By showing the shaky foundation of the “gay rights” or “marriage equality” movement, hopefully believers will take a more sober approach to the rapid changes in society. Changes can take unexpected turns and backfire. This socio-historical analysis is not meant to be predictive, because new circumstances can arise overnight, and we serve a God who has a way of foiling human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:19-20; Isaiah 29:14). The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges is not the final word on the matter. Let’s remember ultimately our God is sovereign and has seen his church through all sorts of challenges and threats.

 

Read Part 1
Read Part 2
Read Part 3

NOTE: The goal of this piece is to calm any apocalyptic fears among Christians who hold to the traditional, biblical view of marriage. By showing the shaky foundation of the “gay rights” or “marriage equality” movement, hopefully believers will take a more sober approach to the rapid changes in society. Changes can take unexpected turns and backfire. This socio-historical analysis is not meant to be predictive, because new circumstances can arise overnight, and we serve a God who has a way of foiling human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:19-20; Isaiah 29:14). The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges is not the final word on the matter. Let’s remember ultimately our God is sovereign and has seen his church through all sorts of challenges and threats. He will prevail. Our job is to bring him glory and praise, no matter what the rest of the world is doing.

 

The self-assured, overconfident characteristics of the marriage equality movement are examples of groupthink, which is a recipe for overlooking important information, making decisions without reflection, and ultimately disaster. Meanwhile, people who hold personal convictions about traditional marriage are being personally penalized. In the name of tolerance and inclusion, people who have stood for traditional marriage have lost jobs, have lost contracts and faced serious threats. (See Part 3.)

Ironically, liberals were the inventors of free speech. At least according to Fox News political commentator Kirsten Powers, whose new book, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech criticizes her own side of the political aisle for not holding to its own principles.

“Our conception of free speech in this country comes directly, indisputably, from liberals,” says Powers, a self-proclaimed liberal.

She may be on Fox News but as a Daily Beast columnist with long roots in the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration, she is no conservative pawn. She continues by applauding political conservatives’ worst opponents:

“We would not understand free speech the way we do today if not for—and I’m sorry to say, conservatives who don’t want to hear it—the American Civil Liberties Union, and liberal Supreme Court justices who charted the course of expanding the view of the First Amendment, and activists during the Vietnam War. So this is a core part of American liberalism.”

Yet this ACLU-applauding writer warns that marriage equality has made political liberals to turn on their own principles.

“We have people who call themselves liberals on the Left of the political spectrum, acting in complete contradiction of their values and the arguments that underlie them.”[1]

The pressure against free speech actually does harm to marriage equality. When we are so squarely in the right, we will achieve the goal at any cost. Dissent is dismissed as ludicrous. Other opinions are outright offensive and must simply be silenced. Questions are met with ridicule and remain unanswered. Iceberg warnings will be sent over the airwaves and nobody will pay attention.

Full Speed Into An Iceberg Sea

The full consequences of validating gay sex and legalizing same-sex marriage are yet to be seen, and the possibilities of unforeseen consequences are enormous.

Uncharted Territory in History

Legalizing same-sex marriage is uncharted territory in history. “The redefinition of marriage as a union between two individuals regardless of their sex is a twenty-first century phenomenon,” as one marriage equality supporter puts it.[2] In legalizing same-sex marriage, we truly have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.

Sure there has been plenty of gay sex since the days of Genesis. The difference is that those societies accepting of homosexual sex acts, such as the ancient Greeks and Romans, traditionally kept this activity separate from marriage. In most of human history, marriage was about producing legitimate offspring and the survival of the nation.

We’ll lay aside for the moment that the ancient Greeks and Romans acceptance and toleration for homosexuality equally extended well beyond what today’s LGBT liberation supporters would tolerate. Pederasty, for example, the practice of adult men having sexual relationships with adolescent boys of varying ages, was even idealized as the highest level of love among the ancient Greeks. The Romans were notoriously accepting of landowning adult men using male slaves or anyone under their authority for gay sex. It wasn’t shameful to be an active partner, but the shame of being the receiving partner was kept for the lower people on the totem pole.

Historically, homosexual sex has been acceptable in some places and times for recreation and even a means of population control, but it had nothing to do with marriage.[3] As recent as 2006, one textbook by a sociology professor from a public university in Illinois said, “No society in the world considers exclusive, or even predominant, homosexuality in adulthood to be the norm.”[4] Arno Karlen, in his sweeping historical, multicultural, multidisciplinary view of human sexual behavior, said “Like sanctions against incest, adult-child coitus, and rape, the sanction against predominant adult homosexuality is universal.”[5]

In fact, connecting romantic love with marriage is itself a new and novel notion. Have some same-sex couples been able to cohabitate and even become legally married by one dressing as the opposite sex? Yes, there is documentation that even in the Christian Western society there were instances of same-sex coupling, whether by informally cohabitating or living as a heterosexual couple.[6] But these are the very few exceptions. The common law and practice throughout history has been heterosexual marriage.

Marriage historian Stephanie Coontz says, “Today we are entering uncharted territory, and there is still no definitive guide to the new marital landscape. Most of what we used to take for granted about who marries and why, or how to make a marriage work, is in flux.”[7]

Same-sex marriage is uncharted territory. Our society is moving at full speed in the dark with who knows how many icebergs of unintended consequences floating about.

