More On Why Same-Sex “Marriage” Seems To Make Sense To So Many

“Not very many years ago, everybody would have regarded this not just as weird, immoral, or strange, but literally impossible. That’s because not long ago marriage meant the founding of a family. Marriage was about two people loving each other enough to commit to that lifelong relational project together, with children in mind from the beginning. Marriage was never only about the couple. It was about the couple and the life that would naturally flow out of their love. Marriage was never self-contained, it was generative. It was future-oriented.”

What evidence you do you have that “everybody” actually held to such a nuanced definition of marriage, other than the mere historical fact that straight people often married and most of the time had children (which to me sounds like a tautology). And is not a family started with same sex couples adopt children? What if they have adoption in view from the beginning?

Bryan said:

What evidence you do you have that “everybody” actually held to such a nuanced definition of marriage…

I figured that “history of marriage” would be an appropriate search term to find evidence on the matter. That lead me to a BBC article, which had some interesting points. See points eight and onward in particular. Here are some choice excerpts.

Roaming bards sang of love during medieval times and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet acted it out on stage, but it wasn’t until the Victorian era that it became accepted as a foundation for marriage.

Catholic and Anglican doctrine have historically elevated procreation as one of the primary reasons for marriage. But in the late 19th Century, a “silent revolution” began taking place, Dormor says. With more children surviving and family sizes ballooning, couples started using rudimentary methods of birth control to limit pregnancies. “It begins the process of decoupling procreation from marriage, at some level,” Dormor says.

Surely you could have done this meagre piece of research yourself? If you doubt someone’s remarks, verify them. You have the whole Internet at your disposal. Your comments bely a desire for Tom’s remarks to be false, rather than a scepticism that they might not be true.

“If that were the way I viewed marriage, I would even find it hard to criticize something as extreme as Ed Coffin’s Huffington Post suggestion that we abandon marriage altogether.”

Come on! The Apostle Paul himself opposes marriage! He explicitly says that it is “better” not to marry than to marry. He *explicitly* states that. The only reason single people should enter into marriage is because they are “unable” to “control” their animal urges. If you took the New Testament seriously, you’d be arguing on this blog that Christians everywhere shouldn’t — following Paul’s explicit exhortations — get married. Why aren’t you doing this? Why haven’t I found any mention of this revelant bit of capital-‘t’ Truth on this website (http://www.biblestudytools.com/1-corinthians/passage.aspx?q=1%20Corinthians+7:1-16)?

The New Testament’s message on marriage is this: Christians, abandon the institution unless you can’t control your sexual urges!

Next to Paul’s epistle, Ed Coffin’s suggestion doesn’t sound so crazy.

@TFBW #4,

Really? This is your evidence with which you are trying to tear me down? All that says, starting from the beginning of the article, is that marriage has been evolving for quite some time. So not only is the “conjugal” view of marriage archaic and obselete, it may not even be historically accurate or relevant.

I wish people on this board weren’t to quick to interject with snide comments. You usually end up looking foolish.

Phil,

So it will be with gay marriage: someday Christians as a whole will look back on Tom’s discriminatory position and sigh: “Well, you know, that was just part of the times. People didn’t know any better back then.”

If it’s going to be similar to how the Roe decision affected society then I’d be proud to hold this perspective.

Edit to add: I may have misread Phil’s comment. Not sure. I’ll let my comment stand for now…

There is no God, but there is the omniscient Phil Torres, who knows how I would have regarded black-white marriages decades ago.

What I as saying is that THIS was the issue that preoccupied religious conservatives of the day. Its a testament to how liberal our society has become that no one takes anti interracial marriage seriously anymore. Simple point, Tom.

And if you think Christians are not discussing the divorce question, Phil, it’s not our fault your ear is tuned only to one frequency. Try googling it. Try looking in any church library. Try asking a pastor.

Reread what I wrote. Divorce is not an election issue. Its not part of the culture wars. Its just not as big a deal to most Christians as gay marriage. Yet Paul says quite a lot about it, and nothing about gays getting married. Again, simple points.

“I have paid considerable attention to people misreading the Bible in support of gay “marriage”.”

The point is that they’re just as sure as you are that you are misreading the Bible. Welcome to religion.

“The reason Paul didn’t mention gay “marriage” is because no one had ever thought of it. He did, however, cover principles that make it easy to determine what he would have thought of it.”

