Newsweek's weak arguments against real marriage, for "gay marriage"

Lisa Miller should receive some sort of journalism award for her recent article, "Our Mutual Joy," which appeared in the December 6th issue of The Advocate, Out, Curve, Newsweak. The problem is that the article bears no resemblance at all to journalism, which is supposedly based on facts, objectivity, logic, and a decent grasp of the English language (unless, of course, you're a French journalist or you write for Rolling Stone.) In fact, the piece is such an unabashed, polemical apologia for "gay marriage," you'd be forgiven for thinking it was written for a blog, since bloggers, as we all know, are largely incapable of dealing with facts, objectivity, logic, and so forth.

Anyhow, I suggest Miller be awarded for her courageous willingness to publicly reveal, and revel in, her ignorance of a breathtaking range of topics and issues. The award could be simply named "The Dan Brown Award," and would consist of a plastic replica of a pink hot air balloon mounted on a copy of The Da Vinci Code.

I've not the time or energy to address all of the laughable errors in the article, but will hit a handful of the highlowlights:

• "Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does." First sentence, first, "Huh?" Or, in the words of Mollie Hemingway, "How many things are wrong with that opening line?" This is shockingly simplistic, both in its broad and nearly meaningless use of "religious conservatives" and its inability to comprehend or appreciate the rich and varied sources upon which a traditional concept of marriage is based. Then there is the whole matter of the differences between natural marriage, civil marriage, and sacramental marriage, which is mentioned in passing later, but really needs to be addressed near the start.

• "Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists." Wow, this makes run-of-the-mill condescension look downright friendly. Right away Miller goes for the old stand-by (with an Old Testament twist): Many marriages are imperfect and messed-up, so heterosexual marriage has no moral leg to stand on (I'm surprised she didn't mention Britney Spears). Which raises the question, "If marriage is so rotten and messed-up, why do some homosexuals want to be married?" Seriously.

The Catholic, unlike the progressive secularist, understands man is fallen, flawed, and seriously wounded. He recognizes that salvation history doesn't shy away from this fact, but is meant to address it directly, even bluntly. He also understands that there is a pedagogy at work throughout salvation history, which means, to put it simply, God meets man where he is and works with what he (man, not God) has. Yes, polygyny was common among some of the patriarchs and kings. But if we simply leave it at that (as Miller does), we miss at least two critical facts: all of the marriages described here were between men and women, and that, over time, polygyny gave way to monogamy. Polygyny was probably only practiced among wealthier households, and was considered necessary in order to have several children, as women usually died at an earlier age and many children did not survive childbirth.

In fact, it can be fairly argued, as the Israelites began to more deeply understand the nature (monotheistic) of God and his covenantal love for them, they began to see the problems with polygyny. (See paragraphs 609-611 in the Catechism for more on this.) By the time of the later prophets, there was an explicit understanding of the goodness of monogamous marriage as shown in the language describing God's love for the people (see Hos 1-3; Mal 2:10-16), as beautifully expressed in Isaiah 62:

You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My delight is in her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isa 62:4-5)

And what about the Canticle of Canticles, which is one of the most beautiful love poems ever written (likely during the fourth or fifth century B.C.), describing the passionate love of a newly married couple? The New Jerusalem Bible says the Canticle "is a collection of songs celebrating the loyal and mutual love that leads to marriage. [It] proclaims the lawfulness and exalts the value of human love; and the subject is not only profane, since God has blessed marriage." For more on that, go here.

• "The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. 'It is better to marry than to burn with passion,' says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?"

This is arguably the most idiotic remark in the entire article, despite having serious competition from several other sections. Miller is apparently unaware that in the Gospel of John the start of Jesus' public ministry takes place at a wedding (Jn 2:1-11)—and the famous turning of water into wine was hardly an act of indifference, but reflected Jesus' respect for his mother, for the bride and groom (who would have been greatly embarrassed if the wine had run out), and for the fact and act of marriage itself. The Evangelist writes, "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory..." It is also John who describes the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, which includes an implicit denunciation by Jesus of the woman's serial monogamy (Jn 4:16-19).

Then there are (as Hemingway notes) passages such as Matthew 19, in which Jesus states, in arguing with some Pharisees, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." Followed by: "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." If that doesn't speak to the importance and dignity of marriage, I don't know what does.

What about Paul? Why, he had such a low view of marriage that he (drawing in part upon Old Testament prophets) described Christ's love for the Church in explicitly marital/covenantal terms:

For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ... that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Eph 5:23-30)

Of course, if Miller had known about or acknowledged these passages of the New Testament, she wouldn't have been able to write the following:

First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else's —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes.

As for "gender equality" and "romantic love", I can only assume Miller is unaware it was Christianity that provided the theological reasons and cultural conditions necessary for a respect for women not known prior to Christianity, and that the very notion of "romantic love" came from the medieval era.