We can look at the Netherlands, which has had legal same-sex marriage for 15 years.[8]  We can look at Massachusetts, the first state in the USA to legalize same-sex marriage back in 2003. But this is hardly enough time to notice impact on generations. The Netherlands and Massachusetts are nearing the time when legalization will have been in place for the entire life of an adult, but even then that would be just one generation. It took one woman 31 years before she noticed that something was lacking in the same-sex upbringing.

Heather Barwick, same-sex parented and against gay marriage

Examples exist that same-sex parent families are not ideal, if not unhealthy. 31-year-old Heather Barwick, raised by her mom and a lesbian partner has now changed her mind about same-sex households after being an advocate for many years.

She is hardly anti-gay. “I still feel like gay people are my people. I’ve learned so much from you. …how to be brave …empathy …how to listen …dance …[to] not be afraid of things that are different …to stand up for myself.”

It sounded like Barwick had the best case scenario for a same-sex family. Her dad “wasn’t a great guy” and mom’s partner “treated me as if I was her own daughter.” There was even a “tight-knit community of gay and lesbian friends” as the village it takes to raise a child. It was such as positive experience that Barwick supported marriage equality for most of her life. But recently she has changed her tone in a recent essay: “Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not.”

Addressing the same-sex community she writes, “A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting. My father’s absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost.” She continues, “It’s only with some time and distance from my childhood that I’m able to reflect on my experiences and recognize the long-term consequences that same-sex parenting had on me. And it’s only now, as I watch my children loving and being loved by their father each day, that I can see the beauty and wisdom in traditional marriage and parenting.” She also says, “It’s only with some time and distance from my childhood that I’m able to reflect on my experiences and recognize the long-term consequences that same-sex parenting had on me. And it’s only now, as I watch my children loving and being loved by their father each day, that I can see the beauty and wisdom in traditional marriage and parenting.” [9]

What if tons of children over the years have the same experiences and come to the same conclusions? If it can happen in the best case scenario then who knows how many children will come from same-sex households and be unsupportive of same-sex marriage, even if they have nothing against LGBT people or their lifestyle?

Like the Titanic, we’re moving at full speed in the dark of a moonless night and into a sea of icebergs. Legalizing same-sex marriage could easily lead to a flood of other marriage equalities clamoring for official recognition.

Coming Attractions…

Same-sex marriage provides an ideal legal stepping stone to any number of alternative sexualities. A precedent has been set when definitions of marriage are redrawn. Other sexual lifestyles will be clamoring for their own legitimacy.

Polygamy

In Montana, two business days after the Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, Nathan Collier said he was inspired by the ruling to apply for official marriage license to his second wife at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings. He and his second wife, Christine, had a religious wedding ceremony in 2007 but did not sign a marriage license to avoid bigamy charges. He said he and his wives hid their relationship for years, but became tired of hiding and went public by appearing on the reality cable television show Sister Wives.

“My second wife Christine, who I’m not legally married to, she’s put up with my crap for a lot of years. She deserves legitimacy,” he said.

What stood out most, however, was his logic behind the move.

“It’s about marriage equality,” Collier said. “You can’t have this without polygamy.”[10]

Threesome marriages

If polygamy (one husband, more than one wife) sounds like a stretch, polyamory (romantic love, possibly commitment for more than one person) and polyandry (one wife, more than one husband) is already budding in the minds of some.

Back in 2001, just two months after the Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage, the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness had their first meeting and have been upholding “loving or relating intimately to more than one other person at a time, with honesty and integrity” ever since.[11]

On August 14-17, 2003, the WOW (Witness Our Welcome) convened its gathering in Philadelphia for “sexually and gender inclusive Christians.” Debra Kolodny boldly declared support for relationships of threesomes: “I am a strong ally of those in healthy, polyamorous relationships,” she said, leading a workshop called, “Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith.” “There can be fidelity in threesomes,” Kolodny said. “It can be just as sanctified as anything else if all parties are agreed.”[12]

Rev. Becca Clark, a United Methodist Church minister in Vermont, after attending a convocation of Reconciling Ministries Network, a group that is about “Mobilizing United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love,” she welcomes the thought of threesome-marriage or polyamory in a blog post:

I’m kind of all about monogamy, and I know that my approach to polyamory sounds just like the approach to homosexuality I fight against: “It’s just not what I think marriage/relationships/etc are.” So, I engaged in workshop polyamory, and decided it was time to spend time with the queer sexual ethics workshop because it was pushing the edges of my comfort. …I learned a lot about new perspectives to me and I think I can be a better ally because of it. I love anything that encourages me to stretch myself.[13]

Poly marriages are even a stretch for many progressive Christians.[14] Some supporters of marriage equality protest such comparisons with poly marriages as homophobic scare tactics.

“Marriage should be extended to people who can’t get married, not those unable to marry six people,” says Jonathan Rauch, author of Gay Marriage: Why It is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.

But regardless of any indignance, the truth is the same logic that justifies same-sex unions can be used to justify polyamory and a host of sexual lifestyles.

Marriage equality = Farewell Monogamy

“There’s no argument you can make against a poly marriage that wouldn’t work just as well as an argument against gay marriage,” says writer Lee Stranahan. “I’m in favor of real marriage equality. Love the one you’re with. Love the two or more you’re with, if you can work that out. Marry them if you’re into that kind of thing. But until the gay marriage movement embraces polygamy…well, they are just acting like bigots and haters, aren’t they?”[15]

Why limit marriage to heterosexual couples?
Why limit marriage to couples?
Why limit marriage?
Overthrowing the concept of marriage boundaries is integral to the same-sex marriage experiment, so say some advocates.

