Townhall.com Janet M. LaRue December 22, 2006
Homosexuals continue to push for marriage equality but ‘resist’ polygamy.
In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the “repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.” So why aren’t homosexual activists leading the battle to legalize polygamy?
Maybe they’re smart enough to understand the visceral reaction most of us would feel if we knew their goal and playbook. Maybe the rest of us would get our backs up if we stopped believing it’s just about equal treatment of “two loving and committed same-sex couples.”
Alejandra Aguilar (L) and Antonieta Jimenez take part in a symbolic homosexual matrimony in a public square in Concepcion city, some 500 km (319 miles) south of Santiago, October 28, 2006. Gay rights activists gathered at the square to demonstrate against discrimination and to demand equal rights for homosexuals. REUTERS/Jose Luis Saavedra (CHILE)
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Maybe a whole lot of us need to care more about morality and the greater good of society and children in particular than we do about our self-centered obsessions about how “fair” and “loving” we’re perceived to be.
Consider just a few tidbits from major players:
At a [1999] conference at the University of London called “Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage: A Conference on National European and International Law,” one of the main themes of discussion was whether marriage should exist at all. The attendees laid out strategies to circumvent each nation’s democratic process via the judicial system to force governments to sanction and accept same-sex marriage. There was open talk about ultimately abolishing marriage so adults could be free to pursue any sexual relationship they want with no legal restrictions whatsoever. (Alliance Defense Fund, “The Homosexual Agenda: Excerpt 2”: http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/issues/traditionalfamily/default.aspx?cid=3483).
It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us. (Michelangelo Signorile, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” OUT magazine, May 1996, p. 30).
“Generations of radicals have imagined a world in which the norm-making rules of matrimony are suspended. … Down the road, we might see groups of people sharing the custody of children. …” (Richard Goldstein, “The Radical Case for Gay Marriage,” Village Voice, Sept. 3-9, 2003, p. 34).
. . . more
Other than a disdain for syndicated talk shows, what are you actually saying here? Besides their gonads, what is/are the trait(s) that all women possess that no man possesses? Men can be nurturing, and women can be tough. Some women grow hair on their chests, and lots of men have breasts.
So, is it really about the vagina, or is there some other trait that you haven’t mentioned that women have and men don’t?
We need not identify gay men as women, and we need not restrict their rights to their sexual orientation. We could just hold that men and women deserve the same rights, and leave up to the individual whether they want to exercise those rights or not.
We can disagree about whether that’s the best environment to raise children. The fact is, children are already being raised in such environments, and that’s perfectly legal. How can you suggest that those children won’t be better off if the people raising them were married?
Some people ascribed a high level of moral importance to race, because of religious reasons, and you don’t. You ascribe a high level of moral importance to gender, and some don’t.
Who’s attempting to obliterate gender distinctions? For a lot of gay men, the maleness of their partner, abstract or not, is very important to them.
Your argument here might work (“attempts to obliterate gender distinctions”) if we were talking about forcing people to undergo sex changes, or forcing people to engage in same-sex marriage. But “legalizing same-sex marriage” is actually a moderate, compromise position, and history will bear this out. No one’s talking about mandating same-sex marriage, and no one is realistically talking about obliterating civil marriage. Those positions would both be extreme-left, and obliterating civil marriage is also an extreme-right position.
You need not even support same-sex marriages to support legalizing same-sex marriage. You seem to think that the person best qualified to determine how important gender is in a particular human’s relationship is you, while I think a more reasonable answer is: that particular human is best-qualified to decide.
Sodomy is legal, and so is nihilism. And you need not support sodomy to support another person’s right to engage in it.
The net effect of depositing seed into an anus, a mouth, a kleenex, or refraining from ejaculating is this same: those sperm cells die, never to fertilize a human egg.
Those seeds will die whether you put them in an anus or abstain from sex for a few days. That’s just the way the human reproductive system works. It doesn’t make sense to say that sodomy is immoral because it doesn’t–and can’t–result in a pregnancy.
I get that you’ve got spiritual, moral, philosophical, and religious reasons to oppose sodomy. None of those are legal reasons to oppose it. And of course, not all gay couples engage in anal sex; surely neither of us thinks the state should mandate what type of sexual activity a couple may engage in?
In other words, they think it’s icky. They have right to think that, but they can continue to think it even when same-sex marriage is legal. Those people don’t lose _anything_.
Or to a two-dimensional discourse on gender, genetics, and sexual orientation. The fact is, no one has all the answers–not even the two of us. Why should we allow the state to make those decisions on behalf of the individual? Who could possibly be better qualified to determine who an adult citizen of the United States should spend the rest of their life with than that person?
That a bunch of people believe something doesn’t make it so. The fact is, these “regular people” are rejecting other people’s marriages. If you were engaged to be married, and someone in your community told you he didn’t think you and your fiancee were right for each other, and that he would do everything in his power to prevent that marriage, you would think that he was a horrible, horrible person.
If this guy got the whole town to put your marriage up for a vote, maybe you’re the kind of person who would just throw up his hands and say, well, they must know what’s best for me. But I suspect you’d trust yourself on a matter that important.
Note 45: I think there are some false assumptions here. I have no doubt that there are pious people who enter into marriage as an expression of their faith – because they believe “God wills it”. It does not stand to reason, however, that people who do not share that faith enter into relationships as an expression of pure selfishness or that they wish to express some philosophical statement about their nihilist beliefs (with the exception of a few diehard ideologues).
Any relationship involves a certain degree of charity, I would imagine. Personally, as a single person, I don’t have to share a bed with anyone and listen to them in the middle of the night, I don’t have to wake up when they wake up, I don’t have to tolerate personal idiosyncracies or shortcomings and I can come and go as I please without having to report to anyone. Even my charitable endeavors are done when I feel like doing them. I’m being honest here: it’s a relatively selfish existence! It would seem that even a gay relationship involves more sacrifice then what many in my situation are required to exhibit.
I also think that we are trying to look at things as if the Fall never occurred, that people are entirely free to do what they will. I don’t think that’s the case. I believe people are somewhat constrained by many factors, including upbringing, genetics and so forth. I think it’s somewhat dangerous to suggest that people must live out a certain existence whether they have the capabilities for it or not. This means that some people are simply not cut out to live as celibate singles, while others are simply not capable of entering into marriage. Hold up an ideal, certainly, but we must also make allowances for human frailities and draw out the best from where we can get it.
Note 50.
