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Would Jesus Oppose Gays and be Silent on Porn?
Here's a glimpse of religion in America. All gays all the time. It seems that there is nothing else that can capture the spiritual imagination of this nation. Jesus came to the world to stop the damned gays. He had precious little else to say.
Forget the fact that we Americans are desperate to be liberated from our materialism and narcissism. Or that our youth are clamoring for anything other than American Idol to inspire them. We clerics will get around to it just as soon as we stop them gays.
The latest installment in the American obsession with gay marriage comes from Miss California, Carrie Prejean, who said in the Miss Universe competition that she opposes gay marriage and was immediately championed as a Christian heroin throughout America. But it seems that her Christianity could not find expression in preventing her from posing topless for men or having the Miss Universe pageant pay for her breast implants. Now I ask you honestly, what is a bigger threat to heterosexual marriage today? Gay marriage or porn? When a wife waits alone in bed for her husband who is downloading pictures of naked women on his laptop, do you really believe she consoles herself by thinking, "Well at least those gays can't marry"?
For all my Christian brothers and sisters who scapegoat gays for undermining the institution of marriage, I would remind them that we straight people have done a mighty fine job of destroying it ourselves, thank you very much. The gay population in the United States is at most ten percent while the heterosexual divorce rate is more than fifty percent and has been so well before gay rights ever became a national issue.
The foremost danger to marriage in our time is the wholesale degradation of women in popular culture. In magazines, on TV, and especially on Internet porn, women are portrayed as the libidinous man's plaything, not an equal to be respected but a subordinate to be used. On college campuses male womanizing is an expected right of passage. Why devote yourself to one woman when idiotic shows like The Bachelor reinforce the idea that the rich and good-looking guys get to have a harem. Even well-meaning women like Miss California who participate in porn become complicit in their own degradation and further the male view that a woman's principle purpose is to satiate male erotic needs.
Beauty pageants don't help much either and it's surprising that my Christian clerical brothers haven't spoken out against them as they have gay marriage. Can you believe that sixty years after feminism rightly pointed out that a woman's mind is even more important than her legs we still have televised contests of women parading around in their underwear for Donald Trump to rate their bodies? And what would Jesus say about Miss California's implants? Would he endorse the message that women ought to stuff their chests with silicon to appear as perfect male eye-candy, or would he emphatically declare that beauty is not merely skin deep?
How any of this congruent with Christian values is beyond me, but it seems that we've entered some weird Twilight Zone where opposition to gay marriage alone makes one into a Christian in good standing.
Look. I'm not here to condemn Carrie Prejean and I can of course be just as religiously inconsistent. But my point is that America has real problems and can really use an authentic spiritual voice to lead us out of the shallowness, greed, divorce, and teen sex that are plaguing our country. And so long as we make gay marriage the only issue of importance we abscond our moral responsibility to provide spiritual leadership to a starving generation. Most of all we shift our focus away from combating the misogyny that has become such a central staple of American culture.
Patti Stanger, Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker, and I recently debated in Los Angeles in front of 1100 young people about Patti's belief that women ought to marry rich husbands. I argued that this just fuels the stereotype of women as greedy gold-diggers prepared to sell themselves as a commodity to a guy with cash. When men come to believe these stereotypes it affects their respect for women. Soon they believe that can they can neglect their wives as long as they give them credit cards. But three quarters of all divorces today are initiated by wives who are making their own money and would rather be alone than remain with a distant husband in an empty marriage. The most influential TV show over the past decade was Sex in the City where four female friends have nearly given up on men and turn to each other for intimate companionship instead. As for married women in America, approximately thirty percent are on an anti-depressant and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times scored big by publishing a book suggesting that perhaps women are better off without men.
As for the guys, well, the only ones who still want to get married are gay. While the gay men are out petitioning the Supreme Court for the right to get hitched, the straight guys are inventing brilliant excuses not to wed their girlfriends with whom they have lived for years and even have children. It's curious that Brad Pitt proclaims that he and Angeline Jolie, who admirably have six kids together, will only get married when all people, gays included, can wed. But that has not stopped him from adopting children even though in most states gays can still not adopt. Which just goes to show you that when a man wants to find reasons to stay single he becomes as bright as Einstein.
We can save marriage in America and get men to become gentlemen who treat women like ladies. But that must be accompanied by women not only demanding male respect, but respecting themselves as well.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach this week publishes his new book, "The Blessing of Enough: Becoming Materially Content and Spiritually Hungry." He is the founder of ThisWorld: The Values Network. www.shmuley.com
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Yasher koach, Shmuely. While as a psychologist I don't always agree with your advice (nor that of my evil twin, that woman on the radio, who is dangerous in the extreme), in this instance I hope that everyone else with smicha stands up and pays attention. My partner and I, who are legally domestically partnered, would like to have the benefits of marriage to go with our decade of faithful devotion to one another. I'm a nice Jewish girl, after all, I want to be able to stand under a chuppah and make it count. We joke with our heterosexual neighbors about the "threat" we supposedly are to them (not). You're right- the objectification of women, and the degradation of family time via our consumerist mentality are the dynamics that undermine the marriages of heterosexual people, not me and my partner.
In a few weeks we will be going to Canada to attend the wedding of two men, faithful partners for 30 years, who have each contributed hugely to their communities as healers. They are the god-parents of their friends' children, volunteers for good causes, with one another for life. Ironic that they have to leave the country to get married-and when they come home, their marriage will remain unrecognized by the nation to which they have each paid whopping amounts of taxes every year.
Thanks for being an ally on this one.
Why do people talk about marriage as being in danger?
Marriage is a meaningless trivial social convention, based on ritual and churches getting fat.
I have been married now for 30 years, and love my wife more now than when she was sexy.
