Opposing Gay Marriage: It's All About The Sex

For people who oppose gay marriage it really is all about the sex. This is not a particularly illuminating statement. Comments like the recent statement by Paul Stam, a republican representative in the North Carolina house, are pretty clear. According to Stam, “What I’m saying is, you cannot construct an argument for same sex-marriage that would not also justify philosophically the legalization of polygamy and adult incest,”. We frequently hear similar statements from conservatives that homosexuality leads to pedophilia , heterosexual sodomy, bestiality, and any other kind “unnatural” sex that you can name. Liberals tend to find these lines of reasoning rather odd. After all there is nothing preventing gays from having sex outside of marriage, not that conservatives wouldn’t love to bring back anti-sodomy laws, but that’s a discussion for another time. There are no prohibitions against gays having children and exposing them to the supposedly corrosive effects of a sinful lifestyle. Why the opposition to marriage? Marriage doesn’t alter behavior or household arrangements, it only changes the legal status of the couple. What liberals miss is that for religious conservatives it’s not about the status of the gay couple, it’s about the status of the sex. What really concerns the religious right is the relationship between sacredness and sex.
The traditional Christian view on sex, dating back to Augustine, is that sex is only a sacred act when it occurs in the context of marriage. Augustine writes in The Good of Marriage, “Marriages also have the benefit that sensual or youthful incontinence, even though it is wrong, is redirected to the honorable purpose of having children, and so out of the evil of lust sexual union in marriage achieves something good. Furthermore, parental feeling brings about a moderation in sexual desire, since it is held back and in a certain way burns more modestly. For a kind of dignity attaches to the ardor of the pleasure, when in the act whereby man and woman come together with each other, they have the thought of being father and mother.”  For Augustine, sex was inherently sinful but in the context of marriage “a kind of dignity” is attached to the sexual act and transforms it from something sinful to something divinely sanctioned. We must trace this thinking to Augustine, because it doesn’t come directly from the bible. Without going too deeply into scripture, there are basically three instances, dealing with sex and sin. I am omitting Paul’s comments on sex because they represent his own personal interpretation of scripture and would require a complete post in their own right. The three biblical references are the sixth commandment, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, the implied sin of sodomy in the Sodom and Gomorra story, and the stoning of the prostitute in the new testament. It’s not clear that any of these are a prohibition on extramarital sex. Adultery is more of a property issue, not having sex with someone else’s woman, whatever her marital status. It was not considered sinful in that context to have sex with one of your unmarried slaves for instance. I will not try to argue that male gay sex was not considered sinful, there are plenty of sources outside of the Bible to confirm it, however it is not clear that sodomy with a woman was sinful per se. The sin of the prostitute is of course adultery, but in the context previously noted. I should point out that no one is stoning her johns. The sin is only hers because she’s having sex with another woman’s husband. The men get a pass since the prostitute is not someone else’s property. Again, extramarital sex doesn’t seem to be a problem biblically.
So how does all this play in to the gay marriage debate? Basically the Christian right is fearful of sanctifying what they consider to be a sinful form of sex. If gays are allowed to marry the impression might spread that gay sex can be a transcendent and holy experience. The notion that the physical bonding of two gay people in a deep act of love might be pleasing to God is just too much to bear. For those of us who long ago de-coupled the sanctity of sex from marital status, this line of thinking is just peculiar. I have certainly had sexual experiences outside of marriage that I would describe as being transcendent and others that were decidedly motivated by lust. I’m sure there are plenty of people in loveless marriages that would describe their sexual experiences as purely physical and anything but holy. For me the definition of sacred involves any experience where my own individuality is transcended. To put it in Christian terms, it is any occasion when the holy spirit is present. Unless I’ve gotten my theology wrong, I’m pretty sure there are no Christian teachings that people and churches get to choose where and when the holy spirit makes an appearance. Only God chooses that. If that place happens to be a gay couples bedroom, then who am I to question it?