UTAH BISHOP REJECTS HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE, EULOGIZES GAY 'MARRIAGE'

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

The Bishop of Utah, Carolyn Tanner Irish, recovering alcoholic and an ex-Mormon who never got baptized as a Christian, says that from a biblical perspective there is very little to support current views of marriage and family.

"Many Christians speak of marriage as a 6,000-year-old tradition. But historical and cultural evolution challenges that view and the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) tradition is a prime example of that." The "sacramentality" that religious faiths now claim for marriage has also evolved. It is doubtful that Jesus would even recognize our institution of marriage as it is, she writes in an Op-Ed article for the Salt Lake Tribune.

"Further, one must look elsewhere than the Bible to support the vague category called 'family values.' I know of no consistently good 'family values' stories in the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures. Support for marriage as we define it hard to find in Scripture," she says.

The way we view marriage and family itself has evolved over centuries, says the bishop. "Propagation of the species was, of course, its biological foundation, but culturally it was property arrangements among tribes or clans that followed, and persist in many cultures to this day."

Tanner said that some people believe that homosexuality is a moral issue, not a given orientation. "This implies that these citizens are, in some situations, 'undeserving' of certain political recognition and protection. To others such a view smacks of ignorance or intolerance, sustaining the idea that 'these people would be better if they were more like me [us].' Similarly, some married heterosexuals believe they and their families would be threatened by legal partnerships for same-sex couples and their families. Why? How? Is there any factual basis to support such fear?"

Morality doesn't "belong" to any group on the basis of their sex, their religion or political alliances, said the bishop. Infidelity, exploitation, abuse, oppression and harm -- or their opposites -- can be found among people of either sexual orientation. Morality consists principally of values, which may be shared, upheld and lived by a broad range of people and institutions. The civic ordering of a democratic society should seek support for such common values as widely as possible, she said.

Ms. Tanner is clearly not familiar with the theology of marriage as it is given to us in Holy Scripture.

The vision of marriage found in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is one of reuniting male and female into an integrated sexual whole. Marriage is not just about more intimacy and sharing one's life with another in a lifelong partnership. It is about sexual merger -- or, in Scripture's understanding, re-merger -- of essential maleness and femaleness, says Dr. Robert Gagnon, a prominent Presbyterian theologian.

"The creation story in Genesis 2:18-24 illustrates this point beautifully. An originally binary, or sexually undifferentiated, adam ('earthling') is split down the 'side' (a better translation of Hebrew tsela than 'rib') to form two sexually differentiated persons. Marriage is pictured as the reunion of the two constituent parts or 'other halves,' man and woman."

"This is not an optional or minor feature of the story. Since the only difference created by the splitting is a differentiation into two distinct sexes, the only way to reconstitute the sexual whole, on the level of erotic intimacy, is to bring together the split parts. A same-sex erotic relationship can never constitute a marriage because it will always lack the requisite sexual counterparts or complements."

"Gay marriage" is a contradiction in terms, says the orthodox theologian.

"First, legal and ecclesiastical embrace of homosexual unions is more likely to undermine the institution of marriage and produce other negative effects than it is to make fidelity and longevity the norm for homosexual unions."

"Second, and even more importantly, homosexual unions are not wrong primarily because of their disproportionately high incidence of promiscuity (especially among males) and breakups (especially among females). They are wrong because 'gay marriage' is a contradiction in terms. As with consensual adult incest and polyamory, considerations of commitment and fidelity factor only after certain structural prerequisites are met."

"By definition homosexual desire is sexual narcissism or sexual self-deception. There is either (1) a conscious recognition that one desires in another what one already is and has as a sexual being (anatomy, physiology, sex-based traits) or (2) a self-delusion of sorts in which the sexual same is perceived as some kind of sexual other."

Gagnon says that the New Testament recognizes the importance of the Genesis creation stories for establishing a "two-sexes" or "other-sex" prerequisite for marriage.

"St. Paul clearly understood same-sex intercourse as an affront to the Creator's stamp on gender in Genesis 1-2. In his letter to the Romans, Paul cites two prime examples of humans suppressing the truth about God evident in creation/nature: idolatry and same-sex intercourse (1:18-27)."

Gagnon says that idolatry and same-sex intercourse constitute a frontal assault on the work of the Creator in nature. Those who suppressed the truth about God transparent in creation were more likely to suppress the truth about the complementarity of the sexes transparent in nature, choosing instead to gratify contrary innate impulses.

"There is good evidence that societal approval of homosexual practice may increase the incidence of homosexuality and bisexuality, not just homosexual practice."

Gagnon says that since the homosexual life is characterized by a comparatively high rate of problems in terms of sexually transmitted disease, mental health issues, nonmonogamous behavior, and short-term unions -- even in homosex-affirming areas of the world -- an increase in homosexuality and bisexuality will mean more persons affected by such problems.

"Gay marriage," as the ultimate legal sanctioning of homosexual behavior, will bring with it a wave of intolerance toward, and attack on the civil liberties of, those who publicly express disapproval of homosexual practice, says Gagnon.

"Gay marriage" is wrong because the idea of "gay marriage" is an oxymoron and a rejection of a core value in Judeo-Christian sexual ethics.

"Marriage requires the two sexes to reconstitute a sexual whole. By definition same-sex erotic attraction is predicated either on the narcissism of being attracted to what one is as a sexual being or on the delusion that one needs to merge with another of the same sex to complete one's own sexual deficiencies."

Gagnon says that "gay marriage" is also wrong because, rather than moderating the excesses of homosexual behavior, it will weaken the institution of marriage.

If Ms. Tanner still believes that any alternative to heterosexual marriage is biblically permissible then she ought to resign her office. To go against 2,000 years of historical biblical and theological teaching is to violate her teaching and pastoral office.