Generally, timeless books tend to contain ideas that are applicable to all times. The Bible isn’t much help if it doesn’t address the major moral questions of the day. Sure, Paul said some stuff from which people can extrapolate to the contemporary world. But, this is precisely where conjecture, guess-work, interpretive frameworks, theological inclinations, and so on, enter the picture. Again, more and more Christians – sincere, genuine and epistemically confident – are holding that the Bible *doesn’t* condemn homosexuality.

There is lots of literature on how the cultural push against interracial marriage was led by Bible-thumping conservatives – it certainly wasn’t progressives leading the charge against equality! One still sees residues of this, in fact, among contemporary Christians. As Christianity Today discusses in an article entitled “Opposition to Interracial Marriage Lingers Among Evangelicals,” evangelical Christians still lead the way in maintaining that interracial marriage is bad for society!!! Unbelievable. (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2011/06/opposition_to_i.html) Notice, by the way, that the “unaffiliated” group is most likely to say that interracial marriage is perfectly acceptable.

I *suspect* that there will be similar surveys published 30 years from now titled something like: “Opposition to Gay Marriage Lingers among Christians – in Particular.” As Bertrand Russell once noted, just about every instance of moral progress that’s occurred throughout history has been opposed by church leaders, from the emancipation of slaves to the liberation of women to – today – the right for gays to enter into a contractual agreement with the government. The history of Western religion is not one to be proud of. (But the history of secular progressivism certainly is!)

Phil,

…just about every instance of moral progress that’s occurred throughout history has been opposed by church leaders, from the emancipation of slaves to the liberation of women…

I’m not so sure this is entirely true, but please Phil, you’re cherry picking. Don’t forget to add to this list -atheists, naturalists, skeptics, unbelievers, secularist, rationalists, etc, etc.

What’s your point, Phil? I’m struggling to find one.

Phil,

It seems that Paul was “against marriage” because he thought the eschaton would occur within his own lifetime, per 1 Cor 7. Otherwise, claiming that “time is short” and that it is better not to marry is patently absurd. (If we would have followed Paul’s advice, our species would have died out centuries ago.) This is the view widely taught in universities and seminaries. But that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. 😀

Why should I not seek a wife if the world is going to carry on for at least another 2000 years?

You may as well be asking Tom why you shouldn’t get married and have a child if you’re two weeks away from deployment in the start of World War II. The idea of “hey this war’s eventually going to end” doesn’t matter with regards to the apprehension, because the *present time* makes getting married and having a child, at the very least, pretty questionable.

I used to wield that rhetorical weapon in my apologist days.

Bryan, you said that inerrancy could be disproven by, essentially, providing data that shows children raised by a gay couple on average performed well. When people accuse you of misunderstanding the Bible – or of misunderstanding arguments generally – there’s a good chance this is not ‘rhetorical weapon’, but ‘reasonable judgment based on observation and knowledge.’

It’s especially disgusting the way you come to such confident conclusions concerning your interpretations of the Bible, while telling us that our interpretations can’t be trusted because not everyone agrees with them!

Exactly! They are trying to agitate, and generally piss people off rather than understand.

Tom, what happened to your goal of treating each other as humans?

Tom has violated his own discussion policy in the name of calling out other people for doing so. This has gotten embarrassing. Nothing respectful or thoughtful here. Time to move on.

“By the way, Whitney, your use of Phil’s computer would have been less likely to have been notice if you hadn’t posted exactly the same thing first under the name “Phil Torres,” and then deleted it.”

Tom, your server is terrible. (Not a criticism of you! But it is pretty consistently awful.) Whitney changed the name twice, and then made sure it was different when posting. Whitney is my partner, and she has her own opinions.

I myself have trouble posting here all the time. Maybe the power of prayer would help?

“And I said I have no intellectual respect for the way you have conducted your argumentation. That’s a fact, which I tried to temper with other more humanizing statements, but without trying to hide my view of your methods.”

Not sure why you dislike me quoting scripture itself (usually Christians accuse opponents of not knowing what the Bible actually says), and scientific studies. And if I’m a bigot for supporting women’s rights, gay marriage, and so on, then, well, I guess I have absolutely no idea what that word means.