• "Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he roundly condemns divorce (leaving a loophole in some cases for the husbands of unfaithful women)." There is a very simple reason Jesus didn't address homosexuality: it wasn't necessary to do so within the Jewish culture he lived in. Whatever significant disagreements he had with the various religious leaders of his day, none of them had to do with the moral character of homosexual acts; Jews believed such acts were depraved and immoral. They were widely considered to be uniquely Gentile and deserving of severe punishment, since they were unnatural and shameful (as Paul states in Romans 1:26-29).

Jesus never mentions child molestation, identity theft, or terrorism either—so what does that mean? The point is that historical context is, obviously, vital in correctly reading the New Testament. Paul did have to address the issue because he spent most of his time, as a Christian, in the Gentile world, traveling to many of the major cities of the Roman Empire. Of course, Miller takes up the altogether modern liberal reading of the passage mentioned above, Romans 1:

• "Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who 'were inflamed with lust for one another' (which he calls "a perversion") is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery."

Well, such progressives can argue all they want, but it doesn't hold up. Fr. Brendan Byrne, S.J., in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Sacra Pagina [1996], pp 76-77) writes of Romans 1:26 and the term "unnatural": "The preposition in the Greek phrase para physin here has the strong of 'contrary to...'; see BAGD 6111 (s.v. III.6). Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2. 273, 275, uses precisely the phrase para physin in criticism of homosexual union; cf. also Philo Abr. 137; Spec. 2.50; T. Napth. :4-5; Ps.-Phoclyides 190-91. Used in this strong sense, the phrase was a commonplace in popular Stoic ethical discussion and features prominently in literature debating the propriety of same-sex love..." And so forth. For more on the debate on this issue, see this short essay by Richard B. Hays.

• Finally: "In the Christian story, the message of acceptance for all is codified. Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well— no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ's all-encompassing love."

Augh. This is a perfect example of rotten thinking about the true nature of love. For Miller, apparently, love is simply acceptance and tolerance. Yes, Jesus reaches out to both Jews and Gentiles. But did he say or indicate that their actions and moral choices meant nothing? Of course not. Otherwise Jesus wouldn't have made, for example, this sort of politically-incorrect statement:

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt 18:7-9)

Much, much more could be said, especially about how marriage between a man and woman is almost universally recognized as 1) the basic foundation of society, 2) a logical and proper means for the propagation and protection of life, 3) and is imbued with some sort of sacred, transcendent quality. "Gay marriage" marks a radical break from all of these facts. Whereas marriage (especially sacramental marriage, but also civil marriage to some degree) has been understood traditionally to be based in an order established by God, "gay marriage" would be and has been established on a completely secular foundation, an artificially created and maintained product of the State. And while there are some homosexuals who say, "Hey, we just want our relationships recognized as marriages by the State," it's clear that Miller (along with many others) wants to go much further:

So the frustrating, semantic question remains: should gay people be married in the same, sacramental sense that straight people are? I would argue that they should. If we are all God's children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semiserious) person would argue that.

No, it isn't "exactly the same thing." But, then, who is surprised that Miller finishes her article as she started it: illogically, polemically, hysterically?

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Book Excerpts:

• The Meaning and Purpose of Marriage | Alice von Hildebrand
• Marital and Family Commitment: A Personalist View | Monsignor Cormac Burke
• The Challenge of Marriage Preparation | Dr. Janet E. Smith
• Focus Groups and Marriage: A Match Made for Heartache | Mary Beth Bonacci
• Entering Marriage with Eyes Wide Open | Edward Peters
• Human Sexuality and the Catholic Church | Donald P. Asci | Introduction to The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act
• Who Is Married? | Edward Peters
• Marriage and the Family in Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae | Reverend Michael Hull, S.T.D.
• Male and Female He Created Them | Cardinal Estevez
• The Meaning and Necessity of Spiritual Fatherhood | Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, MTS
• Practicing Chastity in an Unchaste Age | Bishop Joseph F. Martino
• The Truth About Conscience | John F. Kippley | An excerpt from Sex and the Marriage Covenant

Comments

[Francis Beckwith]

Carl. Reading that article is a painful experience.

With all the literature published on marriage by traditionalists over the past 15 years, the article's ignorance is inexcusable. It is journalistic malpractice.

It also shows how an entire generation born after 1970--and that presumably includes Lisa Miller--cannot wrap their minds around a moral argument. They have become so indoctrinated into one of two ways of doing ethics--authoritarian biblicism or postmodern relativism--that they can't think of any other way to think about these things. Take, for example, her use of Scripture. She reads it like a post-modernist trying to read it like fundamentalist. The results are mind-numbing.

She doesn't see that you can't "honor you father and mother" unless there's such a thing as a father and a mother who are wedded. She doesn't see that when the Church is called the "Bride of Christ," it implies normative complementarity of gender. She doesn't see the "in the beginning they were created male and female" is the paradigm, as Jesus himself readily states. She ignores the sacramentality of marriage in Church History that lasted until the desacrementalizing of it by the Protestant Reformation, the defenders of the sola scriptural she claims to be presenting!

