Nathanael Blake
The inherent radicalism of same-sex marriage can’t help but lead to other rebellions against the created order
Keep it gay. That’s the plea of Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Vines recently warned New York Times readers that “the broad support that made marriage equality possible has grown more vulnerable,” which he blames on those who want “same-sex orientation” to be “part of a wider rebellion against social norms.” And this “queerness” is provoking backlash.
Andrew Sullivan made a similar argument in the same paper a year ago, lamenting that the gay-rights movement had radicalized after winning on marriage. Sullivan and Vines are correct that same-sex marriage won by promising a more inclusive normal and has instead delivered sexual and gender radicalism, a bait-and-switch that is turning people against same-sex marriage.
This slide down the slippery slope was inevitable because same-sex marriage was always a radical project, as Vines inadvertently demonstrated in his essay. The most immediate evidence is that he avoided offering any specific examples of how the rainbow movement has gone too far. He worries about vibes, and about backlash, but did not condemn anything wrought by the LGBTQ movement as actually wrong in itself. Surely he could have written that polyamory is wrong, or that amputating the healthy breasts of adolescent girls is wicked, or that male rapists don’t belong in women’s prisons—if he believed so.
Vines’ embrace of the “born this way” mantra adds another element of extremism. He complained that “the share of Americans who believe people are born gay has declined over the past decade.” Well, good—the search for a gay gene ended in failure years ago. The sources of sexual preference are far more complex than the simplicity of “born this way.” But as New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen admitted a few years ago, though it was inaccurate, “born this way” was a “critical way station on the road to accepting homosexuality,” a sort of noble lie for the gay-rights movement. Gay activists later backed off from the argument.
And the assertion that children are “born this way” provides the pretext for the LGBTQ movement’s obsession with teaching children about sexuality and gender and then claiming them as part of the rainbow elect. The logic is simple: If we are born this way, then there is no need to worry about children being groomed into rainbow identities; rather, we should be concerned that their authentic, LGBTQ selves will be repressed, especially by unsupportive parents.
Biblical marriage is not neutered. It does not consist of androgynous spouses, but male and female, husband and wife.
This is all false. Not only is “born this way” discredited, but Christians know that a desire being innate does not make it good or worthy of being acted upon. That we are, all of us, born with various sinful impulses and inclinations does not mean that indulging them isn’t sinful. For instance, men with an innate desire to fornicate or use pornography are not let off the hook by claiming to have been “born this way.”
Thus, Vines has to treat Scripture with contempt in order to justify himself. He claims to have undertaken “a painstaking study of Scripture” and concluding that though all “of the Bible’s references to same-sex relations are negative … the lustful and exploitative same-sex practices those passages describe differ fundamentally from same-sex marriages today that are based on lifelong love and commitment.” Nonsense. Even setting aside that same-sex relationships are not notable for lifelong fidelity and commitment, the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, especially as explained in Romans 1, is not just about lust and exploitation but rebellion against God’s creation order and the moral law that governs it.
This rebellion is seen in Vines’ claim that same-sex marriage conforms to a “core biblical idea about marriage: that it is a covenant designed to reflect God’s self-giving love for humanity through the sacrificial love of spouses for each other.” But biblical marriage is not neutered. It does not consist of androgynous spouses, but male and female, husband and wife. Marriage is a union of the two halves of human species, a union that is ordered toward begetting persons who also may know God and enjoy Him forever.
The rejection of the normative reality of male and female for our lives is the source of the radicalism of same-sex marriage. It dethrones male and female from their place as essential aspects of who we are, degrading them into mere objects of subjective sexual desire. This is a denial of God and of His creation order. Pretending that male and female do not matter is at the heart of same-sex marriage, and it is from this that all the queerness comes.
Keeping it gay ends with making it queer.
About the Author: Nathanael Blake is a fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All.