Yes, you were speaking in the abstract, but also in a particular context and with paticular assumptions. The purpose in bringing up the question was to undercut any idea that gender lies deeper than biology. The unseemly enters in by using people suffering from such maladies as fodder for the gay marriage agenda.
Well, certainly not gay marriage activists whenever the populace is allowed to decide. Further, since the activists reject the reality that gender lies deeper than biology, it is good they don’t since they must inevitably lack the conceptual apparatus to make the proper determination.
Note 52. Phil, are you married? Any kids?
Note 54–
No sir. But I’ve an interest in the welfare of humankind, as do you.
Note 55. The reason I ask is that you don’t show any knowledge that is gained with experience with children or, for that matter, with marriage. In your thinking gender is interchangeable, and family is reduced to a numerical unit irrespective of gender. That’s what I meant by your “two dimensional approach” of seeing marriage and family solely as a civil rights issue. This is very apparent in note 52.
I have a rule of thumb I apply to questions about marriage and family: people who are not married should refrain from offering opinions about married life. A single person won’t undertand it. (He thinks he does but every married person knows he doesn’t.) The same holds true for children. People think they understand children but not until they have their own they realize they knew virtually nothing.
As for men, they think they understand women, but until you are married you really don’t understand much at all. It’s just the way it works.
Is this rule true 100% of the time? Probably not. But I’ll bet it is pretty close to 99% true.
I’ll bet too that most of the people rejecting gay marriage are married and parents. They have the experience to know what is at stake if men can marry men (or women marry women) and play at being husband and wife — especially when children are involved.
Fr. Hans writes: “I’ll bet too that most of the people rejecting gay marriage are married and parents. They have the experience to know what is at stake if men can marry men (or women marry women) and play at being husband and wife — especially when children are involved.”
Remember, in the 1940s people in the U.S. were overwhelmingly opposed to interracial marriage. Something like 90 percent were opposed. By the 60s that percentage had dropped to around 70 percent, although a number of states still had laws against it. In what the right-wing would no doubt consider an “activist” decision, the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia struck down a Virginia law against interracial marriage. Today, I suppose you could still find that 15 or 20 percent oppose interracial marriage. But the point is that thinking changes over time.
I think the same thing is going on with gay marriage. Fifty years ago, no one would have even suggested the possibility of gay marriage. Today, a majority oppose it, but the numbers are slowly changing.
If you look at the data, the support and opposition to gay marriage primarily crystalizes along religion and age.
“Not surprisingly, the most religious Americans are the least likely to favor gay marriage. Nearly half of Americans with relatively low religious commitment approve of allowing homosexual couples the right to marry, compared with just 17% of those who are more religious. This gap along religious lines exists across all age groups.”
http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=39
Another significant factor is education, but I think that there tends to be a negative correlation between education and religious ferver: “Overall, Americans with college degrees are divided almost evenly over the issue of gay marriage (49% oppose, 44% favor) while those without oppose the idea by well over two-to-one (63% to 27%). Education is a particularly important factor among older generations.”
Please check out the above link. To me, the most interesting graph is the one titled “Views on Gay Marriage by Age.” The graph speaks for itself.
With opposition to gay marriage we’ll see the same trend as what happened with opposition to interracial marriage. Eventually it will wither away and become very much the minority position. The opponents of gay marriage know this, and this is why they are all het up about having a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. In other words they want to cast their opposition to gay marriage in concrete BEFORE they lose the demographic battle.
But eventually the demographic tide will turn. In the churches, eventually gay marriage will be accepted, in the same way that divorce has become accepted, specific statements in the gospels notwithstanding. This may happen 50 years from now; it may be 100 years. But it will happen.
Jim bringing up opposition to interracial in the past as being synonmous with homosexual marriage is a false argument. The Loving decision doesn’t re-interpret the concept of marriage from one man and one woman.
Jim writes:
The same argument was made about abortion twenty years ago. Yet abortion has, and is, slowly falling out of favor. You even find a pro-life organization in the Democratic party these days. Ten years ago all pro-lifers were frozen out.
The problem with analogies is that the relationship between them can’t be trusted to be in any way predictive. Comparing interracial marriage to same-sex marriage is particularly dicey because, as JBL notes upstream, it glosses over this important distinction: interracial marriage does not cross over the opposite sex boundary. As this distinction becomes more apparent, the analogy will lose a lot of its luster.
The fact is that same-sex marriage activists are now arguing that public plebicites should not be allowed. They know that they will lose that way. They know too that people will tire of this battle. There is only so much petulance a person can take.
JBL writes: “Jim bringing up opposition to interracial in the past as being synonmous with homosexual marriage is a false argument. The Loving decision doesn’t re-interpret the concept of marriage from one man and one woman.”
Yes, they are different situations. But interracial marriage teaches us a couple of things. First, the thinking on issues related to marriage can change dramatically over time. Something that faces almost universal opposition at one time can be widely accepted at another.
Second, the arguments against interracial marriage bear at least a family resemblance to arguments against gay marriage. Interracial marriage was seen as being anti-God. The argument went something like this: God had placed people of different races in different parts of the world. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that God did not intend the various races to intermarry. Also, the progeny of such marriages would be “mongrels.” So the arguments against interracial marriage were both theological and social.
Fr. Hans writes: “The same argument was made about abortion twenty years ago. Yet abortion has, and is, slowly falling out of favor.”
The pendulum goes both left and right, but eventually tends toward the center. I think we have reached a point of stasis on this issue, in which most people feel that abortion should be legal, although they don’t like it very much, and would be happy to see the number of abortions reduced. I don’t think we’ll ever see a time when abortion is overwhelmingly accepted or condemned.
Fr. Hans: “Comparing interracial marriage to same-sex marriage is particularly dicey because, as JBL notes upstream, it glosses over this important distinction: interracial marriage does not cross over the opposite sex boundary.”
Well sure, it’s a different issue. But the arguments against each have some interesting similarities. For example, you’ve said that homosexuals have a right to marry; they just have to marry members of the opposite sex. One could make the same argument about interracial marriage — white and blacks can both marry; they just have to marry people of the same race. The problem is that few people would buy that argument any more.
Fr. Hans: “The fact is that same-sex marriage activists are now arguing that public plebicites should not be allowed. They know that they will lose that way.”
My argument is that yes, today they would lose, but 30 or 40 years from now they won’t lose.
