Sex and Commitment

For a thousand years, sex even within heterosexual marriage was considered sinful (yet necessary for procreation). Some theologians, in their unbounded generosity, decided that marital sex for the sole purpose of having children was OK — provided you didn’t enjoy it.

The church has changed its position over the centuries, and now just about all Christians believe that marital sex is a positive good, in and of itself, even when procreation is impossible.

Father Edward Vacek, S.J., professor of Christian Ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago, lists the following values of marital sex: pleasure, romantic feelings, ecstacy, companionship, mutual support, sexual outlet, intimacy, and interpersonal communication. He questions whether it is right to deny homosexuals these values simply because their acts are not open to procreation. "One biological deficiency then turns all too easily into biological, psychological, rational, and spiritual alienation."

Father Vacek notes other areas where the church has changed. In Biblical times, it was sinful for a son to see his father naked, or for a husband to have intercourse with his wife during the seven days of her menstrual cycle. Polygamy was permitted, and in certain cases, even required, while celibacy was considered abnormal. If these Biblical standards have been reversed, why not the ban on homosexual acts?

In some states, sodomy is a crime even between husband and wife. These laws are part of our heritage as a "Christian nation." Yet today, nearly all Christian denominations consider anything a consenting husband and wife do in their bedroom to be moral. Most Christian counselors consider oral sex a good and healthy part of marital sex. So these acts are no longer considered inherently sinful. It depends on who does them. What makes the difference? Gender? No. While moral for a married couple, these acts are sinful for a heterosexual couple if performed outside a committed relationship. Then why is it not the same for homosexuals? If it is the relationship which makes the difference, why shouldn’t these acts be immoral and sinful for a gay couple meeting in a bathhouse, but good and moral for a gay couple in a committed monogamous relationship? Is not the general principle on which all our morality is based "relationship and love"? Is that not what Jesus tried to drum into us over and over again?

Of course, some will respond that there is no such thing as a committed monogamous relationship between homosexuals (at least male homosexuals); that they are inherently promiscuous, that they have multiple partners before pairing up, and probably after as well; and that since there is no binding legal and moral commitment to a partner, gays drift from one "committed" relationship to another.

Sadly, all this is too often true. Unfortunately, it is also true of most heterosexual relationships in America. But this sad truth doesn’t change the fact that faithful life-long relationships between a man and a woman — both of whom were virgins when they got married — is not only the ideal, but the standard. Moreover, the rarity of such a relationship doesn’t make it any less good. On the contrary, it makes it a triumph of love and relationship over the beguiling temptations of a corrupt society.

Bishop Lowell O. Erdahl of the American Lutheran Church, in his book "Ten For Our Time: A New Look at the Ten Commandments" has the following to say about marriage:

"Marriage is sustained by love; but the reverse is also true. Love is sustained by marriage. It is well we can’t just walk off and forget each other on a moment’s notice. The legal obligations about which we may sometimes complain give us a framework of security in which we can be more free and honest with each other. They keep us together through troubled days and give us time to be renewed again in love toward one another. Living together or engaging in premarital relations as a test of sexual compatibility is like testing a parachute by jumping out of a fifth story window. The conditions are not right. The right conditions are present only in a relationship of personal and public commitment in which it is no longer necessary to test anything."

Homosexuals, of course, are denied the right to make such a binding, public commitment. Then we condemn them for being promiscuous. But we don’t do anything about it.

Today, there is a debate raging about making marriage available to homosexual couples. Whether the church does so is, of course, for each church to decide. But it would seem that civil society would be much better off by making some kind of binding commitment available to homosexual couples — and then enforcing it. It should be at least as difficult for same-sex couples to break up as it is for the rest of us. ( As a matter of fact, society would be better off if we made it much more difficult for heterosexual marriages to be broken. Divorce is too easy and too common. Those who go through half a dozen or so "marital" partners make a mockery of the institution.)

The words "marriage," "matrimony," and "wedding" could be reserved for heterosexual unions. New names could be invented for their gay counterparts (perhaps "pairiage," "pairimony," and "welding"). Whatever it is called, some sort of binding commitment must be made available to homosexual couples. Which of the various legal rights and responsibilities now enjoyed by heterosexual couples they would share is a matter of public policy. As joint economic units, it would seem proper for them to have similar medical benefits, inheritance rules, and joint IRS filing regulations as the rest of us. Such things as adoption rights might best be decided after it becomes clear if such arrangements are stable.

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