model (which it would now seem to be impossible to refuse using the same criteria) it could end up a very large wodge indeed – even a huge one! :)
Jill, surely the currency of marriage isn't endangered so much by those wishing to join it but rather by those who are already in the 'zone' – i.e the heterosexuals' own ever-increasing divorce rate?
An interesting article by Judith Maltby appeared in the Guardian yesterday:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/20…
But they are not envisaged in prospective legislation.
Just wait a few years and they will be!
On what do you base that prediction, Philip? A number of countries have had gay marriage for several years now, and they’re not doing that, so what makes you think that we’re going to do it here in the UK?
Actually, I’m one of those odd gay people who DON’T think it’s a particularly brilliant idea to call gay relationships marriages, notwithstanding my 100% approval of the civil partnership provisions that we now have in the UK. The fact is that a gay relationship, whether legally registered or not, can’t be precisely the same as a heterosexual one because there is one obvious difference: a heterosexual relationship is mixed-sex, whereas a gay relationship is same-sex. We often like to say that we’re just the same as straight people, and that’s broadly true, but we ARE different from the majority in just one respect, and we should never apologise for that difference or try to pretend that it doesn’t exist. In fact, I think that it can be argued that to do so is to imply that there is something wrong with that difference; there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. As the late Thomas Szasz observed, to argue for the acceptance of a minority on the ground that it resembles the majority implies a denial of the minority’s right to be different. A gay relationship is a positively good thing precisely for what it is; we simply don’t need to give it any spurious “validation” by pretending that it’s the same as a straight one or by describing it in heterosexual terms. I agree with the Danish professor of theology who, at the time when civil unions were introduced in Denmark, remarked, “I think it is important to accept oneself as a minority and not to try to be just as all the others.” I don’t follow the argument that saying that a gay relationship is a different thing devalues it. It doesn’t, any more than it’s devaluing a straight relationship to say that it can never be exactly the same as a gay one.
William
Take a trip back up to my comment to Father J. a few days ago on 25th Feb and read my quote from Keynes. Ideas are the most important resource that people have, for good or ill. And, in our post-modern age, the ideas that transform society are developed first in academia and then promoted heavily by lobbying groups and political and media elites until they become received knowledge and are implemented. To see the ideas coming out of academia and the media to further transform relationships and their status, you can go to:
Here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i…
Or, famously, here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2002/jan/0…
Or, even more infamously, here: http://www.nerve.com/content/heavy-petting
Now, I will fully agree with you if you assert that some of these ideas are very far removed from the mainstream. But that's not the point. Significant intellectuals and media figures are arguing that relationships that are still seen as morally wrong are, in fact, right, or at least to be tolerated. And, while these types of relationships are very different from same-sex relationships, the arguments that are being used are very similar to the arguments used to promote same-sex relationships as morally right and to be protected.
You see, that's what happens when you remove objective morality from the equation. Fallen, sinful human beings are quite capable of arguing themselves into a corner where wrong becomes right!
I'm now 50 years old and I expect to see legal frameworks, possibly civil marriage, in place for polyamorous relationships in many E&NA countries before I die. Legal frameworks for incestuous or bestial relationships I expect to take much longer – the public taboos against these types of relationships are very strong. But, like I said in my earlier post, give it time!
I fully agree with you that gay relationships are different to straight relationships, although we almost certainly disagree about whether this is a good or a bad thng! FWIW, that is why I'm in favour of civil partnerships for gays, but not marriage, on the basis that stable relationships are good for everyone, gay or straight.
And, as gay relationships go mainstream, evidence is beginning to emerge that they are, on average, very different. (H/T a good recent article by Lisa Nolland at 'Anglican Mainstream' for many of the references). For instance:
1. Very low proportions of gays and lesbians choose a legal framework for their relationship in countries or states where same-sex marriage or civil union is available: http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/imapp.demandfor…
2. Gay legal partnerships are relatively short-lived. A study of homosexual couples in Holland found that same-sex unions lasted an average of 18 months and included an average of eight additional sex partners outside the relationship. http://www.crosswalk.com/1410340/ (To be fair, I can't find the original study).
3. 'Cmmitted' gay relationships are radically different from married couples in many respects, including relationship duration, monogamy vs. promiscuity, relationship commitment, health risks, and rates of intimate partner violence. http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02 (In this case, an extensive list of fully-referenced studies is attached to this article to back these conclusions).