There is a cultural analog here. Other than a few entertainers, years ago blacks were virtually invisible in the larger culture. And even many of the black entertainers were used to propagate racial stereotypes. When I was growing up you rarely saw a black person on TV; you never saw them in commercials. Today blacks and other races show up all the time on TV; in fact, it would strange to watch and all-white program. We see black newscasters and don’t bat an eye. We see blacks in commercials and don’t even notice.
Likewise with homosexuals. Years ago they were omitted from mainstream culture. To the extent that they were a part of that culture it was only if they portrayed themselves as heterosexuals. Today we have openly gay politicians, celebrities, writers, teachers, physicians, and so on. We have movies about homosexuals, often portrayed by heterosexual actors. In short, the entire cultural perception of homosexuality has changed, and I doubt very much that it is going to go back to what it was.
This is the same logic employed by feminists who argue that because men have not and cannot become pregnant, they should not offer an opinion about abortion.
It’s wrong when they employ that tactic, and it’s wrong for you to do it here.
Your assertion, that it takes experience to truly understand another person’s situation, rings especially false in the context of this discussion. I’m arguing that each person should be considered best-qualified to determine who their partner ought to be, and you’re arguing that you know what’s best for them. No one is saying that your marriage should be up for a vote, or that your children should be raised by someone else, yet you have the audacity to claim such authority when it pertains to other people’s marriages and other people’s children.
I’m almost inclined to think that someone else wrote Note 56 posing as you, because you’re an educated and intelligent person, and I cannot see how you could avoid seeing the bald hypocrisy of your statements.
One comment concerning the technology of this blog. You referred to me in conjunction with Note 52 twice, but on my end, this is what I see as the beginning of note 52:
“52) JamesK Note 45: I think there are some false assumptions here.”
The post I think you are referring to, the post of mine that is long, is Note 51 on my computer.
It’s possible it’s a typo or a simple error, but something makes me think that there might be a hiccup in the layout depending on the program one uses to access the blog.
Note 60.
Change it to “…because men have not and cannot become pregnant, they don’t really understand what it is like to carry a child” and I’d probably agree.
Actually, there are cases where intervention in families is necessary. What do you think child social services is all about?
But more to the point, what makes you think family is solely an individual affair? The culture has something to say about this as well as the moral tradition. Remember, the issue is not just who you might marry, but the retooling of marriage into something that has not existed (and should not exist) in the entire history of the West. You want to reduce the place of marriage in the culture to individual choice. Sorry, but when you look at all the ramifications (role confusion in parenting, homosexual education in the schools, etc.) others have something to say about it whether you like it or not.
Three decades ago we heard that divorce does not hurt children. A generation later we discover that children are deeply hurt by the experience and that young men in particular suffer from serious underperformance issues as a result. A fatherless family has become the most reliable indicator of poverty and the single greatest indicator of underachievement in young men. Even more worrisome is that the breakdown is generational. We will be paying for this a long time and it will take a great effort to reverse it.
Three decades ago we heard that the jettisioning of traditional sexual mores would lead to psycological and social freedom regarding all things sexual. Instead, STD’s have multiplied from 3 kinds to nearly thirty, our teens are suffering from an STD epidemic, our young men involved in homosexual activity have shortened life spans, child pornography (all porn actually) is flourishing, and the newest data indicates much of the increasing depression among young women is due to the psychological fallout of sexual promiscuity. This is progress?
Look, if you want to partner up with a guy, be my guest. I’m not going to stop you. I hope the relationship is a rewarding one. But expecting the culture to sanction such partnering on a moral, psychological, biological, sociological, etc. etc. par with heterosexual marriage is a decison that should not be left to the activists alone no matter how much they insist it should be.
Two good articles:
James Q. Wilson Against homosexual marriage
Sam Shulman Gay Marriage
Note 61. The hiccup was in my fingers.
“Culture,” and “moral tradition,” like “Art,” “Beauty,” and “the spirit of the age,” are not persons. They cannot vote, and they have not the agency to make decisions, legal, moral, or otherwise. People do, and what you are arguing is that some people should not be able to make decisions, so that “culture” may decide instead. The philosophy informing your beliefs is not just “spiritualism,” it is “fascism” and “totalitarianism.” I submit that fascism is wrong, even if it gets results, as you claim that it will.
There is not one culture, there are many, even within a single country like this, and you are suggesting that yours is superior, and others must bend to it. I’m not suggesting that mine is superior to yours, just that yours should not impede mine.
One does not solve an evil with another evil. You argue that perpetuating one evil–the second-class status of homosexual couples–will prevent future ill effects such as “role confusion” and “homosexual education in schools.” You have no evidence either that these will happen or that they are demonstrably ill effects (but I’ll grant that it’s not really the kind of thing for which evidence exists.) More important, however, is the important grammar-school lesson that two wrongs do not make a right. Mathematicians have suggested that an increase in abortion in the 1970s led to a decrease in crime in the 1990s. Even if that is true, it is not a sufficient argument to increase abortions.
The practical needs of actual persons take precedence over the vague and indefinable needs of culture. It is an evil to relegate people to a segregated status within their own personal lives based on their gender.
You are confusing culture with government. In this country, we have many cultures, and we have one government (or three, if you count state, local, and federal.)
We both agree that children are best raised by married parents. Yet I’m arguing for a position that can decrease the number of children being raised by unmarried parents, and you’re arguing to maintain the status quo.
Jim –
Heterosexuals of different racial and ethnic backgrounds easily produce fertile offsprings. There is no difference in the health of the offspring. There is no biological or Theological reason to oppose mixed race marriage. The convention against it was based entirely on racial prejudice.
There is no substantive difference between a man of any race marrying a woman of any race and having children who are bi-racial or multi-racial, than there is in mono-racial marriage.
Which is why this taboo fell apart, and rightfully so.
Homosexual couples are, in fact, infertile. They are always infertile, because God never intended reproduction to occur in such a pairing. In short, there is no similiarity between same-sex and inter-racial marriage.
Phil says that we have multiple cultures within the U.S. That is true. They’re called states. And within states, there must be norms on which law is based. One can’t simply go around making that premise up for oneself. So while it is a nice liberal rallying cry to say, “You have your culture and I’ll have mine,” that falls apart quickly in practice.
His new ‘culture’ is based on sterile relationships. Realizing that a family sans children is well, not a family, the homosexual lobby is seeking more than just the right to sodomy. They already have that. No one is checking up on whom Phil is sleeping with. And, frankly, no one much cares.
But the homosexual lobby is trying to force everyone to grant custody of children and support for technological means of reproduction for couples who are, by design, infertile.
