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Same-Sex Marriage: How Did We Get Here? And Where Are We Going?

Archpriest Lev Semenov May 14th, 2012 //

President Barack Obama recently affirmed his personal support for the legalization of same-sex marriage. For a perspective from Russia on this momentous development, we offer the following commentary by Archpriest Lev Semenov, Dean of the Faculty of Further Education at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University and cleric of the Church of St. Nicholas in Kuznetskaya Sloboda, both in Moscow.

The political heavyweight of the Western world has taken a step towards the abyss. If we are to believe the news report broadcast on the radio, and later confirmed in the press, President Barack Obama has made his first public statement in support of the legalization of same-sex marriages.

One can only sympathize with the citizens of this country who hold the Christian faith, just imagining how they must have felt when they heard this statement from their head of state…

There are quite a few Orthodox in the United States (my internship at New York University in 1999, when I met clergy and laity of four Orthodox jurisdictions, convinced me of this) and I think they were not pleased by the President’s statement.

In connection with this shocking news, two questions naturally arise: How could this have happened? And what comes next?

It seems obvious that the willingness of the leader of a major world power to recognize same-sex marriage as normal, destroying all grounds of traditional morality and familial structure, has its distant origins rooted in the process of secularization that began to gain strength at the threshold of the modern era.

The pinnacle of its manifestation is now the West’s general fascination with such notorious idols as “political correctness” and “tolerance,” all the while misconstruing them; as a result of which, in defiance of common sense, everything is being turned upside: human rights are being turned against humans, causing irreparable harm to their freedoms, including their freedom of conscience. One does not need to look far to find examples.

“Old Lady Europe” has long been in training to break the records of political correctness. But the New World has since begun to catch up with it.

This tendency towards secular extrapolation began to show itself most clearly with regard to the historical past, an example of which are the attempts at silencing the very place of Christianity in the history of European culture. Thus, despite Christianity’s enormous role in its formation and development over many centuries, contemporary European community legislators, as is well known, have removed the very mention of the Christian roots of European culture from the constitution of the European Union.

Instead of ensuring human rights as regards freedom of conscience, people are in fact deprived of the right to demonstrate their religious identity in even the most restrained manner. In Italy the courts examined the question of the permissibility of having crucifixes on the walls of educational institutions. In Great Britain, the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, designed to expand the vocabulary of school children, has eliminated the words “abbey,” “altar,” “bishop,” “chapel,” “christen,” “monk,” “monastery,” “novice,” “saint,” and a host of other Biblicisms. A stewardess for a British airline was fired because a Christian cross was visible in the neckline of her uniform. In the United States serious intentions have been expressed, on the grounds of having a politically correct attitude towards non-Christians, officially to change the terms Christmas and Easter to “winter” and “spring” holidays.

This epidemic of fundamentally shattering the millennia-old traditional family, which began in Europe some time ago and has now spread to the United States, threatens the moral health of society, the stability of the monogamous family, and the interests of children growing up in families.

It would be interesting to hear from gays and lesbians preparing to form marital unions (if one can call it that), who often express the intention of acquiring children for such “families” by adopting orphans, what kind of upbringing the unfortunate children of such “families” will receive if same-sex marriage is legalized.

Are the democratic societies of Western countries prepared for the prospect, in the very near future, of the mass reproduction, through the upbringing received in such “families,” of entire generations with a similar sexual orientation?

It would be naïve to suppose that those taking the bit between their teeth in this mad rush towards destroying the traditions of Western society will stop here. Elementary logic dictates that, following the rejection of the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery,” the violation of other commandments will ensue; then, surpassing all the horrors of Kafkaesque absurdity, the rejection of the commandment “thou shalt not kill” will arrive. It is not difficult to imagine how “civilized” (read: secularized) humanity, having desired to free itself from the burden of Christian moral values as being too burdensome for their perverse aspirations, would one morning wake up to hear that an American president has expressed his support for the “inalienable” right of every person… to commit murder.

May God grant that this nightmarish dystopia never come into being! But only fidelity to those traditional religious foundations upon which all world culture has been built can serve to bar the way to its realization.