4. The much-cited 'Couples Study' of gay couples from the Bay area of San Francisco followed 556 male couples for three years and found that about 50% of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners. New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.ht… 'Couples Study' website at http://www.thecouplesstudy.com/
And to turn to the views of prominant gay Christians:
1. The, again infamous, Changing Attitude report 'Sexual Ethics' does not insist on sexual faithfulness for Christians. Serial relationships are seen as normal for many gay people, and sexual infidelity is presented positively (p. 10). The report does not insist that sex belongs in faithful relationships, stating '(We) think it is important to remain open to the possibility that brief and loving sexual engagement between mature adults in special circumstances can be occasions of grace' (p.11). It also argues that 'the exploration of our sexual selves can be something which benefits from involvement with more than one person' (p. 11). http://www.changingattitude.org.uk/publications/P…
2. Andrew Sullivan, the gay Roman Catholic writer, sees sexual non-monogamy as necessary for gays in 'Virtually Normal' (1995): ‘There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman’. He believes that gay relationships are more honest, equal and flexible (a similarity with the beliefs of the 'Couples Study', and therefore improve on the ‘stifling’ heterosexual marriage (pp. 202-3). In May 2006 Sullivan repeated the need for sexual ‘outlets’, because ‘monogamy is very hard for men, straight or gay’. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_d…
For the avoidance of doubt, none of the references above negate the possibility of 'committed, loving and faithful' gay relationships, especially no doubt amongst you good people posting regularly here on Peter's site!
But they do offer significant evidence that gay and lesbian relationships, 'committed' or otherwise, are, ON AVERAGE, significantly more likely to be promiscuous, short in duration, abusive and injurious to mental well-being and health.
And I humbly submit that at the very least, such evidence should make us think much more deeply about the impact that same-sex marriage will have on the institution itself and the individual, societal and legal expectations that arise from it!
Philip, that people – even significant intellectuals and media figures – are arguing in favour of something does NOT mean that it’s going to happen, even if their arguments are appearing in academic journals.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when homosexual behaviour had recently been partially de-criminalized, paedophiles started arguing that sexual behaviour between adults and children should likewise be de-criminalized. Some people in the gay community were misguided enough to lend support to their arguments, as were some significant intellectuals and media figures outside the gay community. Articles favouring “the paedophile case” even appeared in academic journals. As a matter of fact, I don’t think that this was entirely a bad thing. It meant not only that the subject was brought out into the open, but that the practices of paedophiles and their effects on children were scrutinized as never before.
Now, a few decades on, what has happened? The general public opposition to paedophile practices has, if anything, hardened, and I think I’m right in saying – although I haven’t made a close study of the subject – that the legal penalties for sexual offences against children are more severe than ever. Furthermore, the covering up of such offences by institutions like schools and churches, which was once quite a widespread practice, has become far more difficult.
William
I pretty much agree with your comment here in toto but I don't think that it negates anything that I argued. For the particular sexual practice that you discuss – paedophilia – I think two things were going on.
I agree that child sexual abuse was widely covered up in the 1970s and earlier. Indeed, I've commented elsewhere about the hypocrisy and double-standards in the media treatment of the Catholic sexual abuse cases at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/20… (But let's keep on track :-)
When knowledge about the extent and pervasiveness of sexual abuse became widespread, people were quite rightly horrified and I think that you're right that 'the general public opposition to paedophile practices has, if anything, hardened'. That's why I expect it to be a long time before there is public acceptance of adult-child sexual relationships.
But, in my view, there is a deeper, more powerful and more historically rooted trend going on over the top of the case of paedophilia. Europe and North America (E&NA) is in a long-term retreat from Christian belief and a Christian worldview. Having been instrumental in the giving of the gospel to the world, E&NA are now in the process of rejecting the gospel just as it deepens and begins to take hold in the rest of the world. The consequences will be immense.
The Christian belief that we are made in the image of God and that we should respect one another through our sexual behaviour is one of the greatest gifts to society and culture. It is the main reason why we had rejected behaviour that was widely tolerated in the Ancient World, including homosexuality, orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide.