This is hardly Phil’s live and let live statement. Rather, we see instead hate crimes laws extended to keep us muzzled so that Homosexuals won’t feel threatened, and we see other laws changed to benefit his new culture at the expense of our own. Cultural anarchy can not be the norm, one side will win.
And I, for one, am not prepared to allow that to be Phil.
Way up stream, Phil asked the question why should the state base its laws on religious understanding. When answered, he said we were just engaging in circular reasoning. Let me put in a more articulate answer that also speaks to Fr. Han’s statements about the antiquity of the approach that Phil and others are trying to overthrow:
Cicero
I think it is fair to say that Cicero had just as much influence on the founding fathers as the Judeo-Christian moral tradition did, if not more. But what else do we have today, especially with homosexual marriage than “attempts to adjudicate by whim or power of venal judges”.
Without the Law of God informing our laws we will “die in oppression, chaos and despair”.
To avoid nihilsm requires that one submit to something that transcends humanity, something beyond what can be seen, touched, felt and measured by our devices.
Glen writes: “Homosexual couples are, in fact, infertile. They are always infertile, because God never intended reproduction to occur in such a pairing.”
I don’t understand why fertility is the key factor in this issue. For example, we allow post-menopausal women to marry even though there is no chance of pregnancy. One could even conclude that God never intended post-menopausal women to reproduce. We allow younger women to marry even if we know they cannot conceive, for example, because of a hysterectomy or a serious health problem. If reproduction is the key, then why do we allow all of these infertile people to marry? I don’t have exact numbers, but I think there are probably more infertile heterosexuals than there are total homosexuals. In any case, it is a mystery to me why the possibility of reproduction should be the criterion by which we decide who can and cannot marry. This is never mentioned in connection with infertile heterosexuals, but suddenly it emerges as THE issue with homosexuality.
Glen: “Realizing that a family sans children is well, not a family . . . ”
Let me see if I understand this:
1) When it comes to deciding whether homosexuals should marry, reproduction is the be-all and end-all, but —
2) When it comes to deciding whether infertile couples can marry, reproduction is irrelevant, but —
3) A family without children is not really a family, but —
4) Infertile couples shouldn’t use artificial means in order to have children.
Did I get that right?
Cicero was a great thinker, but speeches like his must be considered in their historical context. The concept of “separation of Church and State,” as we understand it today, would have been as alien to Cicero as “the abolishment of slavery.”
So, while I could sneer and say, “Yes, the great moral thinker Cicero. At least he treated his slaves well,” that wouldn’t be fair. The fact is, his thinking was a product of his era, brilliant as he was.
Michael, I’m not saying that there is no God or gods. But your political beliefs require that, if others are to understand your reasoning, they must also accept your God and the specific tenets of your religion.
To prevent the state from basing its laws solely on religious understanding is not an attack or an affront to religion. It is the best way that humanity knows to protect religion. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, when other people are allowed to do things that you consider sinful, but as other religions start to take hold in American culture, you’ll appreciate the way this policy prevents others from forcing your subservience to their beliefs.
That’s not true, Glen. Lots of people articulated theological opposition to mixed-race relationships. That was not even a fringe position in the United States. Even in the latter half of the 20th century, Judge Leon Bazile wrote in an opinion:
The private Christian school Bob Jones university went to court and paid over a million dollars in back taxes in order to avoid permitting its students to engage in interracial dating or marriage. The school justified its ban on interracial dating by saying “God created people differently for a reason.”
The State should not be in the business of weighing one religion against another. If it were, Glen, interracial marriage might not be legal today–since that was at one time the majority belief in this country.
You now hold a religious belief shared by a majority of Americans. And in this case, you think that the State should base its legal reasoning on that religious belief. Why the hypocrisy?
Phil, because the state has to decide on what to base its laws. If it does as you suggest (simply on what people want to do), anarachy, oppression, and tryanny follow. Law has to follow a hierarchy of values or it is no law at all. Everything in you posts indicates that you accept no such hierarchy of values on any basis. If you do, please tell us what it is. You refuse to engage at all any anthropological arguments.
Basic Judeo-Christian anthropology works quite well as a foundation for a civil, well-ordered society. It is rejected primarily because it relies on a transcendent/immanent God as a foundational assumption. The only model put into place is simply chaning the laws as we go along to accomodate anyone who has enough political clout to get them changed. Obviously, relgious and/or transcendant beliefs alone are not sufficient or one would not see the tryanny of Islam. Islam has an entirely different anthropology.
Law always discriminates, it has to in order to protect any type of order requires discrimination. If your goal is a society without discrimination, you will fail.
The secular, humanist state has no interest in protecting religion of any kind. The humanist mindset is opposed to any transcedence on principal and therefore has at best a passive/aggressive attitude to those who have faith. Everyone of your posts is dripping with the idea that faith is irrelevant. So at least be honest.
The fact of the matter is that you exhibit the intransigence that you accuse others of having. Its true, because it is true. You refuse to consider any category of evidence that does not fall within your limited, truncated, artificial definition of reality. You refuse to consider even the testimony of history which is the experience of man on a practical level. Even when we use similar words, we mean vastly different things. There seem to be almost no ground on which to even begin a real communicaton. I wonder why you even bother to comment on a site whose primary function is to discuss how the Orthodox Christian faith might be applied to public policy and societal moral issues. In such a venue insisting that faith has no relevance is at best an oxymoron.
Why else marry? What are the homosexuals looking for, exactly? What is the social function of marriage? The primary function is to provide a stable social structure for the care and raising of children. What is the purpose of marriage that homosexuals seek? Marriage is open to the infertile or to the post-menopausal for the simple fact that marriage is normally constituted of one man and one woman who, historically speaking, plan to conceive children if they are so fortunate. For homosexuals, this is an impossiblity. What then are they looking for in marriage? There is nothing legally in marriage that can’t be secured some other way. Most homosexuals do not marry, even in countries where they legally can. Then what are they after, if not simply to batter away at the social norm and feel better about themselves?
My sister was infertile. Dyed-in-the-wool. She now has two kids. Whoops. Misdiagnosis or miracle. Who can say? Marriage is one man and one woman in our society for 2,000 years. Where there is a man and a woman there is always a chance of conception. Unless you believe Abraham and Sarah are a myth.
Nope. As you remind us, this is Orthodoxy Today. Check your Orthodox Theology. A marriage without children is defective. If it is not the fault of the would-be parents, it is a trajedy. If it is done on purpose, then it is a conscious rejection of God.
