Posted on 04/17/2015 1:44:35 PM PDT by Petrosius
I am a very committed, very public advocate of marriage as a gender-based institution. Many of my fellow proponents of man/woman marriage cite religious liberty as an argument against redefining marriage. While I have great respect for those who promote this view, I must respectfully disagree with their assessment.
The uproar over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act demonstrates that religious liberty arguments don’t work anymore. I take no pleasure in saying this. But religious liberty arguments are not compelling enough to induce our fellow citizens to sacrifice something they value, namely, sexual liberty.
I can think of three reasons for this.
An increasing number of our fellow citizens do not believe in any god. A substantial number describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.
The American religious situation at the time of the American Founding was quite different. James Madison spoke for most when he regarded religion as “the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it.” When so many people do not regard themselves as having any “duty to the Creator,” the social foundation that made religious liberty appealing or even intelligible, no longer exists.
So, Reason #1 why religious liberty arguments are not working: People who don’t believe in God, couldn’t give a rip whether we religious believers are inconvenienced in our religious practice.
Secondly, the controversies over religious liberty are not about transubstantiation or the Trinity or predestination. We are arguing about sex: abortion, contraception, homosexuality and similar topics.
Our fellow citizens have absorbed and are committed to a particular view about the meaning of human sexuality and its place in our lives. Millions of people have ordered their lives around these beliefs. They are not going to give up those views, in the absence of an attractive alternative.
Reason #2 why religious liberty arguments are not working: we are asking our fellow citizens to give up something they value, without offering anything they value in its place.
Finally, when we talk about religious liberty, we are putting the emphasis on ourselves. We don’t like the HHS mandate because it will harm our religious institutions. We don’t like gay marriage because it goes against our beliefs.
Reason #3 why religious liberty arguments aren’t working: we sound like we are whining about ourselves. No one finds whining appealing.
I honestly think further appeals to religious liberty are not helping our cause. These arguments are not helping the immediate particular cause, such as defending man/woman marriage. Nor are religious liberty arguments helping the general cause of the church itself. Appeals to religious liberty once made sense, but no longer.
We need a different strategy: argue against the Sexual Revolution because it has hurt people.
And I do mean the whole Sexual Revolution. We are tacitly giving a pass to the earlier phases of the Sexual Revolution, by saying so little about them. The only serious exception to this generalization is abortion: the Catholic Church, and more recently, other Christians, have put up a noble fight against the Big Abortion Machine. But other aspects of the Sexual Revolution? Divorce? Contraception? Taxpayer-funded Sexual Miseducation in the schools? Not so much.
It is as if we are saying, “We like the Sexual Revolution just fine: we just don’t like the Gay Parts.” That simply will not do. It is not fair to individuals who are same sex attracted. And, it is intellectually incoherent, since the acceptance of genderless marriage actually depends upon our acceptance of those earlier phases of the Sexual Revolution.
True enough, there is no constituency right now for winning elections on some of these issues. Too bad. That just means we have not made the substantive case on these issues often enough and persuasively enough. The pro-life movement has shown that it is possible to build a constituency for the Culture of Life.
The truth is that the Sexual Revolution has harmed millions of people: Children of divorce, whose families were broken up and who never really felt like part of a real family again. Reluctantly divorced people, who wanted to stay married but whose spouse pulled the plug. Heartbroken middle-aged professional women, who “had it all,” except for the children they are now too old to bear. Refugees from the hook-up culture, jaded, cynical, and old before their time. I could mention many other groups of people. They need our help connecting the dots between the lies of the Sexual Revolution and the misery they are experiencing.
I mean no disrespect to anyone. Many advocates of religious liberty have also spoken out against these evils. My point is that bringing up religious liberty no longer strengthens our case: it weakens our case.
Christianity has a viable, humane, intellectually coherent alternative to the Sexual Revolution. Sex makes babies. Children need their own parents. Men and women are different. These are facts: trying to build an entire society around their opposites is inhuman and impossible.
Our society desperately needs to hear this message. Demanding our First Amendment Rights is a distraction. If we religious believers won’t proclaim these truths, who will?
We fought a war against involuntary servitude. Looks like we’re gonna have to do it again.
Rolling back the sexual revolution is not going to go over very well around here where people are concerned about who will hit what.
That was the argument for Prohibition, and it didn't work, because all the individual cares about is the individual: "Yeah, maybe that dumba$$ over there ruined his/her life screwin' around, but I can handle it, don't take it away from me."
There is no argument that will work, because this issue is not convincing our opponents, it is converting them, and that can only come with presenting the Gospel in the power of God.
When God converts you, you don't need to be convinced; when God does not convert you, you cannot be convinced.
In other words, while it is easy to point to people who say they "can't get married" and photograph them and interview them, it's very hard to show that erosion of religious liberty at the other end. People will say, "Can't you still go to church?" This less tangible erosion only becomes apparent when, as in Sweden, you end up throwing a preacher in jail because he won't accept homosexual marriage.
Moreover, couched in the entire proto-feminist "bullying" language, it's a nearly impossible battle to win in the public square. Any opposition is couched in the language of "bullying" helpless same-sex marriage advocates.
Notice nobody is screwing with them?
Reason #4: The average person is incapable of forethought and so cannot understand how forcing someone else to provide a service against that person’s beliefs will affect them personally.
