Here are two pieces from the Washington Post:
Gay Marriage amendment Fails in Senate
Washington Sketch
The first is an article, the second an editorial. Both concern the re-introduced marriage amendment. All I can say is, I am ashamed for my country. Let us ignore, for the moment, whether I support gay marriage or not. This matter is not for the federal constitution. Marriage is a matter of interpersonal relationships, not a crucial government issue. If the marriage amendment, which would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, became a part of the Constitution, it would be the only constitutional article of its kind. To incorporate marriage into the Constitution is to say that the very structure of our government and our nation is dependent upon a particular type of personal relationship among our citizens. How incredibly weak and ridiculous does that make the USA sound?
Now to what the amendment is about. To define marriage as the union between one man and one woman is to leave democracy behind and turn the USA into a theocracy. There is no secular reason to keep homosexuals from marrying. After all, partnership is partnership. Two people of the same sex can have a joint household, combine their assets, and care for each other in times of need just as two people of opposite sexes can. There is no anthropological reason to assume the necessity of the nuclear family with one father, one mother, and 2.3 children. In fact, societies where there is traditionally strong ties between extended kin generally have lower incidences of major depression.
The religious reason lies in the belief of orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims that sexuality cannot be separated from procreation without being sinful. Hence the protester quoted in the editorial who cites the danger of homosexuality encouraging masturbation. After all, one cannot create children through masturbation, so masturbation is sinful. Edited to add, in response to a note: I know that Orthodox Jews do not consider sexuality per se sinful, and that enjoyment of the sex act is considered necessary for both partners and that physical and spiritual fulfillment in this case are intertwined. However, my understanding is that Orthodox Jews understand the story of Onan and Tamar as an injunction against masturbation, and of course Leviticus forbids a person to lay with a man as with a woman, which is hard to interpret in any way that doesn't relate to homosexuality. So sex only becomes legitimate in a procreative model, i.e., man and woman. However, I do not know what the opinion of Orthodox Jews on birth control is, so I am more than willing to be educated on this, or corrected if my understanding about the Orthodox Jews and the Onanian dogma is wrong.
This belief is incredibly archaic. We live in an era where contraceptive is safer and more reliable than ever, AIDS is sweeping through Africa and India, and the globe is becoming grossly over-populated. Besides which, how is this anyone's business? How did these "activists" ever get the idea that what goes on in other people's private lives is their concern? If I choose to marry another woman, how does that affect anyone else? It certainly doesn't demean heterosexual marriages. Denmark, the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, has a divorce rate of 2.81 per 1000 people, as opposed to the prejudiced USA's number of 4.95 per 1000 people.
The truth is that numerous kinds of sex acts, including masturbation and homosexuality, are known in nature. In fact, anyone who has ever had a dog hump his leg knows this. So there goes the belief that homosexuality is unnatural, practiced only by degenerates. Of course, there are some who would argue that the bestial nature of these acts is what makes them so reprehensible. In which case, I can only suggest that these people stop eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom.
Modern marriage is the joining of two individuals who enter into a partnership not because they need each other, but because they want each other. Today women can work and men can stay home and raise children. As we have dispensed with strict gender roles, so have we negated the need to only consider marriage as occurring between a man and a woman. We live in a nation which was one of the earliest to separate church and state. So why should the religious convictions of some be allowed to affect the civil liberties of others?
I'd like to conclude with a link to Glaukopis's satire and this thought: we are created in God's image, so why not revere our bodies in all the ways possible?
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11 comments:
Aaaaamen.
The religious reason lies in the belief of orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims that sexuality cannot be separated from procreation without being sinful.
where do you see that judaism believes (heterosexual) sexuality per se to be sinful? it's a legal obligation in the marriage contract, itself a halachic requirement. what is sinful is to reduce it to physical gratification, rather than being an act of love between two people.
Judaism says that we are intrinsically spiritual beings, holy people. and we have to find that holiness and spirituality whilst in the physical, i.e. discover who we truly are. this involves a process of letting go of our attachments to physicality, and in particular distortions of 'normal' (as defined by the halacha) sexuality. masturbation is a violation of that holiness, as is homosexuality. in western culture you are only a physical body, there is nothing left after death and what the heck you might as well enjoy yourself in whatever way you fancy.
Yes, I understand that Judaism is declaring aberrations on vaginal intercourse as a degredation of the spirit. What I'm saying is that if sex is made holy as an expression of love, than to bar homosexuality is to have an extremely narrow definition of what love is. I once read a story (I will post the author as soon as I remember his name) where the heterosexual couple "shtuped their way to heaven." I don't see why two people of the same gender couldn't experience the same spiritual gratification. And your argument that this is about seeking a spiritual world rather than a physical one is an anachronism given the text we're working with; homosexuality is banned in the Torah, which does not focus on the afterlife. I also object to the idea that pleasing the physical body is somehow damaging to the spiritual self. Joy and pleasure in sensation are as important to the instruction of the soul as are denial and pain. What was Eden if not a garden of earthly delights? God put all the plants which were good to eat at the disposal of Adam and Eve, indicating that paradise is as much about physical joy as spiritual joy. I believe in a higher plane of being, but I also think that it is within my rights as a moral human being to enjoy my body.
To anonymous (since you've left no name):
The biggest flaw in your logic is the assumption that homosexuality is, in fact, only about the sex. If we are spiritual beings, then why on God's green earth should the physical gender of the person with whom we choose to spend the rest of our lives matter?
And I also must agree with Aine Bina that physical pleasure is not necessarily damaging to the spirit.
1. The Torah is not (overtly) about the afterlife, because you are here in this life, and you need to know about the here and now. Whilst wrapped in the physical, your conitive faculties are so limited that you can't understand the afterlife anyway. If you do get to the point of 'hispashtus hagashmiyus', i.e. knowing yourself as a spiritual being, then when you look in the Torah you will understand how it refers to the afterlife too.