Yes, I agree with that. Extreme measures to conceive a biological child for a couple whom God has not chosen to bless naturally are an abomination. They are immoral attempts at social engineering. Think of Frankentsein’s Monster. We started fertility treatments to help the infertile. Then it became a method for single moms or lesbians to conceive. Now we are talking about designer babies, and millions of baby girls around the world are aborted because of their sex.
Some genies shouldn’t be let out of the bottle.
Phil –
Lot’s of people may have articulated a case against inter-racial marriage, but they weren’t particularly effective.
By the time the Supreme Court ruled, only 16 states in the United States prohibited inter-racial marriage. Yet, today, practically every state prohibits ‘same-sex’ marriage, and where it has popped up the judiciary has almost always been at the root of the social change.
In any event, as Jim likes to remind us, this is Orthodoxy Today. Where are such quotes from the father of the Orthodox faith? Are there angry tirades about mixing of the races from St. John Chrysostom? Or perhaps from Herman who preached to the Aleuts? Just because the Fundies in the U.S. went nuts, doesn’t mean you can lump two unrelated things together.
The Christian church will not evolve on this issue, Phil. It is a fundamental matter of the faith. It has been believed by all everywhere and since the beginning. The Church has always condemned this, and will always condemn it. The state may bend, society may bend. But the Church, the real Church, will not.
If our non-acceptance bothers you, then so be it. You won’t get it. Ever. You can not win this argument, no matter what efforts you make.
From the Social Basis of the Russian Orthodox Church:
I think the church is extremely clear. I don’t recall seeing anything from the Church to the effect that ‘race is the primary division of humanity.’
As I said to Phil earlier, you can’t win this. Perhaps you feel that linking same-sex marriage to the way Protestants treated blacks is somehow going to score you points.
It won’t. Orthodox don’t have a guilty conscience to exploit in that manner. Check the Baptists. But, given how intimately woven the idea of marriage and the family as divinely ordained institutions is into our Theology, you would have more luck convincing Mormons to drink Vodka than getting us on board with gay marriage.
Why not ask that question of all infertile couples?
If you’re allowing for the existence of miracles in the creation of pregnancy, then why on earth couldn’t the same happen for a lesbian couple? (Or even a gay male couple–now that would be miraculous!)
For goodness sakes, some women don’t have uteruses. I have yet to see a cogent argument why the “fertility standard” must be applied inconsistently.
I understand your position on this issue; as I said upstream to Jacobse, “Some people opposed interracial marriage for religious reasons and they were wrong. You oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons and you are right.”
I happen to agree with you that the fundamentalists/Baptists/what-have-you who opposed miscegenation were wrong. But the beautiful thing about separation of Church and State is that even if they were right, they can still live their lives according to their beliefs. Don’t want to marry a black woman? Then ya don’t have to.
That said, I have to disagree with Michael B.’s personal remark as regards my intransigence. I support a position that, if the Orthodox position is True, will ensure that no Orthodox person is prevented from marrying according to their faith.
I can see that the fact that my position also allows people who don’t see the Orthodox position as true to live according to their beliefs riles some feathers. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to force subservience to a particular religion, even if that religion is the one, out of the thousands of religions in the world, that got everything right.
It’s interesting to think that there is a single, monolithic Christian church, and I suppose from the Orthodox perspective, that’s the goal. (Two questions: Do the Orthodox consider themselves Protestant? That’s how I was raised to view pretty much any Christians who weren’t specifically Roman Catholic, but your comment makes me wonder. And, what is the correct plural formation for Orthodox? Is it right to say “the Orthodox” the way one might say “the Jews?”)
But I think you misunderstand my perspective in this discussion. I wouldn’t argue that the Church should change its position on same-sex marriage; I think intra-theological arguments are best left to members of a faith.
I believe rather that the best solution to a complicated social issue like this is for the state to let individual human beings decide what is right for themselves. That solution protects the religious freedom and marriage customs of the Orthodox faith without impeding on the rights of anyone else.
I think your use of the terminology of war and sports (“you can’t win”) is enlightening. I don’t think that one side or another will “win” on this issue, rather, I think both sides will see that it is not a zero-sum game. Right now, you seem to think that if someone else wins, you lose. That’s not really the case. The Orthodox Church no longer lobbies for laws that compel church attendance or to prevent the eating of meat on Fridays, even though those are both important spiritual issues. The church didn’t “lose” on those issues, nor did it change.
I think the rhetoric of partisan politics has had a sad effect on religion in this country (everything is said to be a “battle” or a “war”) but ultimately I–and others like me–won’t beat or get beaten by you. We won’t compete like gangs. We’ll get along, like a community.
I don’t ordinarily believe in meaningful coincidences, but I did buy a shot for a Mormon the other day. That is so weird.
Note 74. Phil writes:
The distinction shouldn’t be that hard to grasp. In the case of infertile heterosexual couples, the plumbing doesn’t work. In the case of homosexuals, the plumbing doesn’t fit.
The first represents a breakdown of the natural working of the sexual equipment. The second represents an unnatural ordering of the equipment. Put more simply, the excretory chamber of the human body was not made to receive the penis. No amount of sophistry can hide this blunt fact.
Remember, most individual homosexuals are not infertile, it’s the relationship that is the problem. Let me state it even more bluntly: Mix sperm with feces and no new life will result no matter how long you argue that sodomy merely replicates heterosexual intercourse. Sodomy is irretrievably closed to the the creation of new life.
Further, the fact that some people are oriented in this direction does not make the relationship natural or normative. (Some people are oriented towards animals. This does not make their behavior natural either.)
Society has no obligation to sanction homosexual relationships as a legitimate marriage. In fact, it is in society’s interest to discourage it as many people already intuitively understand. They gay lobby will clamor about making all sorts of charges about civil rights and the like as a result, but those a bit more grounded in what constitutes marriage and family and have more knowledge about what it take to raise healthy children will resist it, as they should.
Glen writes: “As you remind us, this is Orthodoxy Today.”
Yes it is, and I think that relates to a problem with this whole discussion.
There are arguments that make sense in one context, but not in another. There
are arguments that make sense within Orthodoxy that don’t make sense outside of
Orthodoxy — sometimes that wouldn’t even make sense within another conservative
Christian group.
Orthodoxy is an approach to Christianity (or from the Orthodox perspective, the
only true Christianity) that is built upon a foundation of mysteries. It has a
very specific mystagogy, by which I mean a system of mysteries, images,
ceremonies, sacraments, ethics, and theology, all of which build upon and refer
to each other.