How could this have happened?
In addition to secularization there have been capitulations by Christian communities, adopting as their core values the false gospel of "radical inclusivity" in the pursuit of "justice".

Frequently they liken the crusade for gay parity to be parallel to the American civil rights movement, forgetting that there is no similarity between racial characteristics which carry are morally neutral and which one cannot change and behaviors which are not morally neutraly and which one can (and often should) change.

In some Lutheran circles this occurred in two stages. The first stage, in the 1970's, was to view all scripture through the lens of "Gospel reductionism"...that salvation by grace was paramount and anything not directly related was of secondary, tertiary, or even lesser value.

The second stage was to change what is meant by "Gospel" to mean "radical inclusion"; or, in the words of H. Richard Niebuhr's "The Kingdom of God in America":

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."

How could this have happened?

An excellent question! I remember hearing in 1972 about the Supreme Court's abortion decision and I asked the same question. Obviously scriptural and traditional Christianity is on a 40 year losing streak.

If you enter into a conversation with practically anyone under 30 years old about homosexuality they think you are intolerant and actually hateful???? "Hate", "Crazy" and "superstitious" (their name for belief in God) are words that they use for traditionalists. These terms are used in a unheated, casual conversation....never mind a spirited debate.

People (Including some on this forum) say that politics and religion are taboo. Why, when the religion of atheism uses politics and media so effectively. Have we written off two generations of Christians because it makes us uncomfortable? We continue to "brush off" any heirarchial exhortation to evangelize and are content to attend Divine Liturgy on Sundays.

What happened to the desert Fathers' teaching of fear of God and fear of death? Apparently its something that the baby boomer generation doesn't want to think about.

However....

Christ is risen!

And in God we trust.

Fr Deacon Paul

This pressure is being applied simultaneously on all continents. Newspapers reported yesterday that the President of Argentina is to write to the Australian PM asking her to change to laws here. Same sex marriage is right now a very hot politcal potatoe and every weekend there seems to be protest marches in the various Australian state capitals in favour of the move. Sadly due to the steady re-education that has gone on across society over the past 40 yrs and this includes the Catholic schools and the places for religious and priestly formation there is what seems like a lot of support to make such a change.

The two sides of this debate - which really ought to be a dialogue - are so polarised by panic and rage right now that neither side can really listen and hear what the other side is saying.

In my books, this ain't good. I ain't no advocate of same-sex "marriage" but I do advocate people put themselves in their opponents' shoes for a while and contemplate the opposite point of view as objectively as possible.

The issue isn't going to go away. I suspect those who advocate same-sex "marriage" will eventually carry the day. We might all wanna think about getting used to it and taking it in stride.

"Carry the day?" What does that mean? Will somehow "one man, one woman, resulting in children, for life" will cease to be the way God designed marriage? Basic biology will change course?

Sorry, I won't be signing off on this covenant with death and agreement with hell.

People forget, Jim Crow wasn't retained, it was imposed, in 1876-7. It lasted until 1965 because people "got used to it and took it in stride."

btw, on "dialogue" with the devil, consult the story of Christ in the Wilderness. You can't debate Truth.

Both of your above posts are excellent examples of the very type of polarisation I mentioned.

De-demonise homma-sekshul people. Begin to regard them not as ogres but as your brothers and sisters. To the extent necessary, let us rid ourselves of the prelest which says we're spiritually superior and more intelligent that they are. Let's try something new: let's develop empathy for them and make an honest effort to walk in their shoes for a while.

Relax: 2 homma-sekshuls getting "married" ain't gonna hurt you one bit.

Besides, if ya don't like same-sex "marriage" then don't marry a person of your own gender.

I have a channel on my cable box called 'Me tv'. It brings back many popular shows/sitcoms/westerns/police dramas/scifi from the early 60's to the mid 70's. It is so nice to watch these shows and remember a time when people were respectful and family oriented but MORE IMPORTANTLY when writers were actually able to make one laugh without pushing and shoving sexual jokes, innuendo, situations and conversations into every minute of programming.

When that started, I knew it was the beginning of the end...Strong Christian groups tried to boycott programs and fight the trend, but every time they were successful, even MORE blatant and crass sexual content followed.