” you called Christianity’s treatment of women virtually the same as Islam’s, you pulled Scripture out of context as you have here,”

Tom, what are you talking about? You brought this up earlier, and I responded to it explicitly. Please, go back and re-read that. As for scripture, I did no such thing. It is *you* who doesn’t seem to understand how to read scripture. For example, when it comes to hell, I sent you *multiple* websites by Christians arguing that hell is *obviously* a real place, given the Bible’s descriptions of it. If I am misreading, then millions of other Christians are reading. With respect to something like Jesus and Paul being an apocalypticist, if you go into a university with “smart” people and their “books,” the “literate” reading that they’ll give you is that Paul and Jesus were falsely convinced that the eschaton was imminent. You talk about “literate” reading — I would bet that I’ve read just as much academic theology, textual criticism, etc. as anyone on this site.

“This is what’s happening over and over again: you’re telling Christians what we believe instead of asking. You are bent on telling us we’re idiots for believing the Bible when it says what you think it says. You won’t listen for a moment to any explanation that shows it says anything else.”

show me where I’ve told anyone what they believe. There are times when I’ve said that “true” Christians “ought to” believe certain things. For example, Paul says that a wife will divide one’s devotion for God. He says that, and it’s about as unambiguous as one could ask. Do a Google search and you will find Bible study outlines from actual believing Christians — those who take what the Bible actually says more seriously than Tom — saying just this. And if you go to a university and ask a theology professor, he or she will say “Well, yes, Paul did think that. Why? Because he was falsely convinced that the parousia was about to happen.” Talk about literate, Tom. There’s a reason studies show that intelligence and education are both positively correlated with disbelief.

@David Martin “How are recent studies the reason the APA made a statement 36 years ago? Your links make it look like the APA (and perhaps other organizations?) put the cart before the horse. Which tends to make one wonder if the results of the studies are truly unbiased, or are skewed toward the current “scientific” thinking.”

I can’t give a course on this issue here, David. Do some research — there have been many, many, many studies on gay adoption and the psychology of homosexuality. Over and over and over again (if you don’t believe me then, please, go see for yourself) studies have shown that gay parents are just as morally competent as straight parents. I’m serious about this. I linked to one meta-study, but there is an overwhelming number of them out there.

“And one study does not a doctrine prove.

If you knew anything about social science, you would know that. You would know that when the scientist says, as was quoted in the article, “there is no scientific basis to discriminate,” that’s not the same as saying science has proved there is reason not to discriminate. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it is absolutely fundamental to science, especially social science. You do respect science, right? Then why distort it so?”

Tom, ugh. It looks like you have no understanding of science at all. Have you ever studied science? (Serious question; just curious.) Read the above answer. A plethora of studies have been done. Indeed, the APA and 11 other scientific / professional organizations (just in the US; you want to talk about Europe? Japan?) have endorsed gay marriage and gay adoption *precisely because* all the empirical evidence quite unequivocally supports the hypothesis that “Gay people aren’t any different psychologically, parentally, etc. than straight people.” So, there is no scientific reason, no reason relating to any fact about the world in which we live, for telling gay people they cannot adopt. Again, it might not have been this way — and if it hadn’t, organizations like the APA wouldn’t have the same positions that they have. For them — for all of science — what matters is the evidence.

“My point is that the lack of “empirical evidence” for some abomination A does not mean that A is not an abomination.”

I didn’t mention this because, frankly, it’s idiotic. A lack of empirical evidence for the claim that Thinking Christian is an abomination does not mean that Thinking Christian is not an abomination. Yes, of course, but if you have evidence to suggest that Thinking Christian is a very good, well-reasoned, ethically good website, then you have reason for holding that Thinking Christian is not an abomination. A lack of empirical evidence for the claim that an asteroid will hit Earth in 2013 does not mean that there isn’t an asteroid going to hit Earth. Yes, but if you’ve actually looked and you see no asteroid coming towards Earth, then you have reason for thinking that there’s no asteroid heading towards Earth. This is Philosophy 101 stuff (a theme that emerged from our debate last time).

Talk about dodging questions. Tom, you have yet to respond to the embarrassing study that found that Christians are disproportionately likely to oppose interracial marriage today! Again, it wasn’t progressives leading the charge against white and black people marrying, it was religious conservatives. Incidentally, this isn’t an anomaly. Empirical studies show that religious communities (in the US) are more racist, more close-minded, more likely to condone torture, more likely to support the death penalty, more likely to oppose women’s rights, more likely to oppose gay marriage, and so on. I have all of these — and many more studies just like them — cited on page 107-108 (I think) of A Crisis of Faith. Every single claim comes from a peer-reviewed article in a reputable academic journal. Looking at the situation holistically, it’s a disgrace. And it’s blogs like this that are contributing to the hurtful influence of thoughtless discrimination.