In other words, there is much in Orthodoxy that is literally “other-worldly.”
These things are not going to make sense outside of the context of Orthodoxy,
and in fact could even be misleading outside of Orthodoxy.
In my view, part of the problem with this discussion is that concepts and a
manner of thinking that makes sense within Orthodoxy are being used to
argue a case against same-sex marriage outside of Orthodoxy. This
would be kind of like Orthodox believers trying to convince others that they
should fast or venerate icons. It wouldn’t make any sense. It’s like trying to
buy something in Mexico with Japanese yen. Japanese yen mean a lot in Japan,
but in Mexico people would have no idea what those funny little pieces of paper
were all about.
Glen: “The primary function is to provide a stable social structure for the
care and raising of children.”
That certainly is one aspect that we would see on the surface. But again,
Orthodoxy is other-worldly, and not necessarily concerned with what’s on the
surface. Note, for example, this from Christos Yannaras:
The Freedom of Morality, p. 65
In Orthodoxy the church is the bride of Christ (not the groom of Christ), and
marriage is seen as both an image and prefigurement of that. Marriage is seen
as the realization of true eros, which goes far beyond sexuality, and
that even, in a way I’ve never understood, becomes identified with virginity
and celibacy.
What I’m saying is that Orthodox thinking and argument makes sense within the context of Orthodox mystagogy, but they don’t translate very well outside of Orthodoxy, to a secular society that Yannaras says is lacking the “cosmic dimension.” In trying to translate elements of Orthodox faith into a more consumer-friendly product in order to address “issues of the day,” the believer comes across like a Southern Baptist or an Episcopalian, depending on the political orientation. In that translation something is definetly lost.
Conversely, an argument for same-sex marriage would be meaningless within Orthodoxy, even contradictory. It would be an impossibility, at least today. So it works both ways; arguments that make sense in a secular context are nonsense in an Orthodox context.
Phil, in #74 you say:
From an Orthodox perspective there is only one Church, has been only one Church and will continue to be only one Church. The Church is the living Body of Jesus Christ in Earth that cannot be divided. To even contemplate that we consider ourselves Protestant is really a strange idea which moved me to a brief history lesson:
All other Chrisitan denominations derive from the Orthodox Church (either directly by schism such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Coptic Church or indirectly as the Protestants). Whereas those who chose to separate themselves from the body of the Church have changed essential Christian doctrine to one degree or another, the Orthodox Church has not, despite centuries of persectuion by Islam and the Communists as well as attempts by western Christendom to subjugate us.
While the persectuion did not destroy us or force us to change doctrinally, it did have a significant impact upon our organization, polity and our ability to evangelize effectively from which we still suffer. Nevertheless, when you contend with the Orthodox understanding of man in society as you are attempting to do, you are placing yourself in opposition to over 2000 years of inspired thought and practice articulated in word and deed by some of the holiest people the world has ever been graced with. It is unfortunate that we here are such poor examples of that deep and powerful living tradition. However, even such an incompetent representative as I am is not merely expressing my own opinion founded solely on my on cognitive abilities and experience, nor am I simply parroting legalistic formulae sprung from academic theology inspired only by the latest political fad. I am attempting to articulate the experiential wisdom of the Orthodox mind to the extent that I have received it and been penetrated by it then to apply that wisdom in our present context. It is a mind “not of this world” but one that has essential understanding for how to live fruitfully in this world.
The objections you raise are neither new nor valid having been considered in one form or another and rejected by every generation of the Orthodox Church. If you were to do the type of research in the mind of the Church that I did in the mind of the world, you would at least find yourself better equipped to address the issues.
I don’t believe that I raised an objection to the Church. I think that perception may arise from the “sports mentality” in which anyone who disagrees with you is on another team and therefore is trying to beat you.
I thought one of the foundational assumptions of Orthodox belief was that the revealed Truth does not change. So, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “one year of inspired thought” or perhaps “thirty-three years of inspired thought, repeated for the past 2000?”
Note 75–
You should know that homosexuality is not synonymous with anal sex. Be that as it may, the state does allow heterosexual couples to marry, even if they loudly proclaim that the only sex they intend to have is anal.
What is it, in your opinion, that homosexual couples should do? Break up and marry partners of the opposite sex? You’re suggesting that they’re “holding back” on society by failing to reproduce.
Note 79. Phil writes:
In which case their relationship twists into something unnatural as well. At least there is the biological possibility of the restoration of a natural relationship (we will put morality aside for the moment). With a homosexual couple, no such possibility exists. So yes, homosexual intercourse is only about anal sex. No other biological possibility exists.
Homosexual couples can, and will, do what ever they want. They do so today. The role and gender confusion represented in homosexual relationships however, should not be sanctioned through legal marriage.
Note 78. Every idea has a genesis Phil — even your gay rights polemic got its start at one point in time. Of course, given that the polemic dovetails with all the other arguments advancing sexual excess from the 1960’s onward, and seeing what damage these excesses have brought on the culture, you assertion that the moral tradition needs to be jettisoned is not one we should take seriously.
Actually, oral sex and mutual masturbation are the other biological possibilities. Up until the 1980s, slang terms for homosexuals often centered on oral activities. As oral sex became more ubiquitous among heterosexuals, slang terms shifted toward anal sex.
I’m aware that all non-penile-vaginal forms of sex are considered taboo, but you might note that your focus on anal sex as the only “biological” possibility is inaccurate.
Note 82. Phil writes:
Well, I suppose people can think up all sorts of variations. That’s what happens when sex becomes sport. Nevertheless, the point stands: homosexual intercourse is in no way biologically synonomous with heterosexual intercourse. The plumbing doesn’t work.
Fr. Hans writes: “When Michael, myself, and others speak of materialism, idealism, the soul, etc, we are not talking about a system through which data, experience, etc. is analyzed. We are talking about the foundational assumptions (beliefs really, and yes all knowledge is predicated on belief about how the universe is ordered, who God is and is not, what is means to be human, etc.) that shape and inform that system, be it materialist, “idealist”, whatever it may be.”
In another thread you talked about the necessity of people returning to the “Judeo-Christian” traditions. The problem, as I see it, is that such traditions and their associated foundational assumptions are based on a particular historical and theological understanding of the Bible and of the traditions. In particular, in this venue, we’re talking about the Christian tradition as understood and practiced in the Orthodox church.
