Why is it that gays and lesbians get blamed for starting the slippery slope towards loose sexual morals, but it is the heterosexuals who merrily ride down the slide of premarital or casual sex, serial monogamy, and easy divorce and remarriage, while the gays and lesbians are stuck immobile at the top of the ride, if they are even allowed to climb the ladder?
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
I think it's partly because we like to believe in easy forgiveness. "I can divorce knowing God believes it to be wrong but if I repent afterwards, I'll be forgiven and saved by grace". With that, I can do whatever I like because I always have a get out of jail free card and end up being whiter than white again - in God's eyes as well as in my own. We all make mistakes!!
ReplyDeleteThat's not the same as declaring something we "know" to be immoral acceptable - that would be truly offending against God's will.
It's another kind of don't ask don't tell that is ultimately designed to stop us from having to confront the truth about ourselves. As long as someone somewhere is truly immoral and is identified as such, the rest of us can remain saved.
It’s classic scapegoating.
But scapegoating is one of the most powerful human emotions and one of the hardest to overcome.
I have a feeling that sensible people on both sides of the sexuality question share your puzzlement, Tobias. From the conservative side, take this example from the (former) Anglo-Catholic liturgist John Hunwicke (http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-directions-november-2010.html):
ReplyDeleteIt puzzles me that some Evangelicals make such a fuss about homosexuality when so many of them have disregarded the plain Dominical Words about remarriage after divorce. My views on all sexual matters are precisely those of the Church and of the Tradition. But I think homosexuals get rough justice when they are paraded as the moral problem of our age. Surely, more marriages are destroyed by disordered heterosexual lust than by homosexual appetites. And, moving on from homosexuality, let's consider the Abuse of Minors. I am second to nobody in my disgust at 'filth' who abuse children sexually. But 28 years working in a boarding school provided me with very few examples of 'filth' at work and such examples as I did see were at what Mr Plod classifies as the lowest end of the spectrum. What I did see repeatedly was the damage done to adolescents by divorce. Time and time again, I would be at a meeting to hear about the disciplinary problems suddenly, unaccountably, being provided by some boy ... and after a few minutes, the House Master would intervene to say "I think you should all know that there is currently a very messy divorce going on ...".
The Divorce Culture is the principal sexual disorder of our age; and it is also the main way in which the young are horribly abused by their elders.
Thanks, Erika and Jesse. This also reminds me powerfully of Bonhoeffer's reflections on "The Pharisee" mindset, which is, I think, very much in play.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what "The Pharisee" mindset is, so this comment may be redundant. I suspect the problem is that we are too ready to forgive our own sins, and less charitable toward sins of the "other". I remember hearing this said very eloquently somewhere, but I can't remember where.
ReplyDeletePaul, that's it, in fewer words than Bonhoeffer took to say it...
ReplyDeleteDitto all the above, especially Fr. Hunwicke.
ReplyDeleteFrMichael