Please do check out all those studies. Many are also discussed in the work of Phil Zuckerman. If anyone doesn’t want to buy my book, I would be happy to send them those two pages discussing all this research.

How did Tom prove that I — with my explicit support for women’s rights, my endorsement of interracial marriage, and my support of same-sex couples — am a bigot?

Because you ARE a bigot–an anti-Christian bigot, and as R. Rodriguez pointed out, Tom proved it with references.

What’s amazing (well, maybe not…) is another aspect of the cute deflection just blockquoted: what you cited has NOTHING to do with your ridiculous and bigoted claims… which Tom pointed out. You can be for women’s rights and still be a bigoted anti-Christian… which you are, again because Tom pointed it out with references.

Your being “for” the ideological movements listed doesn’t absolve you of being for them in a bigoted way–in particular against Christianity. Take the example of your alleged support of women’s rights: that “right” (I gather) includes the taking away the rights of the most innocent and defenseless members of humanity in incredibly violent ways–abortion. You take away the right to life of an innocent and “give it” to a stronger member of society. Dare we say bigoted hypocrite? Oh, but then, a child in the womb is, in your personal opinion, conveniently, non-scientifically, and pseudo-philosophically removed from the family of man as an “inconvenience,” or a “choice,” or “lebensunwertes leben.” Nice ruse. My wife and many others view people like you as being incredibly ANTI-woman (i.e., a bigot) because you’re anti-innocent human life.

(I stand corrected and apologize, of course, if you’re pro-life.)

“Endorsement of same-sex couples” makes you non-bigoted against Christianity? Want to try again?

P.S. I AM ANTI-ATHEISM BIGOTED… in the same way a doctor is bigoted against cancer or multiple sclerosis (both, by the way, having natural precursors), or the way a judge is bigoted against drunk drivers. You are of a world view that puts more power in the hands of the already powerful by taking the most precious right-of-life away from the most defenseless… and then you try to get away with calling yourself some kind of a “rights” supporter. That betrays a lack of sensibility and prudence to understand right and wrong… but (again, I gather — please correct me if I’m wrong) you’re a moral relativist who conveniently “chooses” (heh – like that works per the machines you which you reduce humans per your own blog) what is right and what is wrong.

I close with the following inane gem from your blog:

what Jesus went through was horrible indeed by ABSOLUTE STANDARDS [emphasis added], but relative to the experiences of millions of other human beings throughout history, it was demonstrably not half as bad as it could have been. Surely the suffering of the girl in India was greater than that of Jesus; I would argue that it was probably much greater.

What a sick piece of illogic! How does one even begin to unpack such self-serving, ignorant, opinionated nonsense? I mean really! “absolute standards”?!? Which one? (Memo: is-to-ought fallacy ahead) How is your version of morality “absolute”? “Millions”?!? So numbers count over substance? Deicide is “demonstrably not half as bad” as, say, the multiple atheistic-driven genocides? If Christ is God, then the smallest sin is an infinite transgression precisely because the object against which the transgression is directed is infinite. You missed that in Christianity 101… really? And, pray, tell, please actually DEMONSTRATE your claim… if you even have a clue what a demonstration is, or if you can distinguish one from, say, a proof.

Amazingly inane atheistic balderdash.

I see Tom got in a bit of response while I was typing my previous one, but Phil – I have to agree that the line “if Tom and I were having this conversation in the 50s or 60s, Tom would no doubt be arguing that interracial marriage is a radical departure from what marriage in the US means” was out of bounds.

You could contend that Tom’s arguments re: SSM were very similar in form to the reactionary arguments against ‘miscegenation’ in the 50’s and 60’s. But saying Tom would have opposed interracial marriage back then is not just rude, it’s so general and hypothetical it’s “not even wrong”, as Wolfgang Pauli once quipped.

I could construct hypotheticals where you would have been a malicious, sadistic slaveowner in the Antebellum American south. Had you been born in that time to slaveowning parents, and miseducated badly enough, you too would almost certainly have become an abusive monster. Had you been born to Abolitionist parents, things would most likely have been different still.

Those kind of hypotheticals are – again – rude, but they are also useless in a discussion like this. If there are important parallels between arguments against SSM today and arguments against interracial marriages then, just point them out. That’s all that’s needed, or indeed relevant.

