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One of my sons shared a link to an article with the above title. He asked what I think about the argument in it. This is the son who is getting sealed next month – one of the most naturally sensitive young men I’ve ever known. He has a lot of gay friends, especially, stereotypically, because he was involved in theatre while in high school and college. The link is:
“
How Christianity Gave Us Gay Marriage” ( http://theweek.com/article/index/256556/how-christianity-gave-us-gay-marriage It is an amazing article, and I couldn’t agree more with its central thesis. My response to my son said that, but I also shared the following:
Quote:I really like it and agree with the central principle – that gay marriage is an inevitable result of the teachings of Jesus. I like to phrase it in terms of Jacob 5 – where the constant work is to prune “bitter fruit” from the tree, which I see as removing “incorrect traditions of the fathers” (including our own) from society, in general, and Christianity (including us), in particular.
From a different angle, ironically, I also believe conservative Christians (including Mormons) gave us gay marriage because they wouldn’t accept civil unions with full civil rights – which would have short-circuited the gay marriage push if accepted, like what happened in Europe – and when they insisted on claiming that homosexuality is “unnatural”. They made it a scientific argument and an all-or-nothing battle, and they were on the wrong side of science and civil progress.
There are a lot of exceptional things in the article. I would be hard pressed to cite it at church, but I am sure I will be able to find a way to frame the central thesis and teach it. I just have to work on how to do it. Luckily, I’ve had decades to practice doing that.
There is no marriage or giving in marriage in the kingdom of heaven. The sons of this age do marry and are given in marriage, but those accounted worthy to obtain that age (aeon), and the rising again that is out of the dead, neither marry, nor are they given in marriage; for neither are they able to die any more — for they are like messengers — and they are sons of God, being sons of the rising again.(Luke 20, Young’s Literal Translation) [Admin Note]: The quoted scripture has absolutely nothing to do with this post.I am leaving it alone in order to make a point, but the scripture is irrelevant to this post.
We don’t do any kind of drive by shootings here in this forum, and that comment was nothing but a
randomdrive by shooting. It isn’t targeted at the point of the post in any way. At best, it’s like shooting at a second cousin of the person who offended the shooter. It would be like someone quoting 1 Corinthians 15: 29 about baptism for the dead on a Southern Baptist forum in response to a post about the evolution of marriage in that denomination. The person might believe it passionately, but it would be a case of trolling in that context. There is no value whatsoever in it relative to the context of this post. Don’t do it again.
Interesting question of whether gay marriage is an unintended outcome of Christian values or culture. I have thought about it myself; and while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Christianity resulted in (the concept of) gay marriage, I do think it’s an inevitable outgrowth of legalistic Western society. Legalism is a mental construct which creates structure where it does not literally exist and draws definitions that are more exact than what would actually exist. For example, there are actually some live-in relationships which have no legal recognition but are for all practical social and psychological purposes stronger than a lot of marriages. But in a society where just about anything that counts is defined legalistically–everything from property to academic credentials to personal identity–it is inevitable that people will want their relationships to be legally defined for emotional as well as utilitarian reasons. The downside of this, of course, is that gay marriages risk being socially regarded by many as less than completely real, in the same way that African-American men having been endowed with constitutional rights after the Civil War still had to wait a century before social legitimacy caught up. Christianity is at the very least a co-conspirator in all of this because the highly legalistic nature of Western society is directly inherited from an era in which the church and society and government were indistinguishable (up to the 19th century). The LDS Church is an unwitting accomplice because it has tied its own religious and spiritual notions to legalistic definitions. We do not simply regard temple sealings as a religious rite separate and apart from civil marriage but ideally as one and the same. And I think this is the conundrum in which LDS leadership finds itself today: a choice between continuing to align our rites with the greater legalistic structure in society and risk being encroached upon; or separating the two and forcing its members to do the harder conceptual task of mentally distinguishing legalistic from spiritual.
Excellent observation, convert1992. I simply will point out that the foundation of the type of legalism in question here rests on the idea of inalienable rights that are endowed by a creator that apply to “all (people who) are created equal” – to use the American phrasing. It is the idea that everyone has the God-given right to be treated equally under the law that has driven equality movements, and the ideals of Christianity lie at the heart of that idea – even as mortals running Christian sects have botched it terribly at times. In a way, gay marriage is simply the next logical progression in implementing the ideal more fully, since the (relatively) less controversial marginalized groups (non-landed men, then racial minorities, then women, etc.) have been addressed already. Polygamists now are included, thanks in large measure to the arguments that developed through the cases regarding gay marriage, given the court’s over-turning of Utah’s ban on polygamy.