2. The Torah is telling you how to manifest/experience spirituality whilst in the physical. In this context, the only kind of relationship that can be a vehicle for a true love is that of man and woman, just as your car only works properly when you fill its tank with gasoline. That's just how the reality is. You can do other actions - you have a choice - but they will not experience any spiritual gratification, only a physical one.
3. The point about pleasing the body harming the spirit is very simple. The more you focus on physicality the more you block out the spirit. The pleasures of the garden of eden were spiritual ones, manifested through a world in which the Divine was apparent in your potato fries. After Eden the fries just look like fries. If you have trouble with the Torah on this, why don't you read Plato? He says that the soul has two halves, the rational soul, which is the part that perceives the spiritual, and the irrational soul, which is drawn after the pleasures of the body. The person is like a chariot driven by these two 'horses', and the task is to subjugate the irrational soul to the rational one. When this task is completed, you go back, as an individual, to the garden, in your lifetime. I imagine you have never experienced the pleasure of the spiritual, but it is way way way beyond any phsyical pleasure.
Hey, an ad hominem argument. Gotta love those. I happen to have experienced both physical and spiritual pleasure, and the spiritual pleasure never came after a period of say, fasting or sleep deprivation. That mostly seems to make me feel hungry and sleepy. I think one cannot denigrate one's physical self without doing damage to the spirit. The Torah ,as I understand it, focuses on this life because the nature of the afterlife is irrelevant. Judaism does not focus on good and evil choices as weighed against reward and punishment. One should do good because it is good, not because there are promises of reward. As to the question of whether spiritual gratification can come in other forms of sexuality, have you tested this theory for yourself? Do you think that the revered biblical scholars ever did? If not, how could you know? At any rate, homosexuality is not a choice, and even if it was, I return to the original point of this post: there is no reasonable secular argument for banning gay marriage and therefore any government which claims to have a separation of church and state has no business denying people rights based on their sexuality. I only hope that at some point your life experiences open your mind to the many possibilities out there, since I know I have little chance of ever doing so.
Dear Anonymous,
Are you seriously citing Plato as an explanation of religious texts? Well, if that is the case, I invite you to look at this section of the Symposium, 181b-d.
"Now the Love that belongs to the Popular Aphrodite is in very truth popular and does his work at haphazard: this is the Love we see in the meaner sort of men; who, in the first place, love women as well as boys; secondly, where they love, they are set on the body more than the soul; and thirdly, they choose the most witless people they can find, since they look merely to the accomplishment and care not if the manner be noble or no. Hence they find themselves doing everything at haphazard, good or its opposite, without distinction: for this Love proceeds from the goddess who is far the younger of the two, and who in her origin partakes of both female and male. But the other Love springs from the Heavenly goddess who, firstly, partakes not of the female but only of the male; and secondly, is the elder, untinged with wantonness: wherefore those who are inspired by this Love betake them to the male, in fondness for what has the robuster nature and a larger share of mind. Even in the passion for boys you may note the way of those who are under the single incitement of this Love: they love boys only when they begin to acquire some mind--a growth associated with that of down on their chins. For I conceive that those who begin to love them at this age are prepared to be always with them and share all with them as long as life shall last: they will not take advantage of a boy's green thoughtlessness to deceive him and make a mock of him by running straight off to another."
And the word used in Greek is, indeed, "eros."
So, you see, Plato does separate the spiritual and the physical, and he does look down on the physical when it involves physical pleasure ALONE. However, he does NOT preclude the possibility of spiritual love being expressed physically. And MOREOVER, Plato looks down upon the very act you find so sacred--the love between a man and a woman. In fact, PLATO praises the love between two MEN, men whose love is born of intelligence but can be manifest physically.
Personally, I'd like to think we've grown beyond the notion that women are incapable of intelligence. And I hope we realize that intelligent love can be born between a man and a woman or even two women.
So next time, before you go citing sources you apparently know very little about, do your research. And, moreover, if you really think your religion tells you that homosexuality is so evil, you ought to spend a little more time thinking about where that kind of bigotry, discrimination, and contempt leads. I should think recent history would have taught us all something by now, but apparently that lesson still goes unlearned.
Thanks, sorry about the ad hominem, I didn't mean it as a personal attack, rather a personal observation.
That a secular government cannot logically ban gay marriage is obvious; the point here is where a torah view is. And I am well aware that Plato enjoyed young boys; I just wanted to point out the idea that spiritual perception is gained by overcoming desires. One can certainly choose to indulge in desires and have spirituality, but it will be at a lower level. Plato clearly had what he felt was the best of both worlds, arising into the realm of the light and then indulging himself on his return. But the Torah wants a much higher level of attainment, one in which we are genuinely not subject to physical desires at all. And I would suggest that heterosexual activity is the norm again based on the physical structures involved. Crudely put, the vagina is a more natural receptacle for the penis than the anus.
Well, I would advise you that you cannot suggest a person has never experienced spiritual joy without either being insulting or hitting a nerve. I understand that the Torah rejects homosexuality, which I mentioned in the origional post. My point is that this notion is antiquated. And yes, heterosexuality is the normative, but that's neither here nor there, as in most cases it is the option to avoid the normative that proves to be the correct one (though sexual preference is not an option, and neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality can be said to be better than the other). I agree that not every desire, physical or otherwise, can be fulfilled without spiritual damage. However, to focus this denial on sexuality is, in my opinion, quite backwards. Better to encourage people not to eat meat, or buy trendy clothing made in sweatshops, or watch hours of tv, then to make people ashamed because they masturbate.
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