So it’s not like a garden-variety materialist can get up one morning and say “I’m going to accept the Christian moral tradition.” Instead, the person under discussion would have to accept a large number of theological and historical assertions as well. The problem is that such assertions are often far from obvious.
The question I want to pose is this: to what extent is it reasonable to expect modern people to accept historical propositions that many would find unbelievable, and that in fact, are more supported by faith than by compelling evidence?
Note 84.
The link between foundational assumptions and morality are “far from obvious” across the board especially in our culture given our penchant for diversion, denial of death, etc. People generally don’t think about this much until a crisis of some kind or another compells it.
By throwing off their fundamentalist blinders and understanding the role of narrative in history. It’s not that difficult.
Fr. Hans writes: ” . . . By throwing off their fundamentalist blinders and understanding the role of narrative in history. It’s not that difficult.”
My understanding is that in Orthodoxy, things in the gospels such as the virgin birth, resurrection, feeding of the multitudes, and all the other miracles, are not just inspired stories. Rather, they are believed to be actual events — things that really happened, perhaps not in a literalistic, detailed way, but real events nonetheless. So that, for example,, there was a real, literal virgin birth. Perhaps the wise men weren’t actually there, or perhaps there were four instead of three, or whatever. But the virgin birth itself is believed to be just as historical as the presidency of George W. Bush, the battle of Midway, or yesterday’s introduction of the iPod phone.
Now if that’s not the case, then I indeed hold mistaken beliefs about Orthodoxy, as do a large number of others.
Note 86. Jim, I am going to put your conversation aside for the moment because I don’t want to be distracted from the matter at hand. I’ll discuss it some other time.
Here’s a thought. If a man is bisexual, that is, attracted to both a man and a woman, should he be allowed to marry both?
Note 88–
It sounds like you’re not talking about a man who is generally attracted to “men or women,” but you’re positing a hypothetical man who is attracted to a man and a woman, correct?
The state should provide the same rights and services to all persons, so no–a man who is attracted to a man and a woman should not be considered to be in a separate category from a man who is attracted to two women, or a woman who is attracted to two women, or a woman who is attracted to two men, etc.
I talk a little about the differences between two-person marriage and polygamous marriages in Note 39.
Now, if you’re suggesting that he should be allowed to marry either a man or a woman, then yes, I agree with you.
Phil –
Let’s not pretend that your position is that the Orthodox can have their way of life, and that you can have yours. It clearly isn’t that way at all. There are quite a few linkages that you are skipping over.
First of all, take the situation of infertility. If you grant ‘marriage’ to homosexuals, then the next step is that homosexuals, who can not produce offspring as couple, demand that insurance pay for infertility treatment. The couple is infertile by design. As Father Hans made plain, it is not a question of the parts failing. The parts don’t fit together at all. But, if the couple is ‘married,’ then the next step is a series of lawsuits to force insurance and government programs to fund infertility treatments.
Am I making that up? Or, isn’t California’s Medi Cal already covering gender reassignment?
That was from a transgender Website in California, so if that can happen then my argument about government/insurance mandated funding is far from a scare tactic.
But, then again, you already know that.
In addition, then comes the other issues of ‘discrmination.’ Once homosexuals marry, legally, then comes the ‘hate crimes’ and ‘non-discrimination’ laws. We are tending in this direction already, but the dam is really going to burst as soon as homosexuals are totally ‘mainstreamed.’
You know as well as I do about the pernicious use of state power to silence those who dare criticize protected classes. One the traditionalists surrender on homosexual marriage, then there will be even more classes on it in schools and more prosecution of hate crimes. Even if those crimes are only publishing Bible verses.
I could go on with this, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that having lived a significant portion of my life in Europe, I have seen where the PC mentality leads. It leads to you and I trading places as your lifestyle becomes the protected class and my traditional faith makes me a governmental outcast.
That is why the language tends to be so harsh on this topic. If homosexuals wanted to be left alone, no one is arguing. But it doesn’t stop there. It hasn’t stopped there in any country in which homosexual demands have been met with compliance.
Rather, the demands escalate. Churches forbid gays? Close them! Christians preach against homosexuals? Arrest them! Dare to demonstrate against homosexual marriage? To jail with you!
The live and let live idea sounds nice, but it is nowhere in practice and will not be. If we give into what you are looking for, then our entire country will be transformed and we will be on the short-end of the legal stick as a result.
Note 89.
So not only should single gay pairings be considered a marriage, we ought to go with polygamy as well? Is that what you are saying?
All rhetoric aside the real belief of those who promote and support homosexual “marriage” is that one ought to be able to gratify one’s sexual desire in any way one wants to. Yet many of the same people who favor carte blanche sexual gratification wish to curtail or eliminate other forms of sensual gratification such as smoking and eating fast food, driving big cars fast. Homosexual and other types of out of wedlock sexual proclivites have been shown to have serious physical and psychological harm at least on a par with the frowned upon behaviors. Why the big push to favor sexual gratification over all other forms of sensual excitement.
Phil note 89:
“The state should provide the same rights and services to all persons,” They clearly you are 100% pro-life.
Michael writes: “All rhetoric aside the real belief of those who promote and support homosexual “marriage” is that one ought to be able to gratify one’s sexual desire in any way one wants to.”
Michael, I wouldn’t make a statement such as that and preface it with “all rhetoric aside.” These folks are going to have intimate relations, or not, whether same-sex marriage is legalized or not.
Michael: “Yet many of the same people who favor carte blanche sexual gratification wish to curtail or eliminate other forms of sensual gratification such as smoking and eating fast food, driving big cars fast.”
Hang on while I put down my cigarette and Big Bacon Classic and park the ’67 Camaro while I think about that.
Glen writes: “If you grant ‘marriage’ to homosexuals, then the next step is that homosexuals, who can not produce offspring as couple, demand that insurance pay for infertility treatment.”
Health insurance generally doesn’t pay for anything but the most basic infertility treatments. For example, health insurance will pay for corrective surgery for endometriosis or a deformed uterus. It certainly isn’t going to pay for expensive procedures such as IVF or GIFT. Those are all out-of-pocket, even for heterosexual married couples. Given the already high cost of health insurance, that is not going to change.
Fr. Hans writes: “Jim, I am going to put your conversation aside for the moment because I don’t want to be distracted from the matter at hand.”
That’s fine. I look forward to hearing about how all of these materialists are going to return to the Christian moral tradition without first having to accept the Nicene or other creeds.