It’s like an inevitable timeline, with the only factor separating the groups being the degree of the “ickiness factor” felt by the general population and powerful leaders for each group – the least icky (non-land-owning men) being tackled first and the more icky being tackled in turn.
The tension between the ideal and the practical (e.g., “all men are created equal” but slaves counted as only 3/5 of a person and couldn’t vote – not to mention the focus on men that excluded women for a long time) is fascinating, but the ideal still has been there to act as a driving force for continuing change – one excluded group at a time.
convert1992 wrote:Interesting question of whether gay marriage is an unintended outcome of Christian values or culture. I have thought about it myself; and while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Christianity resulted in (the concept of) gay marriage, I do think it’s an inevitable outgrowth of legalistic Western society. Legalism is a mental construct which creates structure where it does not literally exist and draws definitions that are more exact than what would actually exist. For example, there are actually some live-in relationships which have no legal recognition but are for all practical social and psychological purposes stronger than a lot of marriages. But in a society where just about anything that counts is defined legalistically–everything from property to academic credentials to personal identity–it is inevitable that people will want their relationships to be legally defined for emotional as well as utilitarian reasons. The downside of this, of course, is that gay marriages risk being socially regarded by many as less than completely real, in the same way that African-American men having been endowed with constitutional rights after the Civil War still had to wait a century before social legitimacy caught up.
Christianity is at the very least a co-conspirator in all of this because the highly legalistic nature of Western society is directly inherited from an era in which the church and society and government were indistinguishable (up to the 19th century). The LDS Church is an unwitting accomplice because it has tied its own religious and spiritual notions to legalistic definitions. We do not simply regard temple sealings as a religious rite separate and apart from civil marriage but ideally as one and the same. And I think this is the conundrum in which LDS leadership finds itself today: a choice between continuing to align our rites with the greater legalistic structure in society and risk being encroached upon; or separating the two and forcing its members to do the harder conceptual task of mentally distinguishing legalistic from spiritual.
I probably have a incorrect parallel but I feel much more comfortable around my Asian friends who usually don’t think in legalistic terms. In the sane tone I think creating a legalistic term for marriage of a kind creates a kind of
Quote:the nail that sticks out gets hammered
philosophy like action in society. The group or person sticking out would naturally not want to be “hammered” so I’m a legalistic society the default position by its own creation would be to legally change the system so you aren’t hammered. It’s unsustainable. Historically people don’t stay pushed down. Historically the system either changes or they fight back(culture or race or sex).
So ya, I do think a limited system itself(narrowly defined) creates the rules for its own Demise.
Forgotten_Charity wrote:I probably have a incorrect parallel but I feel much more comfortable around my Asian friends who usually don’t think in legalistic terms.
You are correct. Asian society and religion are not as legalistic as Western society. The reason I hesitate to associate gay marriage too closely with Christianity is that the movement is spreading quickly to non-Christian societies such as Taiwan. That would suggest that the underlying impetus is a universal human desire to see the commitment of love made permanent.
I agree that it is not a uniquely or exclusively Christian concept – but it is fascinating that the wide-spread legal codification of our modern era started in Western, Christian nations. convert1992 wrote:Forgotten_Charity wrote:I probably have a incorrect parallel but I feel much more comfortable around my Asian friends who usually don’t think in legalistic terms.
You are correct. Asian society and religion are not as legalistic as Western society. The reason I hesitate to associate gay marriage too closely with Christianity is that the movement is spreading quickly to non-Christian societies such as Taiwan. That would suggest that the underlying impetus is a universal human desire to see the commitment of love made permanent.
Have you checked out Confucianism? While Confucius and Mencius were great people, Confucianism gave the world the most fiendish civil service ever known, and if that’s not legalistic, I don’t know what is!
“That would suggest that the underlying impetus is a universal human desire to see the commitment of love made permanent.”
It’s not just about love. Follow the money… if someone’s going to make money, they’ll promote it. Some people stand to make money out of performing ceremonies, signing papers, even doing divorce. A whole new market.
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