“…gay couples are very different when it comes to sex, even if this is not the convenient moment to discuss that,” writes Hanna Rosin in Slate.com. “And in legalizing gay marriage, we are accepting a form of sanctioned marriage that is not by habit monogamous and that is inventing all kinds of new models of how to accommodate lust and desire in long-term relationships.”[16]

In other words, same-sex marriage necessarily invents new kinds of marriage, including non-monogamous marriage.

Liza Mundy’s cover story in The Atlantic made a lengthy case that gay marriage has something to teach all marriages. They provide models of more egalitarian and less burdened by gender roles of the past.[17]

Hanna Rosin cites Mundy’s article on Slate, saying pointedly: “The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous.”

Rosin says the marriage equality campaign “has put forth couples that look like straight ones, together forever, loyal, sharing assets.” But in reality, this is not the case. She cites an ongoing study of 500 gay couples by San Francisco State University, “the largest on-going study of its kind,” which “found that about half of all couples have sex with someone other than their partner, with their partner knowing.” A 2010 University of Toronto study had similar findings.[18]

Half of gay couples are “monogamish,” and partners don’t mind if the other cheats. (Is it cheating if the partner approves of the occasional one night stand?) Portraying gay couples as straight and loyal is obvious because monogamy remains the mainstay of American moral values. The most liberal estimates of heterosexual couples don’t even come near the half of homosexual couples on cheating.[19] And they are all estimates because thanks to cognitive dissonance,[20] heterosexual spouses are not likely to admit to cheating even on an anonymous survey.[21] Adultery is easily the most disapproved behavior in society, even while Americans are much more accepting of a wide assortment of behaviors, from “gay and lesbian relations” to “polygamy.” In 2001, 7 percent of Americans thought polygamy and adultery were morally acceptable. In 2015, polygamy rose to 16 percent, while adultery remained low at 8 percent.[22]

Same-sex marriage is set to challenge the most consistently unacceptable behavior of Americans.

“Gay couples are very different when it comes to sex, even if this is not the convenient moment to discuss that,” says Rosin. “And in legalizing gay marriage, we are accepting a form of sanctioned marriage that is not by habit monogamous and that is inventing all kinds of new models of how to accommodate lust and desire in long-term relationships.”[23]

People have more than doubled their approval on polygamy and shifted a whopping 23 percentage points on same-sex relations, but having sex when committed to one person is just as wrong for Americans as it ever was. The fear-mongering cries that marriage equality will undermine marriage were right after all. Same-sex marriage puts the public on a collision course with their most basic moral values.

This is not the only collision course for marriage equality.

Uncles and nieces and cousins

Marriage equality essentially means marriage for any and all consenting adults.

“The gays aren’t using up all the marriage licenses,” said Evan Wolfson, president of the national marriage equality organization Freedom to Marry. “There is plenty of room for marriage for all.”[24]

Recently, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously upheld an uncle-niece marriage even though the state forbids marriage of “An uncle and niece or an aunt and nephew.” The uncle was a half-uncle and she was his half-niece, which was enough of a technicality to dodge the law. The couple’s lawyer, Michael Marszalkowski of Buffalo, argued the two were no more closely related than first cousins, “which has been allowed in New York state for well over 100 years.”

“The right to marry” according to the U.S. Constitution due process clause “is fundamental,” says Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School professor and Bloomberg View columnist. “…states can’t interfere with [marriage] without a ‘compelling justification’ (for example, to prevent marriages between parents and children).”[25]

What constitutes a “compelling justification”? If fertility is not a “compelling justification,” then why can’t any two consenting adults be married?

In January, an 18-year-old woman announced plans to marry her father after dating him for two years already. They even plan on having children together. She claims she has done her research and the children will not be born abnormal.[26]

“Incest has been around as long as humans have,” she said. “Everybody just needs to deal with it as long as nobody is getting hurt or getting pressured or forced.”

If your sensibilities are not offended yet, take a look at the interview where she describes their romantic life.

“I just don’t understand why I’m judged for being happy. We are two adults…”[27]

If marriage equality is what people really desire, then these people are taking it to its logical conclusion. True marriage equality would mean marriage for every “consenting adult.”

Sex with no boundaries

Rapper and cousin

Marriage equality essentially means anyone can be married, without the law stepping in. Why can’t people have sex with anyone they please?

Rapper Kevin Gates found out that the woman he was dating for three months was actually his cousin. Instead of shamefully backing off, he not only continues to date her but brags about it on social media.

“Why f*** up a good thing?” the 28-year-old bluntly said in one of two videos shared with his 1.3 million Instagram followers. “But I ain’t about to stop f***ing with her. S***, the p***y good and we click,” he said.[28]

Marriage equality = Brother-Sister Sex Okay

In Sydney, Australia, a brother was charged with raping his younger sister on two different occasions. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault when he was 17 years old and she 10 or 11 in the early 1970s, but pleaded not guilty to the alleged incident in 1981 because the sister was 18 by that time. District Court Judge Garry Neilson concluded the two encounters entirely separate and went on to make affirming comments about incestuous relationships.

