ex cathedra: On Christian ethics and homosexuality

Sunday, October 14, 2007

On Christian ethics and homosexuality

I had a thought the other night as I was falling asleep. Not that I usually ruminate on ethical issues at that time. But...

Christian sexual ethics, and especially orthodox Christian ethics, is really only about the preservation and regulation of marriage. That's the motherlode, the heart issue, the one thing that this moral code cares about. So whatever does not support marriage will be rejected as threatening it. Adultery, of course. But any other kind of sexual activity will weaken the fortress of marriage, so it, too, must be forsworn: masturbation, fornication, ...and homosexuality. And for the truly traditional, divorce.

I used to gripe that Christian sexual ethics unrealistically assumed that there were only two kinds of people: spouses and celibates. No other choice. Well, it's pretty true. Because the point is not to assess the ethics of a variety of behaviors or kinds of people, but to make sure that marriage is sacred and inviolable. That's why it has been so easy to commit a mortal sin in the area of sex.

Reminds me of the rabbinic injunction, to "build a fence around the Torah", that is, not only to enforce the actual commandment, but to start making obstacles at a distance, so that you can't even get near to breaking an actual commandment. Makes it hard for people, but in the case of the Law or the Sacrament, I suspect that those undertaking this attitude were protecting something which, if violated, would have consequences for everyone that these folks considered catastrophic.

So even though it cashes out painfully for homosexually oriented Christians, my guess is that the anti-gay stuff ultimately flows from this deeper priority. Wherever you have a high doctrine of marriage, eg in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, even in a quasiChristian religion like Mormonism (whose doctrine of marriage is way higher than the orthodox) , you have no tolerance for extramarital sex of any kind. Once you start to accomodate extramarital sex of any kind, as among liberal Protestant churches, you eventually make marriage a kind of honorific option, just one among others.

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