She ignores contemporary defenders of marriage, including Robby George, John Finnis, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, all fairly sophisticated Christian intellectuals.

Jon Meacham should be embarrassed.

[Dan]

You know what is even more painful? Reading Fr. James Martin's brief review of the article on America's website. Fr. Martin opines: "Lisa Miller, a senior editor at Newsweek who oversees all the mag's religion reporting (and does a great job at it) has a cover story, posted online today, on what the Bible says (and may intend) and doesn't say, about same-sex marriages and homosexuality in general." Fr. Martin then cites, with apparent approval, an argument, attributed to Walter Brueggemann, that the Bible justifies gay marriage. The purported biblical support is Saint Paul's statement that "there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ" and "the general conviction that the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness."

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=0EDCB9CB-1321-AEAA-D3259557B899941C

I do not how to express how stunning I find it that such accomplished and presumably intelligent people could say such ludicrous things. Is it just me or is the world really going off the rails in nearly unprecendented fashion?

[Gabriel McAuliffe]

Dan -

It isn't just you.

The world really is going off the rails in nearly unprecendented fashion.

I was bothered by that post myself. I am really naive, because I usually am surprised by such posts as the one to which you refer.

Mystifying.

[Anonymous]

Lisa Miller's conclusion directly confronts the SSMer who claims that the goal of merging SSM with marriage would not adversely impact religious liberty.

* * *

She offers the proposition:

"If we are all God's children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semiserious) person would argue that."

* * *

In accordance with Catholic teaching and Catholic anthropology, the sacrament is inapplicable to gay union. Because the conjugal relationship does not exclude one sex but rather unites the sexes and provides contingency for procreation.

There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. The attempted anology with racism fails due to this objective truth.

Contrary to Lisa Miller's misrepresentations, same-sex sexual behavior is neither conjugal nor sacramental.

Thus, she openly asserted that the Catholic church, with its celebration of the sacrament of matrimony, is neither serious nor semiserious.

The matrimonial covenant has as its author God himself, but He is also neither serious nor semiserious, according to Lisa Miller.

The culture-changing goal of the pro-SSM side does go beyond the law and the courts and reaches into the religious practices and sancturaries of those who oppose the merger of nonmarriage with marriage.

[Deacon Harold]

I was in a good mood until I read that garbage. Now I'm sick. Thanks, Carl! ;-)

[LJ]

There are a several underlying motivations going on here.

First, there is the fact that in thirty States, when people have a chance to vote on this, traditional marriage has won. So there is a great deal of re-education of the masses that needs to be done. She begins right away to go after what she sees as the main obstacle, religious objection.

She uses the Sola Scriptura model because she is no doubt from that background, and believes that for those taught that Scripture is the sole rule of faith, if the anti-gay marriage argument can be undermined from Scripture, the whole thing will fold.

Deeper than that, and she touches on it, without stating it explicitly, the demand for homosexual marriage goes far deeper than the civil benefits offered by that status, for we know as she does that nothing short of the re-definition of the term marriage will suffice. That is why the religious argument.

Why is marriage necessary, even when all the civil benefits are offered in a "civil union" arrangement? By usurping the term "marriage" the proponents have the State declaring and the Church forced (yes it is about coercion) to declare homosexual intercourse as "normal." They have declared it for years and they need the Church to declare it.

Why is that necessary? Beneath it all, is the longing for God to declare homosexual sex as "normal." In a world where objective and subjective reality are blurred, if the Church declares it then perhaps God accepts it.

In the Catholic Church, this is where they crash against the hard rock of objective reality, because the magisterium does speak for God and is protected by the Holy Spirit from error. Which brings up the reason that the Church has lasted for 2000 years, which she is oblivious to, that is the Holy Spirit.

[Christopher Milton]

I know there is only a shadow of a chance that it would be published, but, Carl, please send this as a letter to the editor.

[joanne]

Anonymous, may I quote you? (kidding, sort of) Just when I thought there was no other way to talk about this issue, that we had covered all the bases, you and LJ provided some new wording. Thank you. My head was feeling like a skipping record.
Is defeat by exhausting everyone who attempts to express and defend truth a common strategy? The defense of marriage, like the defense of the unborn, is based on simple, obvious, absolute truths. It's easy to run out of ways to state what SHOULD be obvious.But the opposing arguments split and multiply all over the place as I chase them.
For a moment, I rest my head in an ordered niche. Thank you.

[Miles]

Doesn't Lisa Miller's whole article beg the question: Why does she care anyway? She is obviously hostile to the christian morality, and yet she spends so much effort trying to make her ideology fit within this religion. There are two reasons which I can see why she does this. One: She is trying to justify her belief system (and feel good about it) by twisting the Bible to say what she wants it to say. Two: She is trying twist the Bible's meaning to try and convince Christians that it is O.K. to accept gay marriage. Maybe she is trying to do both. Either way, it is incredibly frustrating that this kind of proselytizing passes for journalism.