“By that stage they are both mature adults. The complainant has been sexually awoken, shall we say, by having two relationships with men and she had become ‘free’ when the second relationship broke down,” the judge wrote.

“The only thing that might change that is the fact that they were a brother and sister but we’ve come a long way from the 1950s … when the position of the English Common Law was that sex outside marriage was not lawful.”

What about the potential children of such a union?

The judge said incest is only criminalized because of the high risk of producing children with birth defects, but added that “even that [risk] falls away to an extent [because] there is such ease of contraception and readily access to abortion”.

Why was Judge Neilson so open to incest?

“If this was the 50s and you had a jury of 12 men there, which is what you’d invariably have, they would say it’s unnatural for a man to be interested in another man or a man being interested in a boy. Those things have gone.”[29]

Taking the marriage equality line of reasoning to justify brother-sister sexual relationships isn’t isolated. If two people can be legally married simply on the basis of mutual attraction then what if those two people were closely related?

At the 2012 Toronto Film Festival, writer-director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) unveiled his new movie, Yellow, and defended the main character’s incestuous love affair with her own brother.

“I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a d***? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”[30]

The only real problem is other people thinking “it’s super-weird,” so it’s their problem. The same logic justifying same-sex unions can justify incestuous unions. Marriage equality defies all sexual boundaries as long as those involved are consenting adults. This puts marriage equality on a collision course with public health.

Sex v. Public Health

King County public-health officials in Washington state had to go to court to try to stop a man with HIV who has infected eight partners in the past four years from infecting others.

Public health official, Dr. Matthew Golden, seemed conscious of the conflicting legal priorities when he stated, “We’re not trying to criminalize sexual behavior here. We are trying to protect the public’s health.”

But these two priorities could prove to be mutually exclusive. The county judge issued a “cease-and-desist” order to the man who is only identified as “AO.”

Since “AO” tested positive for HIV at a Public Health STD Clinic in June 2008, he has had HIV counseling at least five times but still infected eight people newly diagnosed with HIV who named AO as a partner with whom they’d had unprotected sex. AO was served orders to attend counseling and seek HIV treatment, and health officials repeatedly made appointments for him to see an HIV medical provider, but AO was a no show for any of the appointments. Only then did the public health officials seek court action against AO, who “continues to endanger the public health.”

Yet, somehow, the official for public health was optimistic. “I think the patient is going to take his meds… I am very optimistic that we are going to make progress here.”[31]

On what basis does Golden believe AO will suddenly reverse a long pattern of behavior? It seems that the conflict of two competing values – public safety and sexual license – has him caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Not wanting to compromise on either value, Golden gives an unrealistically positive prediction based on the desire to maintain both. We humans have a way of believing whatever is most expedient and ignoring realities we would rather not face. One of these realities is that HIV/AIDS has decreased in every demographic except one: men who have sex with men (MSM).

MSM and HIV/AIDS

Beneath all the lively debates about right and wrong or fairness and equality, the health risks for gay sex are enormous, particularly for MSM.

HIV/AIDS is a huge health risk for gay men. 63 percent of all new HIV infections in 2010 were MSM, numbering 29,800 new cases, a 12% increase from 26,700 in 2008. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, “Although MSM represent about 7% of the male population in the United States, in 2010 MSM accounted for 78% of the new HIV infections among males.”[32] Looking at all HIV/AIDS cases in the United States between 1981 and 2011, 61% of all cases in males were attributed to MSM. If we count the men who both share injection drug needles and have sex with men, the percentage is 69.6 percent.

To be fair, not all gay men are infected with HIV/AIDS, and not all those infected are acting careless. Realistically, we cannot paint all people with the same brush. That said, there are some disturbing numbers to consider. Efforts to educate the public on the risks of unprotected sexual contact are succeeding in the United States. HIV/AIDS diagnoses are declining for the general population, men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics, heterosexuals, injection drug users and most age groups. But MSM are another story. “The only group in which diagnoses increased was gay and bisexual men.”[33] Between 2002 and 2011, the yearly rate of HIV diagnoses in the United States actually declined by 33 percent for all adults, from 24 diagnoses per 100,000 people in 2002 to 16 diagnoses per 100,000 people in 2011. But for gay men, the diagnoses increased. Gay men aged 13-24 had an exceptional increase of 132 percent.[34]

“We are seeing exploding epidemics,” warned Gottfried Hirnschall, who heads World Health Organization’s HIV department.[35]

The HIV/AIDS risk to men who have sex with men is high, and this is not to mention the many other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Lesbians do not appear to be at higher risk for STDs than heterosexual women, but the risk for men is startling. Even if STDs are taken out of the equation, the risks are still substantial.

Gay men can and do practice a variety of sexual techniques, but according to one source an “estimated 90 percent of men who have sex with men (and as many as 5 to 10 percent of sexually active women) engage in receptive anal intercourse,” which WebMD calls “the riskiest of sexual practices.” Even if both partners are free of STDs, the anus is “full of bacteria” and both giving and receiving partners are at risk for infections and physical damage.[36]

Equality means lower well-being

But something about alternative sexuality has reverberations for a person’s entire lifestyle.

Contrary to some perceptions, the LGBT community in America has lower income and higher rates of poverty.