I quite deliberately say 'had rejected' because through the process of rejecting Christ, E&NA culture is now quite rapidly moving back into tolerance, and then acceptance, of many of these practices under the guise of 'sexual freedom'. While each sexual practice is of course very different, the arguments used are very similar, namely that the state should not interfere between 'sexual relations between consenting adults that hurt nobody'.
It sounds such a liberal, tolerant viewpoint, doesn't it? And it is one with which I have much sympathy – certainly the state, in alliance with established Christianity – oppressed gay people in many E&NA countries up until the legalisation of same-sex relationships from the '60's onwards. In my view, the state should stay out of the regulation of adult relationships as much as possible. It rarely, if ever, gets in right!
The 'sexual revolution' and the liberal-left movement for personal sexual choice and freedom has had an almost uninterrupted sequance of success since it arose out of New Left thinking in the 1960's. The legalisation of homosexuality and abortion and the institution of 'no-fault' divorce are some of the major changes that have resulted. And the campaigning approaches used to win these changes have been very similar …
1. Highlight the way that ordinary people are hurt by restrictive legislation through no fault of their own, despite relatively small numbers being detrimentally affected. Ensure that publically prominant examples are as sympathetic as possible, prefereably well educated, articulate and middle class.
2. Develop and launch a public campaign to repeal or change legislation, backed by well-known and respected public names. Paint any opposition as bigoted, narrow-minded and 'out-of-touch' with what is really happening in society. Emphasis that the proposed changes are 'reasonable' and publish opinion polls that show how the public is so much in favour of these liberal and tolerant changes. Stress that changing legislation will not lead to a massive impact on society because we should 'trust the people' who are reasonable and forward-thinking.
3. Win, and move onto the next target!
This approach has won successes in legislation change that have had a massively detrimental impact on society. The legalisation of abortion and 'no-fault' divorce especially have led to an explosive increase in, respectively, the numbers of abortions and divorces with all the consequant damage to people, their families and society at large.
You see, the state cannot legislate for people to be good. That can only come from inside – from deeply held beliefs and values. Unless the hearts of people change, through deep repentance and the full regeneration of the soul that only Christ can bring in full, then their behaviour will not change. And, as I argued earlier, sinful human beings have an inbuilt tendency to justify and excuse self-centred and selfish behaviour.
If you want to look at a sexual practice where change in society is happening really fast, I suggest that polyamory, not paedophilia, is the best example. The campaign to persuade us that such behaviour is 'normal', and in fact a bit 'cool', is in full swing (if you'll pardon the pun!) There's a whole swathe of articles about nice, middle class people who are just like the people next door, wlak the dog, etc. Oh, and they just happen to also be polyamorous, did I mention it? I think it's just a couple of decades, at most, before there are legal frameworks for polyamorous relationships in place in E&NA.
I agree with you that just because 'people – even significant intellectuals and media figures – are arguing in favour of something does NOT mean that it’s going to happen'. I'm no historical determinist! But I do believe that their arguments for accepting the sexual practices that I listed earlier are with the grain of major movements in society away from Christian belief and practice. Short or (more likely very) long, I believe that E&NA society will see firstly acceptance, and then tolerance, of incestuous, adult-child and bestial relationships in that order.
Based on this strong movement away from the Christian faith in E&NA, I think that same-sex marriage will be legalised in most of E&NA during the current decade. And I expect an impact in society very similar to previous sexually liberal changes. The relatively small proportion of, mostly religious, gay people who want 'committed, loving and faithful' relationships will be blessed and will be outstanding and much heralded examples of the benefits of same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, the common features and proclaimed benefits of so many gay relationships, 'open marriage' and promiscuity, will influence straight marriage: 'After all, everyone's doing it!'. The result will be hurt and damaged people and families, similar to the social wreckage that resulted from 'no-fault' divorce.
I am more inclined to believe Professor John Bowker who said "Religions will destroy the planet".
For those who don't know, Bowker is Canon of St Edmundsbury, an Anglican priest and worldwide authority in Religious Studies.
Professor John Bowker seems to regard religion as a human creation rather than divine revelation. From an Independent articel at http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/john-bowker-….
'Among those discoveries was the realisation that while religion is clearly man-made it is much more than a human achievement. Certainly, God was invented and states of Enlightenment were invented'.
So, clearly not an orthodox Christian then, whatever his academic credentials!
But Philip, why does that mean he's wrong about religions destroying the planet?
