On the one hand, there are those ‘eternal verities.’ There is a ‘creator’, a great intelligence we can only sense in our spirit, but cannot prove with scientific certainty. This created world has its natural laws that keep the planets orbiting in their proper space. There is inborn in humankind the longing for goodness, a distaste for hurting self and others. Alongside this there is also the urge to gratify ones own self. In a world governed by divine love it is possible to balance these divergent longings. Yet as man strives to live in society with other men, people do develop the capacity to hurt and to pursue what goes against the greater good of society. This fact only underscores another verity, that man is born with free will. He can choose to follow his yearning for goodness, or abandon it to his self interests.
The portion of the population that has chosen to follow Christ have as their guidebook for right living the many books and chapters that comprise the Bible. A large portion of this Book is shared by followers of Islam. Exercising that free will, these disciples of Christ and Muhammed have chosen to interpret this great book in many divergent ways. There are clear statements in different places of the Book that indicate a natural formation for society, and an unnatural one. Sexual love of man for man or woman for woman has clearly been placed in the latter camp. Even the word ‘abomination’ has been the English translation of choice from the original.
Weigh this against the teachings of Christ himself, as reported in the New Testament. He has asked us to learn how to love and to forgive. He identifies his people, speaking through the apostle Paul, as a peculiar people, set apart. In this world, but not of it. Even so, we must render to Caesar his due. We must abide by and respect the law of the land, and when that land is a republic functioning as a representational democracy, then we are called upon to participate in creating as well as abiding by this law.
I believe that all of this has led us to a cultural civil war. In ever increasing numbers, people are choosing to focus on their own gender in their search for loving companionship, for stability, for their fulfillment of the natural yearning to belong. This is an alarming trend when viewed from the perspective of social history, where the extended family has been the traditional bedrock of stability and cultural continuity.
This schism did not arise spontaneously. There is no virgin birth here. It is the inevitable outgrowth from the destruction of the traditional extended family unit. We have brought it on ourselves with the industrial age, where factories supplanted farms as the source of income. This apparently simple shift has spawned many unnatural alliances, sundering the natural order of society.
Workers left the extended family in order to find work. Without the natural support of the extended multi-generational family, the stressors that afflict all marriages could not be contained. Cracks formed in the nuclear family unit, infidelity became easier when greater distance was put between the home and the work place, and the inevitable divorce occurred. The restless spirit was no longer contained within the walls of the defining rural social community. The anonymity of the city permitted experimentation with alternate forms of gratification. With divorce comes single parenting, step-parenting, week-end parenting with divergent values. The suffering, confused and alienated children produced in these environments have grown to adults with a very different concept of home, family and community.
Arranged marriages such as seen in Asian cultures, and formerly in European cultures, has no formal part of the modern post industrial culture. In rural America, however, when young people grew up with their entire extended family living within miles of them, coupling of young people having similar values and temperament was a given. Choices were limited. This usually worked to the benefit of all involved, ensuring continuity of the family, of financial stability, and ultimately of the strong community. Droughts occurred as well as bounty, recession as well as plenty, but the community leaned upon its own resources and rode the tides of good and ill together.
There are hardly any such pockets of healthy communities left in America. Young people are faced with options that will easily take them away from the security of whatever community they came to know, and in spite of their best intentions they may not return except perhaps for weddings and funerals.
A good mother learns quickly that a child needs boundaries. As the child grows within these boundaries, gaining in confidence, experience and wisdom, the boundaries can safely expand. But even adults find comfort in boundaries. Given the breakdown of society, boundaries have expanded beyond anything healthy, yet humans need these boundaries no less, to feel safe. We all have heard the phrase, “It’s a scary world out there.” It has never been more true.
Single young adults have a daunting task in the search for a life partner. The 2009 film He’s just not into you portrays this world with humor that masks a deeper angst. It is economically practical to find a housemate, rather than living with parents or tackling the emotional uncertainty of living with an uncommitted lover. Compatibility can arise, making for a satisfying home life. The definition of ‘family’ blurs, when no blood relation lives in the same city, and the majority of your free time is spent with this housemate. Years can pass, and these two can become each others strongest supporters. But what if one suffers a medical emergency, or a car accident? Will these two not experience the same drama as any sibling or husband and wife in this situation? The injured person would want the security and comfort of that housemate by their side. It is that housemate who will carry on with the necessities of life—bill paying, pet caring, keeping friends and coworkers apprised of the situation. And here arises a conflict. The hospital has rules keeping ‘non family’ out of the ICU, for one example. After decades of growing numbers of people in this situation, policies have finally changed to give recognition to vital life relationships outside the traditional definition of ‘family.’ And so we have ‘civil union’ laws, to extend insurance and other benefits to householders not having a blood or legal relationship.
All of this makes perfect sense, so far. Then love and sexual gratification enter into the picture, and sensibility is fractured. The relationship takes on a whole new meaning within the context of community. Beyond civil union, there is the romantic notion of marriage, a gesture to all the world demonstrating that the universal search for love and marriage has been fulfilled. Who is it that desires this romantic gesture?