We wore a wedding ring (very cheap ones) the day we got married in a catholic church and never since.
We only married at all, let alone in a church for her family's comfort.
We already were married just due to our love and commitment to each other, that we shared in intensely private and personal ways.
That is all that matters, and if it is same sex, or multiple people, 3 or 10 or whatever that can do that sharing, it is all good.
Love, real love is too rare, and if found in other ways I am not the Judge of that.
My son lives with his lady and daughter, all unmarried and it is all good.
That is the real issue.
Soul Mates.
If you aren't such you will split up.
The legal issues embedded in "marriage" are civil rights issues.
No person, priest or otherwise has the authority to bind, or unbind our unions.
Especially not hypocrites.
The only reason we need to legally acknowledge such a union is for legal purposes.
Otherwise the whole deal is a communal ratification process at best.
That has real value in my view, which is why we chose to marry in her families church.
Good luck.
Why attack Prejean? Before the beauty contest, she had nothing to do with Prop 8. So the case that she is some sort of hypocrite is irrelevant. She was thrust out there by a mean, small minded gay judge.
Obviously the good Reb is willing to eject all the prhobitions of his Torah regarding homosexualitie to give straight men a tounge lashing for fornication. Talk about hypocrisy.
Rabbi, gay marriage, I am not so sure about, but I am listening. I am, at this time, leaning towards a legal contract between any two people and if desired, a wedding ceremony, in the Church of your choice (or not) for family and friends. I am still listening, tho.
I agree completely that straightfolks have messed up marriage. While feminism has opened doors for women to create their own lifes, their own happiness, divorce tends to impoverish women and children. How can this be right?
When we work as a team in life, and marriage, we do complementary work, and sometimes that complementary work is done behind the scenes and doesn't pay so well. Walking out because you "don't love your spouse anymore" should not end your obligations,(the mortgage still needs to be paid, the children still need to eat and get new shoes, and they still need both parents), however with our rush to enjoy our newfound freedom, we sort of "thew the baby out with the bathwater". Why should my children, or your children, live in poverty because one parent quit? We are fortunate that we don't drag each other thru horrible court battles anymore, but we changed the rules in a way that actually make it less likely to live the feminist dream of equality and equal opportunity.
As has already been said, it is a miracle that ANYONE wants to marry anymore.
Very well said!
Dear Rabbi,
Applause! Applause! Applause!
A couple of points rabbi,
Please refer to the porn which diminishes women as straight porn, the porn gay men watch has NO WOMEN.
As for men becoming gentlemen and treating women as ladies.
Remind these guys, there are MANY women out there who will treat their women as ladies, if they fail to do so.
Not all porn is bad, not all porn has ladies, not all ladies want to be treated the same, not all gentlemen want ladies, not all gentlement who have ladies want to keep them, not all women want to get married, not all married women want to stay married, some want to marry, but not the guy they already married, not all guys are to blame for this.
The biggest threat to marriage of any kind today is divorce, and yet there is no political movement I have stumbled across that advocates a rollback to the days when divorces were harder, if not impossible, to come by. Not that I advocate such a rollback-- it's just that it seems conspicous in its absence from discussions like this one-- but there's lots of noise all over concerning porn and gays-- most paradoxically from serial divorcees in the party of 'traditional values'.
Here's another point: why did any women want to get married to men like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich?
Everyone's different, I guess.
Excellent article.
"When a wife waits alone in bed for her husband who is downloading pictures of naked women on his laptop, do you really believe she consoles herself by thinking, "Well at least those gays can't marry"?"
And so on point. Thankl you.
Gay people have been around at least as long as recorded history.
How is it that they are now a threat to the very social institutions that have also been around since the dawn of history?
Wonderful prose! It made my heart lighter, as I just learned last night that there are elders and deacons in my church who are questioning my right to teach (I'm a lesbian in a 5 year partnership; my partner was born and raised in this church).
Rabbi, I loved you ever since I saw you first on DL Hughley's show. You are the only religious man I know that can speak about this kind of thing without being, pardon my pun, holier than thou.
Please go on every talk show in the country and say exactly what you have in this article. This is the absolute truth and hearing it from a holy man will do so much more in the conversation than just hearing it from a talking head.
Luv ya Rabbi.
The bible has many acts, foods, etc. that are considered forbidden, or abominations.
But, most are ignored, and only the one that seems to prohibit some gay sex is promulgated.
This would indicate to me that these guys are picking and choosing only the prohibition that suits their already existing prejudice. So, they are hiding their bigotry and hate behind their pathetic religion.
I do not believe this is an ad hominem attack. This is just what I believe to be true, and I think the logic works. So, I don't understand why this post did not appear when I posted essentiallyt the same thing earlier.
i learned that the reason the old testament forbade so many foods was because ppl got sick and or died. logical reasoning would be that homosexual relationships didn't produce children and that was really important then (proliferation of the species and all) therefore - since those reasons no longer exist because of refrigeration and global overcrowding - those arguements are irrelevant.
Thank you. I'm not sure why this concept eludes so many religious conservatives. The world is simply not the same place it was 2,000 years ago. (Thank God.)
"i learned that the reason the old testament forbade so many foods was because ppl got sick and or died."
What was the evidence (in the text, or in the archeological record for that matter) that led to this conclusion?
*Applause*
"As for the guys, the only ones who still want to get married are gay"...
Hilarious, and pretty true, actually...it's amazing how we gays can be scapegoated for attempting to "destroy" an institution we can't even participate in...it's like saying I'm "destroying the Superbowl", when I haven't even watched that "hetero national holiday" in years.
Sorry, but if marriage is being destroyed, it's straight people who are dismantling it...and BTW, thanks to Rabbi Schmuley for calling out the Christain hypocrisy we all too often have to put up with in this country. Spoken like a TRUE man of God.
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