The UCLA’s Williams Institute found that 29 percent of LGBT adults, approximately 2.4 million people, experienced food insecurity—a time when they did not have enough money to feed themselves or their family—in the past year. In contrast, 16 percent of Americans nationwide reported being food insecure in 2012. One in 5 gays and lesbians aged 18-44 received food stamps in the last year, compared with just over 1 in 4 same sex couples raising children.[37]

A Gallup study of “well-being” found LGBT persons have more struggles with physical health, financial security, sense of purpose, social life and community attachment than non-LGBT counterparts.

“LGBT Americans have an average Well-Being Index score of 58, lower than non-LGBT adults’ score of 62. Importantly, these differences hold true even after taking into account the effects of gender, age, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, state of residence, and population density.”[38]

While some might attribute these disparities to discrimination, some of the findings are related to personal habits and life philosophy. Moreover, a host of other influential factors were ruled out that should show a difference if discriminating environments were a factor. For instance, New Hampshire and Mississippi have vastly different opinions of same-sex couples,[39] but state of residence was not a factor.

Is it possible that something within the philosophy of marriage equality is untenable to personal or public health?

For two prominent marriage equality legal action groups, the courts must stay out of consenting adult sex lives, even if that means unsuspecting partners end up with HIV.

In August 2013, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Daniel James Rick, a 32-year-old HIV-positive man since 2006 accused of passing on the disease to the now-HIV-positive man identified as D.B. D.B. testified that Rick did not tell him he was HIV positive before they started having sex. The prosecution argued that this case was about protecting the public from people who know they’re infected but practice unprotected sex anyway.

Never mind that Rick has two criminal cases in Hennepin County pending against him and two more in other counties. Gay rights legal groups said the ruling affirms the need for government to respect the personal and private decisions of consenting adults regarding sexual intimacy. Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota welcomed the ruling, decrying the state for “prosecuting someone for the fact he was HIV positive and had sex without a condom.”[40]

It is not the case that all marriage equality proponents support this risky behavior. One same-sex marriage-supporting friend of mine said she views Lambda Legal as being much more individual-rights-oriented, crossing some boundaries she would consider outside a collective-good-oriented approach.  The question is why two prominent marriage equality groups – Lambda Legal and the ACLU – are defending this sort of risky behavior against the common good.

Individual rights are at odds with the collective good, which is nothing new. This individual-society debate is always present in matters of religion and public life, privacy concerns and national security, as well as freedom of speech and obscenity. But there is a line. After 9-11, privacy concerns were largely discarded for airline safety and security. Freedom of speech is not applicable to child pornography or to words that “create a clear and present danger” to the public.[41] Once the line is crossed, popular opinion quickly shifts in the other direction.

When supporting marriage equality eventually leads to defending an HIV positive man’s right to not use a condom, public health has become at odds with at least some of the logic behind marriage equality. Based on the few cases mentioned here, public health looks to be sacrificed on the altar of an individual’s right to not use a condom. These sorts of cases will either start piling up until they are too numerous to ignore, or a single case could be so grossly unjust that sensibilities awake.

Coming Consequences

Only time will tell if same-sex marriage raises a crowd of children who grow up to say heterosexual marriage is more beneficial, or if it triggers an avalanche of poly-marriages, or incestuous marriages, or if sexual boundaries collapse in all directions. Any of these could precipitate a swift change in the opposite direction.

The imperative force of sexuality in current social thinking is accelerating. But like many movements of history, sooner or later it will be spinning its wheels in the mud of increasing sexual anarchy and related problems. The notion that sexual activity is a human rights issue, or that it is not just a privilege but a basic human need is untenable. Such a view has a way of eroding a wide variety of sexual boundaries, until at some point we realize that a stable society needs at least some boundaries.

Netherlands

The Netherlands has had legal same-sex marriage since April 1, 2001, but is the LGBT community happy?

A Dutch-American study found almost 64% of the surveyed LGBT 18-24-year-olds reported thinking about suicide and almost 13% of them attempted suicide. For straight Dutch youths of the same age group, the figures are respectively 10.3% (thought about suicide) and 2.2% (attempted suicide).

The researchers concluded that this is due to “ongoing persecution, especially at school and by the parents.” But this conclusion is difficult to believe. It was the parents’ generation who made same-sex marriage legal, and religious opposition is few and far between, being one of the most nonreligious nations in the world. In fact, of all groups, it was “the Catholic psychiatric hospitals, facing a great number of severely depressed homosexual patients, who started to raise their voices against discrimination” explains Laurent Chambon, a French sociologist living in Amsterdam. Dutch Catholics don’t share the official position of Rome because, “They are a minority and thus tend to be more progressive, similarly to the Jewish minority.”

The extent of discrimination in today’s Netherlands is “a handful of lesbian couples who had to move because of negative and aggressive reactions from their neighbours. But, [Chambon] says, those are ‘marginal epi-phenomena’, equivalent in numbers to the occurrence of migrant families who had to move because of racism in their neighbourhoods.”[42]

LGBT people who have had same-sex marriage for the majority of their lives are thinking and attempting to end their lives six times higher than their straight counterparts. Opposition to LGBT sexuality is marginal. Perhaps there is something inherently problematic about alternative sexuality. Perhaps sexuality is not stable ground for a healthy identity. At some point enough people will realize that sex is not the key to happiness or living a fulfilling life.