Glen, I’m not sure I follow your logic. Europe simply doesn’t value free speech in the same manner we do and (I’m assuming) probably aren’t guaranteed such rights in the same manner we are. (Are they?) I don’t see where extending certain benefits to “non traditional” couples will infringe on freedom of speech. Example: there are many civil marriages that would never be blessed by an Orthodox church, and it violates no law to say that these people are living in adulterous relationships (nor should it).
Jim, How about “all philosophical justifications aside”
Note 90–
There are several problems with this argument. It’s a classic example of a slippery-slope fallacy. You are trying to argue that we should not do A because it will lead to B. First, this is speculation. I happen to think that permitting more couples to marry will not lead to the kind of religious discrimination you fear; if anything, it is a way to promote religious freedom.
However, if A is reasonable, then it is B that we must fight (if B is unreasonable), not A.
Trust me, Glen, if I were in Europe, I would fight just as hard against some of their ridiculous anti-free-speech laws.
Glen, I admire your honesty. At least you acknowledge here that you are a member of a privileged class, and you are trying to cling to that, at the expense of others.
Note 91–
No, actually, I was saying that the state should treat all of those groupings the same. The state does not provide an infrastructure for any three-person marriages.
However, now that I’ve answered the bisexuality question of yours, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to provide any insight on your church’s position on persons who are born both genitally and chromosomally ambiguous? Are they permitted to marry at all within the Orthodox Christian faith?
Note 92–
You would have to direct that question to someone who holds those seemingly conflicting views. Although I will say that I think it’s reasonable to have speed limits on public roads, and I don’t find that position inconsistent since they apply equally to everyone.
Note 93–
Yes, I think that using “birth” as a factor in determining whether a person has rights is arbitrary and inhumane. I oppose abortion as it victimizes human beings. (It’s possible I disagree with some pro-life rhetoric; in extreme cases where a doctor must perform a surgery on a pregnant woman that might put the fetus at risk, I think doctors and patients deserve some latitude to make those decisions. In that sense I think I deviate from strict Catholic dogma which would allow both mother and child to die rather than saving one instead of the other.)
Jim, re: Note 86. A brief stab at a possiblity: materialists may embrace Orthdoxy becasue the recognize that only within Orthodoxy is the material given the meaning, the transcendence and the permanence they think it has. This thought occured to me as I was watching a YouTube video linked to through Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog: http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/
Jim in note 76, you quote Christos Yannaras:
I think he goes a bit too far. Clearly the Orthodox marriage service is replete with images of uniting heaven and earth, of its salvific nature for faithful who enter into marriage. There is nevertheless this passage in the principal prayer:
You have noticed trends such as declaring American citizens ‘enemy combatants’ and things like ‘extraordinary rendition?’ You have also, I am sure, noticed the ‘free speech zones’ which corral protestors near official events? Or the current crop of provisions on college campuses banning anti-gay speech?
Free speech in the United States is not nearly so absolute. If you end up on the wrong side of one of our government’s pet projects in social engineering or national defense, I wouldn’t count on the Bill of Rights to bail you out.
Actually, Phil, I never said that Proposition A was reasonable. I merely pointed out that in all societies which have experimented with homosexual marriage, the slope got really, really steep. Once the government gets into the act protecting special classes, be they homosexuals or immigrants or pencil-necked geeks, those on the wrong side of the issue tend to have unpleasant experiences. Such as the pastors in Western Europe prosecuted for preaching against homosexual sex, or the Canadians who have had legal trouble for the same thing. The U.S. hasn’t suffered this yet, but there have been cases of ant-immigrant speech getting prosecuted under hate crimes statutes. If we go full-blown, given the massive erosion in civil liberties in this nation, in your direction then what is going to stop the same process from occurring here?
Are you telling me the Human Rights Campaign is going to oppose stamping out heterosexist hate speech?
Tell me another one.
After all is said and done, I don’t think the U.S. is likely to end up far off Europe in this:
Well, that’s nice of you Phil, but I don’t think the Human Rights Campaign feels the same way. In fact, I don’t think you’re ‘live and let live’ attitude is all that widespread in the homosexual community. It might be among homosexual Republicans who tend towards libertarian leanings (mostly, not including Foley), but homosexuality among liberals tends to equate to radicalism which seeks to control state power as a transformational tool.
“Can’t make an omlet without breaking a few eggs!” and all that.
So, yes, I am privileged in that I am part of the 97% or more of the population who is not sexually malfunctioning. I have mated with a member of the opposite sex and have produced offspring. In other words, my sexual life is normal. But governments in the modern era tend to protect minorities at the expense of the majority. Call it the proliferation of liberal guilt.
That puts me in a very precarious position, as I am not recognizable as a minority and hence in no position to get protection. Good thing I’m not on a college campus exercising free speech rights, because I’d be in serious trouble.
Why is sex required? Homosexuals are free to contract marriages in religious ceremonies, but demand the state recognize these as legit. The standard reasoning is that this way you can inherit, visit at the hospital, and get other kinds of benefits. Do I have to sleep with a guy to have him covered by my insurance? If I have a friend who isn’t insured, can’t we become ‘domestic partners’ and get insurance in that manner, or am I required to actually sleep with him?
Really, this is silly.
Individuals born who are inter-sexed almost always exhibit a dominant identity. The problem usually comes when parents, at the advice of a doctor, intervene in the process and ‘pick a gender.’ I am reminded of the case of a young lady who was born with undescended testicles. As she aged, they started to drop and she started to become a boy. At the urging of her doctor, the parents had the testicles removed. Later, she ended up divorcing and becoming a lesbian.
But is she really a lesbian? Not really. If the parents had told the doctor to stuff it, then her testicles would have descended and her genitalia would have significantly changed. She probably wouldn’t have grown into a fully functional, normal male, but she would have been close.
The major problem for intersexed people hasn’t been the Orthodox Church. The major problem has been doctors believing that they can craft a ‘gender identity.’ This mistaken belief that humans can be shaped like clay has been a horrible failure. The Church can and should take care of the intersexed. It isn’t their fault, and should encourage them to find the dominant identity in which they should live.
I do not think, of course, that you or most male homosexuals fall into this category.
By the way, Jim, AIDs infections are exempt from many of the reporting requirements of other infections. Medi Cal in California covers sex changes. Are you really, really going to make the case that a court or some other governmental entity can’t or won’t extend reproductive technology as a fundamental right to lesbians, for example?
I won’t take that bet.