Gay marriage has been legalized by the supreme court and many foolish statements have been made on each side of the issue, but I found this one of particular interest for several reasons I am about to jump into. First I am sure this person means well in the support of her position, but the logic and consequence of her statement is absurd. If you simply read the statement without thinking about it, it would appear that she is simply telling us to be tolerant of other people's choices, but in actuality her philosophy is troubling. This is why:
Not all things are equal and not all relationships are equal. In order for this young woman’s statement to be true, the analogies she is using would have to be of equal value in order for her argument to have any meaning. Here are the two equivalencies her sign is making:
1. Marriage = Donuts
2. Religion = diet
The problem should present itself immediately. Is eating a donut the equivalent of getting married? Now marriage has a very long and interesting history, but I have never heard it equaled with donuts. The problem here is our relationships with other human beings, are profound whereas my relationship with a donut is very short and purely for my own gratification, and this may be the problem, which I will address later.
The second analogy is religion and dieting. Now there are over a 1 billion Muslims, almost a billion Christians, and billions of other worshipers of diverse faiths that includes a multitude of temples, religious relics, and holy places. Religion is the worship of the ultimate reality. Religion is considered the pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. Now people change diets like they change clothes and usually diets are short lived excursions in avoiding favorite foods, like donuts. Crispy Creams is incredible, but I have never seen anyone worship one!
Now the interesting use of these analogies may be a coincidence or happenstance, but I think there is a prevailing view of sex and marriage in this sign that may demonstrate our society’s pathological tendency to see life with a view to consumption, self-satisfaction, and personal gratification.
I will start with marriage and donuts. What has been the historical purpose of marriage? Most marriages were entered into with the view for procreation, for continuing the family lineage. Think of the current websites like Ancestry.com that allow people to trace their lineage; families passed down their names, farms, and lands through hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. Marriages were also entered into for political alliances, but also with the view to continuing powerful lineages. Having children has historically been the primary driving force for marriage and keeping a marriage together.
That brings us to our current time in history. People in western societies no longer value their lineage and there are no longer any kings to pass their political powers to, except the Kennedy’s, Bush’s, or Prince of Wales. Traditional male and female roles have been challenged and each gender is trying to decide what their responsibilities and roles are as male and females. The challenges to gender have also been compounded by unrestrained sexual license outside of marriage. We are now faced with an assortment of possible sexual choices which have never been regarded as socially equal but now are considered equal options of sexual identity without consideration of the future, a family, society, or culture.
Sexual relationships and martial relationships are now measured in the amount of pleasure they bring to us, not the future for family, culture, world, or the human legacy we are responsible to leave. I think the sign is a sign of the times when it comes to sex, marriage, and donuts. All three have become goods for consumption. If the male and female, family producing relationship established by nature has lost its value, such as to be relegated to choosing a donut, then it is no surprise that anyone can have any kind of marriage or donut they like. But donuts do not produce human beings and marriages do, so if marriage becomes like a choice like a donut what will the futures children become?
Marriage in some ways is its own government with the unique ability to create its own citizens. There are laws, duties, budgets, defense, education, and training for future economic stability. Like any government there are symbols such as language, celebrations, ceremonies and the pursuit of unity. For the family, it is love that binds all of these things together. By love I do not mean a good feeling, but the desire to seek the ultimate benefit of another person which results in the creation of new human beings. This brings us to donuts. How is a donut like any of the things I have mentioned? A donut serves one purpose and that is to be eaten. If marriage is now a consumer product what will become of our future? This is not a gay marriage dilemma, but a problem for every single human being. If we fail in our duty to bring new human beings under a natural, solid and stable structure there will be an inevitable collapse. Families are foundational to social structures and if we reduce this structure to the choice of a donut how can the structure sustain the future?
The next problem is relating of religion to a diet. This is obviously a view that religion is about keeping us from pleasurable things, but as I have mentioned, religion is the worship of the ultimate reality. The Muslim, Jewish, and Christian belief systems ascribe marriage of a man and a woman as a gift of God (a gift from the ultimate reality) to be considered sacred and binding. Because God has established this relationship it is “HOLY”. When religious people are upset at the political and social movements that seek to significantly redefine marriage, they are upset because that which is sacramental and given by a transcendent authority is being usurped by human beings for their own consumption. In Islam marriage is a religious duty, In Christianity marriage is the representation between Christ and his Church and is a holy sacrament, and for the Jews it has meant survival over thousands of years of persecution and viewed as a “contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_marriage). In each of these religious views of Marriage the only limiting factor in pleasure is that sexual relations are to be kept sacred between a husband and wife. Now if this is a diet then it is certainly a healthy and flourishing one. I think for most of humanity, if their spouse decided to go on a diet there would continue to be harmony, love, joy, and peace within the marriage, but if the spouse decided to go out for sex with the handsome or beautiful neighbor there would be great pain and suffering for everyone. We expect fidelity from those we love because fidelity brings harmony, peace, and safety, we do not expect anything from a diet but the loss of unwanted pounds. Religion is a preserver not a restrictor. The religious prescription of keeping sexual relations between a husband and wife preserves peace and happiness it does not restrict it. Religious guidance and prescription of sexual conduct is meant to prevent the sexual consumption of our fellow human beings.
This brings me to my final point. The problem is not religion or a narrow view of who should marry and have children. The problem is the consumerism of human relationships and human beings. Most religious traditions affirm to love your neighbor as yourself, but we are trading the creational expression of love for consumption and self-gratification. The ultimate reality or religious pursuit upon which many seek is now pleasure. I will give you an example.
A man and a woman decide they are attracted to each other and want to have sex. They do not wish to marry and may not desire any future relationship with each other beyond their one night of sexual pleasure. Each person is aware of the possibility that a pregnancy is possible. The woman takes a contraceptive, the male decides to use a condom, but each is fully aware that a pregnancy is still possible. The man and woman agree that if this happens the woman will exercise here Supreme Court right to abort the unborn life. It is at the moment that the man and woman have consciously decided that their right to pleasure supersedes the right to life and worse, supersedes the value of human life. For the sake of pleasure the unborn human life has been consumed like a donut.