Pendulum Swings

The patterns of history show that sexual values swing like a pendulum. The European eroticism of the early nineteenth century gave way to the conservative Victorian era in the late nineteenth century, and the libertine flapper era in the 1920s swung back to the family values era of the late 1940s through early 1960s.[43] Since the sexual revolution took hold in the 1970s, all things family and sexuality has changed. Being a wife no longer means “barefoot and pregnant.” But today we are way beyond giving opportunities for wives to be in the workforce and limiting the number of children they have. Residual side effects of birth control and availability of abortion mean sex no longer implies the responsibility of producing a child. Still, sex has the emotional power of expressing romantic love, so romantic love and sex have become enmeshed. When conducting premarital counseling for a young couple, I asked them what God might think of sex before marriage. The answer was that God was about love and sex is making love, so he probably thinks it is morally good. If you spotted two men walking down the street holding hands, wouldn’t you think that they were a gay couple? Go to Saudi Arabia and you will commonly see two men holding hands walking together. We are so saturated with sex that holding hands implies a sexual attraction if not sexual relationship.

Sex has become so central that our sexual preferences are designated as our personal identity: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc. Additionally, the designations are always expanding, from LGBT to LGBTQ, to LGBTQIA[44] and “LGBTQ+.”[45] (I recently heard an interview of a 16-year-old female in my area who identifies as “pan-romantic demi-sexual.” How long before “P” and “D” are added?) The notions of male and female are fragmented where a person with male body parts can be female, and vice versa. Gay marriage is pushing monogamy into “monogamish.” HIV/AIDS is decreasing for every group except men who have sex with men. Marriage equality legal groups are defending individuals knowingly spreading HIV to others. Poly marriages of multiple people are calling for the same equality as same-sex couples. Incestuous relationships are coming forward with demands for acceptance. LGBT people in the most progressive environments are much more prone to suicide.

We’re due for another swing.

Rev. Aaron Vriesman is Pastor at North Blendon Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in Hudsonville, Mich.

[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]

[1] “Kirsten Powers: The Rise of the Intolerant Left,” interview by Katelyn Beaty; Christianity Today; Monday, May 11, 2015 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/may-web-only/kirsten-powers-rise-of-intolerant-left.html  (retrieved Wednesday, May 27, 2015).

[2] Macarena Saez, “General Report – Same-Sex Marriage, Same-Sex Cohabitation, and Same-Sex Families Around the World: Why ‘Same’ is So Different.” General Report prepared for the 18th Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Washington D.C., July 2010. Journal of Gender, Social Policy & The Law vol.19, no.1; p.14.

[3] Some 113 Native American tribes had a sanctioned sexual category sometimes referred to as “berdache,” where usually biological men and occasionally women would assume the culturally-defined gender roles of the opposite sex. The berdache were not shunned or regulated a second-class role in society but would be well-respected and integrated into family life. They would dress according to the assumed gender role and marry someone of the opposite gender role but of the same sex. Homosexual sex was not culturally condemned as long as the participants fit the dual gender roles.

[4] James M. Henslin, Social Problems, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), p.50.

[5] Arno Karlen, “Homosexuality: The Scene and Its Students.” In The Sociology of Sex: An Introductory Reader, rev. ed., James M. Henslin and Edward Sagarin, eds. (New York, NY: Schocken, 1978), pp.223-248.

[6] Some examples are mentioned in “The Secret History of Same-Sex Marriage,” by Faramerz Dabhoiwala; The Guardian, Friday, January 23, 2015 09.00 EST http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/-sp-secret-history-same-sex-marriage (retrieved Tuesday, January 27, 2015).
Informal marriages that took place without clergy or government blessing were common throughout most of history. Even under government solemnization of marriage, informal marriage continued in practice. There was a phenomenon called “female husbands” by Dutch scholars Rudolf Dekker and Lotte van de Pol after 1600. Some same-sex couples managed to successfully secure legal marriages when one dressed convincingly as the opposite sex.
Even after the Marriage Act of 1753 invalidated it in England, self-marriage remained a powerful idea. (Until nonconformist and civil weddings were legalised in 1836, some religious dissenters, too, continued the practice.) As the composer Samuel Wesley wrote angrily to his nagging mother in 1792, about his unsolemnised relationship with Charlotte Martin, “she is truly and properly my wife by all the laws of God and Nature … she can never be made more so … by a million of ceremonies, repeated myriads of times”.
In Amsterdam in 1641, the middle-aged widow Trijntje Barents fell in love with 27-year-old Hendrickje Lamberts. Some time into their affair, Hendrickje began to dress as a man. This improved their sex life, Barents later confessed – from then on, the younger woman “sometimes had carnal knowledge of her two or three times a night, just as her late husband had – yes, and sometimes more arduous than he”.
In the early 1730s, when both were in their late teens, Mary East and her girlfriend decided to move to London and make a life together as husband and wife. Mary put on male clothes and turned herself into “James How”. The two of them became successful publicans and pillars of their East End community. Everyone presumed they were married. Over the years, James was elected to almost every parish office: s/he served as the foreman of juries, on the night watch, as overseer of the poor. For more than three decades, they kept their secret, and lived as a married couple.
It is impossible to tell how many other female husbands lived undetected with their wives. Quick, secret marriages were easy to contract in London until the 1753 act: there was a busy trade in no-questions-asked ceremonies in taverns, brothels, prisons and chapels. On 15 December 1734, a Soho couple calling themselves John Mountford and Mary Cooper decided to get hitched. The first clergyman they approached refused to do it. “Suspected 2 women”, he wrote in his notebook. But they would easily have been able to find another priest. A few years later, a London minister performed the wedding of Elizabeth Huthall and John Smith, “a little, short, fair, thin man, not above 5 foot”. Afterwards, he wrote “my clerk judged they were both women”, but they left as a legally married couple. “After marriage I almost could prove them both women,” runs yet another laconic cleric’s note, “the one was dressed as a man.” That pair, too, departed happily married. (Bishops and legislators take note: same-sex marriages have already taken place within the Church of England.)