Ray:

Give me a break–if you know anything about communism, then you know its primary animating principle is atheism. I’ve provided the quotes… whether that makes you feel uncomfortable is another issue. As a person who has a formal graduate degree from an Ivy League school in Sovietology and who lived and worked in the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union for 13 years, I have some knowledge on the matter. You, apparently, don’t… which is fine… except that you act upon said ignorance. Sigh…

Now, admittedly I baited with my example… although the atheism-animating-communism point is unquestionably true. The bait you took is YOUR earlier (other posts) sweeping generalizations against Christianity (and faith in general)… akin to (but not said by you) “Salem witch trials, therefore Christianity is evil,” or “Crusades, therefore Christianity is evil.” So, you permit yourself broad generalizations (incorrect ones), but atheism-fundamentally-animates-communism (which IS correct) somehow is not.

(Note: I give you some credit for @67.)

You want specifics? No, I’m not going to be baited into doing your homework for you. Your “reasoning” here is so reflective of the “reasoning” on your site… which is itself a huge issue. I’m sticking with G. Rodrigues’ correct characterization of atheist “reasoning”: idiocy. Forget arguments and evidence for or against the existence of God (as if He were an existent among existents)… it’s the very view of reality atheism proposes that is so disordered.

“Whitney said I called you a bigot for “arguing points against the truth or validity of Christianity.” I didn’t.”

No, Tom; I never said that. I was clarifying what ‘bigot’ means. (Not that it matters at this point, as the conversation has gotten so muddled.)

Holopupenko –

if you know anything about communism, then you know its primary animating principle is atheism

Well, not necessarily, but I’ll grant that atheism was a central principle of the Soviet, Chinese, and Cambodian regimes.

The same way that monotheism is the primary animating principle of Islam. And Christianity. So the must be pretty much the same in practice, right?

You want specifics?

Funny, the only specifics you gave were things you also explicitly admitted I never said. So apparently you’re just going to say I’m wrong without actually arguing why. I suppose that might make you feel better, but since it’s of little utility to me I can’t find much motive to care.

Thanks Tom for this thought-provoking discussion. I often follow your posts but rarely comment. I sometimes get frustrated in trying to explain to my kids the importance of this and other moral issues. I needed reminding about this one myself. Being divorced, I give quite a bit of thought to the idea of re-marrying one day. I believe as the divorced percentage of our population increases, we find ourselves detaching from the committment we once intuitively understood. It’s hard not to be influenced by our culture. It’s really pretty simple though isn’t it? Putting others’ before ourselves. There is nothing more intimate and redeeming than unconditionally forgiving another person and caring for them- no matter what. Till death do us part. Even when is sucks. Even when it’s like heaven. This is the kind of love we experience and practice as husband and wife, and father and mother. This is the kind of love that Christ shows us. This is the kind of love that redeems us and makes life worthwhile. We find the highest value in losing ourselves. I grieve because this is the kind of love SSM participants and advocates do not understand. If they understood, they would not try to call it “marriage”.

Debbie asks a good question. Who gets to define things? Well, the answer is “both-and”. That is, there is a God-defined “marriage” and there is a state-defined “marriage”. The reason that Christians are so defensive of the second is that up until very recently (as Tom argues) nobody would have even conceived of the possibility that the second was not an attempt to recognize the first.

Well, that’s changed. God’s definition hasn’t changed. But there is an agenda afoot to wrest the state-sanctioned definition away from the heaven-sanctioned one.

So let’s change the question: what, exactly, does the church lose if the state should redefine the word “marriage” to its purposes?

Would this be, say, like having our face slapped? Sure thing.
Would this be, say, like having someone sue us for our shirt? Definitely.
Would this be, say, like having someone force us to walk a mile out of our way. Uh-huh.

It is, after all, taking one of “our” words, and, well, degrading it. So be it. Our master tells us how we should respond: turning the other cheek, giving our cloak as well, and going the extra mile. This is how the world knows that we are true disciples (rather than taking offense at slaps, holding tightly to our shirts, or exercising our rights).

The mystery of Easter will prevail — by “suffering”, the church will be glorified!

In fact, this may well be one of those “who touched me” moments: the disciples would have been horrified to have known that an unclean woman touched their master — the law said that would make him unclean. But in the delightful logic of heaven, the heavenly things do not become unclean — rather, they heal the source of the uncleanness.

The world has had something against marriage for a while (it wasn’t long ago that the same people claiming that it is hateful not to sanction SSM were saying that marriage was “just a piece of paper”). Because they long for what God provides. Unfortunately, they won’t get that with just the label. But they can have that if they insist.