The real problem is that we are living in a very secular world, where a great deal of the population doesn’t subscribe to a particular religion and has everything to gain if religion can simply be sued or prosecuted out of operation. The secular side is inconvenienced by the religion itself, so any religious side complaints do not matter.
Go missionary or go Amish seem to be the only two viable strategies.
False analogy. Prohibition was trying to make a moral absolute (no use of alcohol) out of what was only an abuse through excess. Moderate use of alcohol is not immoral. Millions of moderate drinkers were denied the right to drink in an effort to stop excessive drinking.
The recognition of sex as being restricted to chaste marriage, on the other hand, has been the societal norm throughout history and in nearly every culture. Nor does it forbid the proper use of sex with a total prohibition as Prohibition did with alcohol. It just channels it into its proper place.
There is no argument that will work, because this issue is not convincing our opponents, it is converting them, and that can only come with presenting the Gospel in the power of God.
When God converts you, you don't need to be convinced; when God does not convert you, you cannot be convinced.
I agree that the ultimate goal is conversion to the Gospel. But that does not mean we should avoid intermediate goals. The limitation of sex within chaste marriage is not unique to Christianity. It was also the norm in most non-Christian societies, thus showing that it can be promoted as a good in itself.
You, having been born without a sense of humor, are in this fight without any weapons.
The 4th reason that religious liberty arguments fail is that too many religious people aren’t really all that religious and they don’t distinguish themselves from non-believers.
My only conclusion regarding this is my affirmation that America has become a morally rotted nation. Rotted to the very core. We have a populace that now cares nothing of liberty, but craves wearing the chains of fascism. And a culture that attacks and maligns everything once considered good and decent, while promoting and celebrating vileness and evil.
I used to believe that our American heritage, our founding ideals, and our Constitution would ensure that we wouldn’t be drawn down into the kind of darkness that enshrouded Europe in the last century. That we were too strong and too savvy to succumb to that kind of degeneration. But the effectiveness of cultural marxism of PC from the last 20-30 years and the demented rabbit hole it has taken us down has shown me the utter weakness of the current American generations.
I expect to soon see churches all over the country being torched by these dupes that are being cultivated under this whole vile umbrella that makes up our media complex. Things are going to get really bad, and more quickly than most people expect.
I would disagree: most non-Judeo-Christian cultures provided means for sexual activity outside of marriage, from temple prostitutes to red light districts to allowing for a mistress to homosex as a bond-forger (intercrurial sex with mentors in Athens, sex with fellow fighters in Sparta). The universal prohibition was not against sex outside of marriage, but sex with someone who was married to someone else.
What cultures have never had throughout history is a definition of marriage other than one man and one woman, except in some cases for the rich and powerful who could be polygamous. It was only in Judaism and Christianity that the idea of sex having to be kept within marriage took hold, and that was the prevailing belief in Euro-American society until the removal of Judeo-Christian thinking from society.
You’re right that it’s not going to go over well ... BECAUSE ... many want their own form of IMMORALITY in sexual issues, while condemning others in their sexual issues.
If we would ABSOLUTELY CONDEMN sleeping with someone (on whatever numbered date you choose) or living with someone, and get on their case as strongly as we do about homosexuals ... then we wouldn’t have the homosexual problem.
The HOMOSEXUAl PROBLEM gets solved easily, when we take care of the HETEROSEXUAL PROBLEM.
So, the route to solving our present problem with Homosexuals actually starts with “US” as Heterosexuals. If we don’t attack and condemn ABSOLUTELY the heterosexual immorality, there is no ground to condemn homosexual immorality ... because we are simply, operating from hypocrisy!
That’s the solution and there’s where it starts, first! However I don’t believe that the majority wants to solve the heterosexual immorality problem (they are satisfied with it right now), therefore the homosexual immorality will not been even touched or affected in the least!
I believe what is being asserted here is that evangelism/awakening/repentance (a GOTV for the Lord, if we can put it that way) is needed since the “salt itself has become unsalty.”
I’m not hearing very cheerful things today about how the church body handles divorce, let alone other marital issues. If it is just like the world, it has become a sad farce before the Lord. And attempts to counsel the world on what to do look like the hypocrisy they are. They needn’t BE hypocrisy, but the church has its own homes to purify.
It’s not just about religious liberty. It’s about liberty in general. The argument that homosexuals should be free to live in accordance with their beliefs, applies to Christians (with the exception that religion is specifically protected by the US Constitution while same-sex sex is not). I mean the ideal of human liberty.
The real problem here is government. It does not follow the clear intent of the US Constitution for whatever reason. Once these firewalls were broken, there can be no end to the meddling. Why? Because it’s no longer possible to find a clear standard. It all comes down to who has the most votes, including the courts.
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The one and only reason that RL arguments fail is that our courts are a setup, with 90% unbeliever judges.
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Here’s the big secret. Sex in marriage is not BOOOOOORING. Instead, it occupies the place of quality it was always expected to have before mankind played games with it.
Also there are qualities of gender (male and female) that can legitimately be shown in non marital, non “sexual” conduct. Ever notice how our dear liberals want to wipe out the “lopsidedness” of the relationship between, say, girls and dolls or boys and sports? They might as well be commanding water that it should not be wet.
You are an expert at compartmentalization aren’t you.
In a democratic republic, even with all their indirection, courts wouldn’t get that way if a sinful society had not let them and indeed egged it on.
In the courts, are seen a reflection of the civic you and me.
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