[7] This is the closing sentence of the introduction to Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York, NY: Penguin, 2005.

[8] “The Tenth Anniversary of Dutch Same-Sex Marriage: How Is Marriage Doing In The Netherlands?” by William C. Duncan; Institute for Marriage And Public Policy research brief; Vol 4, No 3, May 2011

[9] Emphasis Barwick’s. “Dear Gay Community: Your Kids Are Hurting,” by Heather Barwick; The Federalist, March 17, 2015 http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/17/dear-gay-community-your-kids-are-hurting/ (retrieved Friday, March 20, 2015)

[10] “Polygamous Montana Trio Applies for Wedding License,” By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  JULY 1, 2015, 4:50 P.M. E.D.T. www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/07/01/us/ap-us-polygamous-marriage.html (retrieved Thursday, July 02, 2015)

[11] “Polyamory and Christians” by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, April 2013 http://www.uupa.org/Literature/Christians.pdf (retrieved Tuesday, July 07, 2015)

[12] “Sexually Inclusive Christians” Celebrate Victories, Push for More” by Mark Tooley, August 22, 2003 | Institute on Religion and Democracy | Posted on 8/30/2003 8:48:16 PM by xzins http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/973415/posts (retrieved June 13, 2014)

[13] “RMN Convocation- What I Loved” Posted on September 26, 2013 by Becca Girrell. http://pastorbecca.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/rmn-convocation-what-i-loved/ (retrieved June 13, 2014)

[14] “Christian Polyamory?” by John Shore, blog post on Progressive Christian Channel, April 2, 2013 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnshore/2013/04/christian-polyamory/ (retrieved Tuesday, July 07, 2015)

[15] Lee Stranahan, filmmaker, writer, photographer, “Why Are Gay Marriage Advocates Not Defending Polyamory?” Huffington Post; posted January 6, 2009 3:07 AM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/why-are-gay-marriage-advo_b_155476.html (retrieved Tuesday, August 12, 2014)

[16] “The Dirty Little Secret: Most Gay Couples Aren’t Monogamous,” By Hanna Rosin, Slate.com > The XX Factor: What Women Really Think; June 26 2013 11:14 AM http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/06/26/most_gay_couples_aren_t_monogamous_will_straight_couples_go_monogamish.html (retrieved Thursday, July 02, 2015)

[17] “The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss” by Liza Mundy, The Atlantic, June 2013 Issue http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/ (retrieved Monday, July 06, 2015)

[18] The study was by University of Toronto sociologist Adam Isaiah Green and published in the Canadian Journal of Sociology. It looked at 30 same-sex married couples around Toronto found that two-thirds of same-sex spouses (40% female, 60% male) did not believe marriage needed always to be monogamous. In fact, nearly half of male same-sex spouses (47%) had an explicit agreement that allowed for non-monogamy.
— “The Science on Same-Sex Marriage,” By Ronald Bailey; Wall Street Journal; April 3, 2013, 2:52 PM ET http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2013/04/03/the-science-on-same-sex-marriage/ (retrieved Wednesday, June 24, 2015)

[19] “Wives Are Cheating 40% More Than They Used to, but Still Half as Much as Men” by Zach Schonfeld, The Atlantic Wire, 7/2/13. http://news.yahoo.com/wives-cheating-40-more-used-still-half-much-193141903.html (retrieved Monday, July 06, 2015)

[20] Cognitive dissonance is a pattern of thinking where our minds cannot bear the thought of being “wrong,” “immoral,” or anything otherwise unacceptable. To avoid the pain of being wrong, we forget or justify our morally wrong actions. Our minds remember events differently or find loophole justifications for what we would otherwise consider unacceptable. So on an adultery survey, few people want to even admit to themselves that they were wrong.

[21] “Love, Sex and the Changing Landscape of Infidelity,” by TARA PARKER-POPE; New York Times, Published: October 27, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/health/28well.html (retrieved Monday, July 06, 2015)

[22] “Americans Continue to Shift Left on Key Moral Issues,” by Frank Newport; Gallup, May 26, 2015 http://www.gallup.com/poll/183413/americans-continue-shift-left-key-moral-issues.aspx (retrieved Monday, July 06, 2015)

[23] “The Dirty Little Secret: Most Gay Couples Aren’t Monogamous,” By Hanna Rosin, Slate.com > The XX Factor: What Women Really Think; June 26 2013 11:14 AM http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/06/26/most_gay_couples_aren_t_monogamous_will_straight_couples_go_monogamish.html (retrieved Thursday, July 02, 2015)