It doesn't! But you quoted him as a Canon as well as a professor and hence a member of the church. I was merely pointing out that he is not an orthodox Christian but a theologically liberal one. And not just a theologically liberal one but seemingly one who believes that religion is a human creation, more like the 'Sea of Faith' movement. (see http://www.sofn.org.uk/ where the front page reads like a 'Who's Who' of Guardian CiF Belief).
I believe that liberal theology is a curse on the church of God. It is fundamentally rooted in Enlightenment philosophy rather than divine revelation. It takes the secular humanist principle that knowledge is only that which can be proved empirically, and uses it to attack the idea of God as omnipotent, omniscient, merciful and loving. But it has assumed God away (or at least all the characteristics that make him God) in this assumption of empiricism. It is fundamentally dishonest and hence one of the key tasks of the orthodox Christian, in my view, is to argue against it whenever it rears its ugly head!
Philip
I think you have misread John Bowker's article. True he does say
"Among those discoveries was the realisation that while religion is clearly man-made it is much more than a human achievement. Certainly, God was invented and states of Enlightenment were invented." But please go back and read the whole paragraph.
"The Inventions of Religion.
From this account, it can be seen that religions are among the greatest of all human achievements. When Christopher Hitchens launched his 'case against religion' (God is Not Great, London, Atlantic Books, 2007), he wrote (p.10): "The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made."
But what else could it possibly be? Religions are the consequence of human explorations of themselves and of their environment, as equally of their determination to protect and transmit to others (including the next generation) the extraordinary brilliance of their discoveries.
Among those discoveries was the realisation that while religion is clearly man-made it is much more than a human achievement. Certainly, God was invented and states of Enlightenment were invented.
But the Latin word invenio means 'I come into'. To invent something does not necessarily mean 'to make up some kind of fiction'. It may mean to come into something that was waiting there to be found. In that sense, Columbus invented America, but America was there waiting for him to come into it. The same is true of scientific invention. What our ancestors found, and what we can still find today, is that in the discovery of God or of Enlightenment, God and Enlightenment are already there waiting to be discovered.
Religions are important for just this reason: they are the context and the consequence of the most mind-blowing discoveries about human nature and destiny. Both God and Enlightenment offer themselves to us in such a way that they take us far beyond anything we could possibly have achieved on our own. There may be hard work and discipline involved, but fundamentally we have to receive them as gift. Religion is certainly man-made. Its consequence is beyond anything that we, in our transient generations, could construct: that which endures when all else passes away."
"I invent" from Latin invenio = I come into. So I come upon something that was there all the time NOT I make it up. What he means when he says religions are man-made is simply that the outer manifestations, the rituals of worship, the organisation of teachings, the theology, the structures, the scriptures are all man-made. Some religions try to skirt round this – Angel Jibril dictated the words of the Holy Qur'an to Mohamed, the Angel Moroni delivered the Golden Plates to the Prophet Joseph Smith, but ultimately a HUMAN transmission and subsequent interpretation has to be involved.
Bowker has one of the finest minds in the Church of England today and is one of its subtlest and deeper thinkers, which some say is why he has not been made a bishop :-) You suggest he has something to do with the Sea of Faith. This is a mistake. He has nothing to do with that movement. Don Cupitt, another Cambridge don and Anglican parson, is the doyen of SOF which was set up following his TV series of the same name screened in the 70s.
So, I urge you to read the whole article through to see how well the argument for religion is made.
"….religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in which the One greater than ourselves is recognised as God and as the uncreated Creator of all that is, the One who continues in being whether this universe happens to be here or not."
Yet bear in mind that he is writing it with his professor of Religious hat on rather than his Anglican priest's.
Philip,
I do not believe it is helpful or accurate to group homosexuality with orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide. Putting homosexuality in that collection of behaviours appears to me a denial of your first sentence. Theologically my understanding is that all people are created in the image of God. If a person is created in the image of God as gay then by denying them an expression of the way they have been created through a lifelong, committed, loving, supportive relationship is wrong.
You may want to challenge the medical and scientific evidence and claim that homosexuality is not created (ie reject orientation). However, if you do so then you still need to respond to intersex, clearly people with a variety of intersex conditions have not learned or chosen to be the people they are – it is there at birth. If you reject same sex marriage because you choose to put homosexuality with sexual orgies and the like then how do you respond to people created in the image of God as neither obviously male nor female?
