Sexual anti-establishment

What strikes me about today's critics of traditional church teachings on sex is their refusal to acknowledge any legitimacy when it comes to religious behavioral prohibitions (and sexual prohibitions in particular).  Prohibitions against sin (however defined) are a core aspect of the faith traditions voluntarily subscribed to by billions of people the world over.  This fact represents a growing crisis for liberalism.

Like all citizens of liberal societies, devout people are free to vote their conscience (i.e., their "values"), and they fully expect to have a voice in how they are governed.  The crisis arises when conscientious adherence to traditional religious sexual mores is deemed bigoted--or even officially classified as "hate," as we're beginning to see in Canada.  (If you find Christianity hateful, just wait till Islam gains a real political foothold in North America.)  Sooner or later, there will have to be a compromise between liberals and religious traditionalists over this stuff.

As the recent skirmishes over gay marriage show, neither side can hope to achieve total victory.  Ramming the single "enlightened view" through the courts isn't working; neither are attempts to codify the single "traditional view" through a constitutional amendment.

In my opinion, both approaches do violence to the ideal of pluralism by preferring the views of one group against those of another.  But why can't liberal democracy accommodate multiple, incommensurate views of human sexuality?  What if government took an anti-establishment stance toward sexual identity--as it is now required to take toward religious identity?  Much of the present mess would evaporate if government got out of the marriage business altogether and adopted generic domestic partnerships for all.  In other words, government would treat everybody the same by studiously refusing to validate both religious and sexual identities.  This would reaffirm the rule of law and return marriage to its proper provenance--the church.  Throw in school vouchers, and the political clash between sex and religion goes away almost entirely.

Comments

[Max]

I would agree with everything you said except the idea that people shouldn't be critical of religious prohibitions on sexuality. Such prohibitions are not bad, in-and-of-themselves. It's when church doctrines conflict with the biblical teachings and practices of Jesus himself. This is a grave internal problem for churches that choose to be exclusionary, and thus hypocritical, in my view. But otherwise, you're right. The government should have absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing. And churches like the UCC, blogged earlier, may either adapt or not to ever-changing cultural mores. On this question, I the atheist, couldn't care less.

I, the son of a lesbian woman, hope that her church (UCC) remains tolerant of her even if she is a sinner like the rest of her congregation. She and her partner love their church community. The question of scriptural prohibitions on their lifestyles is one I'm sure they struggle with daily, however.

[Matt McIntosh]

I've been going around pushing for the government to just have "civil unions" for everybody (with those who wish to getting "married" in a church) ever since this whole brouhaha started with Massacheussetts, and nearly everyone I talk to was pretty easy to persuade into agreeing with such a solution. Yet as far as I know, no prominent politician on either side of the isle is discussing this option seriously. I don't get it.