[24] “U.S. District Judge John Sedwick cited the circuit court’s ruling – Arizona is in the 9th Circuit – and gave parties in two different cases challenging Arizona’s same-sex marriage bans several days to argue why he should not overturn the ban.
On Oct. 16, he ruled that an amendment to the Arizona Constitution and two state laws banning same-sex marriage were unconstitutional violations of equal protection.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said Oct. 17 that he disagreed with the ruling but would not challenge it…”
— “Licenses issued in every county for same-sex couples,” by CAMARON STEVENSON Cronkite News via Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff, AZ); October 24, 2014 10:21 pm http://azdailysun.com/news/local/state-and-regional/9af55cb5-de81-5b89-8bb9-b08d329316bc.html (retrieved Friday, October 31, 2014)

[25] “Greatest win for gay marriage is just two words,” By Cass R. Sunstein; Bloomberg View via The Salt Lake Tribune; First Published Sat Sep 06 2014 05:09 pm • Last Updated Mon Sep 08 2014 06:03 pm http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58382520-82/sex-marriage-posner-couples.html.csp (retrieved Thursday, September 11, 2014)

[26] “Woman plans to marry her father after two years of dating,” FoxNews.com Published January 17, 2015 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/17/woman-plans-to-marry-her-father-after-two-years-dating/ (retrieved Saturday, January 17, 2015)

[27] “What It’s Like to Date Your Dad,” By Alexa Tsoulis-Reay; New York Magazine; January 15, 2015 10:12 a.m. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/what-its-like-to-date-your-dad.html (retrieved Saturday, January 17, 2015)

[28] “Rapper Kevin Gates says he dated his cousin for two years,” BY Nina Golgowski; NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Friday, January 9, 2015, 4:19 PM  http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/louisiana-rapper-dated-cousin-years-article-1.2072162 (retrieved Saturday, January 17, 2015)

[29] “‘Incest is no longer a taboo,’ says Australian judge Garry Neilson” By ANTONIA MOLLOY; Friday 11 July 2014 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/incest-is-no-longer-a-taboo-says-australian-judge-garry-neilson-9599552.html (retrieved September 29, 2014)

[30] “At Toronto Film Fest, Nick Cassavetes on Incest: ‘Who Gives a Damn? Love Who You Want’” By Sharon Waxman, The Wrap, Sunday September 9, 2012 @ 5:50 pm http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/toronto-film-fest-nick-cassevetes-incest-who-gives-damn-love-who-you-want-55581/ (retrieved June 13, 2014)

[31] “County health officials get court order to stop HIV-infected man,” by Carol M. Ostrom, Seattle Times health reporter; originally published Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024509443_hivorderxml.html (retrieved Thursday, September 11, 2014)

[32] HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports from the Centers for Disease Control, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention.

[33] “HIV diagnosis rate fell by third in US over decade,” By MIKE STOBBE; Associated Press — July 19, 2014 3:06 PM EDT http://bigstory.ap.org/article/hiv-diagnosis-rate-fell-third-us-over-decade (retrieved July 23, 2014)

[34] “HIV Diagnoses Drop in US Overall, But Increase in Young Gay Men,” By Rachael Rettner, Live Science | Posted: July 20, 2014 02:42pm ET http://www.livescience.com/46893-hiv-diagnoses-drop-us.html (retrieved July 22, 2014)

[35] “WHO warns HIV ‘exploding’ among gay men, urges preventive drugs,” by Nina Larson; Agence France-Presse (AFP) | posted: July 11, 2014 3:13 AM http://news.yahoo.com/warns-hiv-exploding-among-gay-men-urges-preventive-071358957.html (retrieved July 22, 2014)

[36] “Anal Sex Safety and Health Concerns,” http://www.webmd.com/sex/anal-sex-health-concerns (retrieved June 13, 2014)

[37] “The Myth of Rich, Influential Gay People,” by Ed Brayton, blog post on March 28, 2014 http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/03/28/the-myth-of-rich-influential-gay-people/ (retrieved Wednesday, July 08, 2015)

[38] “LGBT Americans Report Lower Well-Being: Significant differences seen in financial and physical well-being elements,” by Gary J. Gates; Gallup August 25, 2014 http://www.gallup.com/poll/175418/lgbt-americans-report-lower.aspx (retrieved Tuesday, September 09, 2014)

[39] The American Values Atlas; Public Religion Research Institute https://ava.publicreligion.org/#lgbt/2014/States/lgbt_ssm/2,3 (visited Wednesday, July 08, 2015)

[40] “Minn. Supreme Court sides with HIV-positive man,” By STEVE KARNOWSKI Aug. 21, 2013 3:56 PM EDT http://bigstory.ap.org/article/minn-supreme-court-sides-hiv-positive-man (retrieved Friday, October 10, 2014)

[41] See Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the unanimous ruling for Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).

[42] “Reflecting on 12 years of gay marriage in the Netherlands” Euronews, 01/04/13 (April 1, 2013) 17:41 CET http://www.euronews.com/2013/04/01/reflecting-on-12-years-of-gay-marriage-in-the-netherlands/ (retrieved Wednesday, June 24, 2015)

[43] David Myers, Exploring Psychology, 6th ed. (New York, NY: Worth, 2001), p.442.

[44] LBGTQIA = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex (formerly referred to as “hermaphrodite,” the word is now considered offensive), Asexual (not sexually attracted to anyone).

[45] “#LoveWins for gay couples, but for polygamy activists, the fight continues,” by Brian Pellot | Jun 30, 2015 http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2015/06/30/lovewins-scotus-lgbt-polyamory-polygamy-obergefell-religious-freedom-polyrights-supreme-court/ (retrieved Wednesday, July 08, 2015)

[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]