You’re absolutely right, Dave. But the thing is that there’s nothing to stop anyone from arbitrarily putting homosexuality in any collection of behaviours that they choose. Or one can do the opposite. For instance, on the basis of Philip’s reasoning and the example of Hitler’s Germany, one can group the REJECTION of homosexuality with torture, concentration camps, cruel experiments on humans and genocide.
Dave
>>I do not believe it is helpful or accurate to group homosexuality with orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide.<<i>>Putting homosexuality in that collection of behaviours appears to me a denial of your first sentence. Theologically my understanding is that all people are created in the image of God. If a person is created in the image of God as gay<>You may want to challenge the medical and scientific evidence and claim that homosexuality is not created (ie reject orientation).<>how do you respond to people created in the image of God as neither obviously male nor female?<<
We live in a world that has been damaged by sin. And, despite the image of God in all of us, that reality is not going to disappear this side of glory! So some people, through the sin that warps all of creation, will be born intersex. I am very sympathetic to the plight of intersex people and I am open to the potential of corrective surgery and therapy. Much sensitive counselling and support is undoubtedly needed for the intersexed Christian.
But God does not promise us an easy life, or a life free from the effects of sin. He also asks difficult tasks of many people in the Bible, including in our intimate relationships. Hosea was called to marry a prostitute as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. Ezekiel had to face God telling him that his wife would be killed the same day, and then to not mourn, again as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. But these prophets always had the sustaining love of God, who came very close to them and sustained them in these trials. And the intersex Christian has access to the same loving and compassionate God.
Dave
Something strange happened on the first posting of the reply to you. Sorry!
>>I do not believe it is helpful or accurate to group homosexuality with orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide.<<i>>Putting homosexuality in that collection of behaviours appears to me a denial of your first sentence. Theologically my understanding is that all people are created in the image of God. If a person is created in the image of God as gay<>You may want to challenge the medical and scientific evidence and claim that homosexuality is not created (ie reject orientation).<>how do you respond to people created in the image of God as neither obviously male nor female?<<
We live in a world that has been damaged by sin. And, despite the image of God in all of us, that reality is not going to disappear this side of glory! So some people, through the sin that warps all of creation, will be born intersex. I am very sympathetic to the plight of intersex people and I am open to the potential of corrective surgery and therapy. Much sensitive counselling and support is undoubtedly needed for the intersexed Christian.
But God does not promise us an easy life, or a life free from the effects of sin. He also asks difficult tasks of many people in the Bible, including in our intimate relationships. Hosea was called to marry a prostitute as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. Ezekiel had to face God telling him that his wife would be killed the same day, and then to not mourn, again as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. But these prophets always had the sustaining love of God, who came very close to them and sustained them in these trials. And the intersex Christian has access to the same loving and compassionate God.
Well, Philip, you may believe that these things are going to happen. While claiming no paranormal powers of precognition, I don't.
Just a quickie – I’ve had computer problems – spot on, Philip. BTW, how on earth did you manage to get that post to stick in the Grauniad? I have had several attempts at posting similar and have been deleted almost immediately, and am now banned! They don’t like people to read the John Jay report, that’s for sure.
And William – ‘sexual fluidity’ is the future. Polygamy and polyamory are well on their way.
Jill
It was at the back end of a thread and became a short, sharp exchange between me and a couple of atheists. I don't think the moddies were watching :-)
Dave
My reply to you is still doing funny computer things so I'll try a brand new post!
>>I do not believe it is helpful or accurate to group homosexuality with orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide.<<i>>Putting homosexuality in that collection of behaviours appears to me a denial of your first sentence. Theologically my understanding is that all people are created in the image of God. If a person is created in the image of God as gay<>You may want to challenge the medical and scientific evidence and claim that homosexuality is not created (ie reject orientation).<>how do you respond to people created in the image of God as neither obviously male nor female?<<
We live in a world that has been damaged by sin. And, despite the image of God in all of us, that reality is not going to disappear this side of glory! So some people, through the sin that warps all of creation, will be born intersex. I am very sympathetic to the plight of intersex people and I am open to the potential of corrective surgery and therapy. Much sensitive counselling and support is undoubtedly needed for the intersexed Christian.