I used to follow the Christian sites that spoke up and acted against this new trend because I had children growing up at the time.

One quote I will NEVER forget from Hollywood in response to some of the boycotts was "we will continue pushing the envelope more and more on sexual themes", and they did, and they do....

I assume that soon we will see pornography of some sort on all television shows.
The other trend I noticed was that the 'family hours' and Friday 'TGIF' sitcoms and shows that were clean enough to watch with your children were dying, and have indeed died.
I have only basic cable, yet the titles of pornographic movies on adult channels still accost my eyes when surfing the channels. What if I had children at home? Since I do NOT have these channels, why does my cable company insist on showing the titles to me?

My daughter who is a young adult and I were talking about popular music in Greece the other day, because we both like it. She noted how the lyrics, (even in Greek rap) are not angry, and are generally still about old fashioned love, romance and broken hearts--something she said does not exist in the lyrics of popular music of today's music in the U.S....it is all about anger, sex, and touting a lack of emotion for relationships gone bad.

We have influential industries that are deliberately reforming and desensitizing minds, hearts, and souls.

What I am getting to with all this is that on matters of sexual immorality, we are fighting an upward battle. Most of the warriors (organized groups that used to fight these things) have given up.

I have given up and shrug my shoulders, because I knew that what the President said was only a matter of time, and that whether he said it or not, all these sexually motivated agendas will eventually win.

We live in an overtly sexual, confused, emotionally desensitized and spiritually devoid and morally handicapped society--may God have mercy on us.

good.

No one is demonizing anyone except you.

Love the sinner, hate the sin, doesn't mean excuse the sin. That's a bit off point on the thread, but you brought it up.

Neither is carpet bombing, say, North Korea. But I'm against that as well.

If you don't like pollution, don't drink the water.

Sielos,

More often than not, I agree with your posts, but on this subject I think you've been influenced too much by the "love" vs. "hate" propaganda. It is they, the LGBT groups (for those who don't know LGBT is Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Trans-sexual).

They call those who disagree with them "hateful." I can live with homosexuals; we could co-exist as long as they don't push re-education for children to believe that sodomy is normal and respectable. There is no constitutional clause or scriptural reference that they have special rights; in fact bigamists are on a higher plane.

Why should we accept sodomy as a Sacrament/Mystery? Where is there any precedent? Yes, there is room in the Church for them if they are celibate, just as there is room in the Church and all of its blessings for divorced people, as long as they are celibate. What is the difference?

Their whole campaign is based on power and upheaval, not common sense.

Yes, I admit that I was a little surprised as well, and wondered if the tone of 'sielos' in *parts* (some of it I agreed with) of his post was intended to be facetious or sarcastic?

What I do agree with is that we should not demonize the homosexually oriented or practicing person(though the whole movement is unsettling) as individuals. I have also found that most really hate certain Christian denominations which they find, or think are 'hateful'. I think that the Eastern approach (especially Orthodox) of seeing the Church as a hospital for souls, and that no one is more a sinner than the other, but that rather we are all 'spiritually sick', falling far from what God intends us to be, and in need of God's grace is a more loving approach, and one which leaves those that hate Christians a bit speechless...since they are so used to the black and white, fire and brimstone approach of the West towards their sin...Only when one admits that heterosexuals have just as many sins (promiscuity, lust, adultery) to deal with, will the gay individual, atleast 'listen' to anything Christianity related.

In any case, it doesn't matter, because the 'movement' (gay pride parades, equal rights, marriage, normal alternative to heterosexuality, gay clubs in schools, etc.)is a delusional and illogical one which no longer pertains to individuals, and it is a movement which has successfully brainwashed so much of the country.

to follow up on that, anyone who doesn't want gay marriage and wants no fault divorce is kidding himself.

With all this debate I wonder if the church should create a new word for Sacramental Marriage. If the government can turn Christmas into winter holiday let the goverment have the word marriage and have the church create a new word. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

That is a good thought, but marriage can also be a non-religious civil one (as in a justice of the peace) so I don't know that the word could be changed, since it isn't only used for Christians...

I did think that 'civil union' was the term which should have been used.