There are two camps, in my opinion. There are life partners who have a solid and discreet relationship. They have no desire to call attention to themselves, they have found stability as well as emotional fulfillment in their relationship. Having filed for ‘civil union’ status, they are ensured the civil right to take care of and protect each other. "Marriage" would be the icing on the cake, a cake perfectly edible without icing nonetheless.
The other side of the coin brings us back to that young adult search for a life partner. How does someone identify themselves as gay or straight? This is a complicated issue. Each person is born with the capacity to find beauty in the same gender as well as the opposite. We are acculturated to prefer the beauty of the opposite sex, a healthy natural urge built within us to propagate the species and continue the social order. But in an unhealthy society where natural boundaries have been torn down, a young person can be without a true compass. They may have gotten the message to seek love and marriage, but the traditional urges such as for species propagation may have been extinguished. It is also a scientific fact that a small number of people are born with gender ambiguity, a small number.
Out there cruising for love and acceptance, it comes as it comes. We have heard that women are from venus, men from mars. This translates to mean that women tend to ‘get’ women easier than they ‘get’ men. Yet the acculturated desire for the romance of marriage to the object of love and adoration remains.
It shouldn’t be surprising that same-gender coupling is on the rise, an innovative solution to the breakdown of the more traditional means of find ones life mate. It is also a very practical solution to the complex personal finance dilemma, where the mortgage for a house requires two incomes. Can we heal these cultural diseases just by outlawing committed relationships between same gender couples? Oh, if only we could. In fact, homosexual marriage is just one more nail in the coffin of our decaying society.
The moral outrage of the more conservative, traditional minded to the idea of escalating the ‘civil union’ to the level of officially sanctioned marriage is a volley in this civil war, scorching and tearing as it flies. In the wake of its trajectory lies pain as much as ignorance. It accuses these relationships of tearing a rift in the community, of not carrying weight, of not bearing children. Would that I had statistics here to get a clearer picture of reality. Same-gender couples do raise children. Such children have an equal chance to socialize normally, following traditional gender roles. Are civil unions more or less stable than traditional marriages? The often heard statistic on male-female marriage is that there is a 50% chance it will end in divorce. We don’t yet have statistics on this recent innovation, same-sex marriage. Perhaps it will reflect the anecdotal breakdown of hetero couples who live together peaceably for years, only to get divorced after going through the wedding commitment.
I fear the outrage is misdirected, much like putting a band-aid on a broken bone. If we attempt to legislate who can get married, why not go a step further and revise the laws governing who can get divorced. Legislate against single parenting. Legislate against taking the influence of grandparents out of the lives of their grandchildren. Why don’t we make laws that will force 5% of the population to live in communities organized like the original kibbutz in Israel, which were self-contained communities. Children raised in those communities grew to be outstanding citizens. During the Yom Kippur war of 1973, 25% of the commanders of the army were products of these same kibbutzes, which were comprised of a mere 5% of the population of Israel. In fact, we cannot legislate behavior. It is closer to the truth if we say that behavior dictates legislation.
We have created a society with a heightened sense of entitlement to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A society where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been redefined. Because these changes are being aired in a public forum, thanks to this era of all-pervasive multi-media technology, we cannot sit quietly and try to adjust to these changes. We are polarized, a rift is forming, social civil war seethes just below the surface.
I wish there were a solution—easy or difficult, if only we could find a path to chart through this morass. In fact, it will escalate. We have also seen alarming upheavals on the surface of our planet—tsunamis, earthquakes, war-induced famines and genocides. It is likely that nature will once again intervene, to take our minds off this social upheaval. In the face of disaster, we work side by side no matter what our social agendas might be, to feed and to bandage and to shelter the victims of tragedy. We ourselves might be such victims. Would we refuse to quench our burning thirst if the hand holding the bottle of water was a hand we saw betrothed in a same-sex marriage?
Laws change in two ways. Our elected officials can vote for change, and the citizenry can vote for a referendum to direct the lawmakers. Our citizenry has shown an appalling indifference to the great right and privilege that is our participatory democracy, as reflected by the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast a ballot when given the chance. I would like to see mandatory attendance at refresher courses periodically required of all citizens on our constitution and how government is supposed to work. But we can no more legislate that than we can legislate who will fall in love with whom. I do not like the idea of getting voters to the election poles by whipping them up with emotionally charged rhetoric, bypassing reason and logic. More often than not this is how it is done, and I abhor it. I would so much rather discuss ideas through civil discourse. But I am spitting in the wind.
What I would wish for is that people of power and influence would call our society to conscience, reminding us that we most of all desire to be a loving and forgiving people. That a self-regulating society that disciplines its self-interests to yield to the higher interests of the greater good is really what was intended for the United States of America. That includes tolerance for different interpretations of ‘greatest good’, allowing for separate but equal public services. That there would be hospitals that protected its staff against the act of abortion, and hospitals where abortion was protected. Schools where more traditional curriculums were taught, and schools for progressive curricular choices. That communities would have the right to permit public prayer in their schools, and communities that prohibited it.
These are the words of an idealist, ignoring the realities of the times. If such a vision were ever to come into being, it could only be at the hand of God allowing a great natural calamity to destroy the world as we know it. We all pray that will not happen. But we also pray that each one of us will seek within us for the voice of peace and love, from which can grow a greater respect and tolerance for each other. May this prayer stem the tide of civil war that threatens us all.