But God does not promise us an easy life, or a life free from the effects of sin. He also asks difficult tasks of many people in the Bible, including in our intimate relationships. Hosea was called to marry a prostitute as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. Ezekiel had to face God telling him that his wife would be killed the same day, and then to not mourn, again as a witness of Israel's unfaithfulness. But these prophets always had the sustaining love of God, who came very close to them and sustained them in these trials. And the intersex Christian has access to the same loving and compassionate God.
Dave
Try again – in a sequence of short posts this time!
>>I do not believe it is helpful or accurate to group homosexuality with orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide.<<
I do not believe that it is helpful to take a quote out of context to make it appear that I say things, when I don't! When I say things, I mean them to say exactly what I mean – neither more nor less! My full sentence was: 'It is the main reason why we had rejected behaviour that was widely tolerated in the Ancient World, including homosexuality, orgies, the sexual abuse of women and infanticide'. If you don't agree with this statement then please feel free to argue against it. But do not take a quote out of context to imply that my view is that these behaviours are equivalent, when I clearly stated elsewhere in the same post that I do not!.
I also argued that:
'While each sexual practice is of course very different, the arguments used are very similar'.
and
'The state, in alliance with established Christianity, oppressed gay people in many E&NA countries up until the legalisation of same-sex relationships from the ’60′s onwards'.
I believe that it is abundantly clear that the main point that I was making was that there are strong similarities in the campaigning style for the liberalisation of legislation on different sexual practices, while these practices are very different.
But I certainly did state that one of the campaign styles adopted is to: 'Paint any opposition as bigoted, narrow-minded and ‘out-of-touch’ with what is really happening in society'. And, in my humble opinion, I regard your selective quoting of my views as an excellent illustration of this type of tactic!
Philip,
I was not trying to take anything out of context, but simply to take a very long comment by you and respond to it.
I do not find your arguments at all convincing and was trying to express that in a respectful way. In no way was I painting you as bigoted etc.
I find it very unhelpful to make these generalisations and claim similarities between campaigns. It makes your arguments appear to be based on "slippery slope" or "thin end of the wedge" which I reject. Well I reject except that if we are on a slippery slope towards justice for all people then yippee, lets gets sliding!
My interest in the original paper comes from a passion for justice rooted in scripture not from a desire to campaign for Polygamy and polyamory as Jill suggests.
I believe that suggesting any relationship between support for same sex marriage and support for sexual abuse, poly* etc is deeply unhelpful. That is why I responded to that part of your comment. It is why I am responding now as it still appears that you want to link these things.
Apology accepted! I could give you analogies between the claims that there would be few abortions, or divorces for that matter, after the passage of liberalisation of legislation, and the claims that same-sex marriage will make gays more faithful!
But I won't! Partly because it's gone midnight her in South Africa and it's time for my beddy-byes! But mostly because because I have just watched my beloved West Brom save a point at Stoke at the death. And I want to go to bed happy!
Good night and god bless!
>>Putting homosexuality in that collection of behaviours appears to me a denial of your first sentence. Theologically my understanding is that all people are created in the image of God. If a person is created in the image of God as gay<<
Ah, but that's immediately where we part company, isn't it? I don't believe that people are created as gay. And, to be honest, the evidence supports my viewpoint because we honestly don't know what causes homosexuality.
From the American Psychological Association website, a quote that I often use at http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation….
'There are numerous theories about the origins of a person's sexual orientation. Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age. There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality. It's important to recognize that there are probably many reasons for a person's sexual orientation, and the reasons may be different for different people'.
It's hardly a blanket endorsement of the view that 'a person is created in the image of God as gay', is it? Even from one of the most pro-gay professional associations in the world!
Interestingly, I see that they've changed this statement since my last visit. It used to include the phrase: 'Most people experience their sexual orientation as unchangeable'. This strikes me as a very carefully worded sentence as the difference between 'sexual orientation is unchangeable' (a statement that the APA used to make on its website) and the former may seem to be small, but is significant.
After all, as Christians we worship a God who is omnipotent and who heals, do we not? And, if he tells us that homosexual behaviour is a sin, then will he not either give us the healing in Christ of that sin, or the strength to not give into sin, as he promises in scripture? Surely the first port-of-call for the Christian is: 'What does Christ say about my identity in him?' And he certainly doesn't say that we're created gay!