I write this post with deep disappointment. \u00a0I appreciate Wendell Berry\u2019s literary artistry, and I appreciate his spiritual insights. \u00a0But he indulged in an epic rant against gay marriage opponents to a gathering of Baptist ministers on January 11th in Kentucky. \u00a0His comments were relayed<\/a> by Bob Allen of the Associated Baptist Press. \u00a0While Berry repeats uncritically a slew of bumper-sticker arguments and engages in some serious straw-man pyromania, the people in the comments box nonetheless marvel at his genius. \u00a0This deserves a response.<\/p>\n This will be a long post. \u00a0But let\u2019s fisk what he has to say:<\/p>\n \u201cMy argument, much abbreviated [when he referenced it before], was the sexual practices of consenting adults ought not to be subjected to the government\u2019s approval or disapproval, and that domestic partnerships in which people who live together and devote their lives to one another ought to receive the spousal rights, protections and privileges the government allows to heterosexual couples,\u201d Berry said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fair enough, but defending the traditional definition of marriage has nothing to do with making \u201cthe sexual practices of consenting adults\u201d subject to government dis\/approval. \u00a0It has to do with the divine creation of marriage and the family. \u00a0The overwhelming majority of defenders of traditional marriage in America have no interest, none whatsoever, in outlawing homosexual sex. \u00a0Many would also be perfectly fine with domestic partnerships that grant \u201crights, protections and privileges\u201d enjoyed by married couples. \u00a0But that is not what the advocates of gay marriage are seeking. \u00a0They are seeking a legal redefinition of marriage \u2014 and I think it\u2019s fair to say (though some will deny it) that the movement would also like to see an ethical affirmation that there is nothing morally objectionable with homosexuality.<\/p>\n \u00a0Berry said liberals and conservatives have invented \u201ca politics of sexuality\u201d that establishes marriage as a \u201cright\u201d to be granted or withheld by whichever side prevails. He said both viewpoints contravene principles of democracy that rights are self-evident and inalienable and not determined and granted or withheld by the government.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Actually, no. \u00a0Conservative Christians do not believe that marriage \u2014 homosexual or heterosexual \u2014 is a \u201cright.\u201d \u00a0That\u2019s the point. \u00a0There is no right to join yourself to whomever you please and demand that the government recognize and reward it as \u201cmarriage.\u201d \u00a0The government does not define marriage. \u00a0God does. \u00a0But the government may have a compelling interest in recognizing and encouraging marriage. \u00a0The only people who argue that marriage is a \u201cright\u201d are those on the Left. \u00a0The \u201crights\u201d language has infected the debate, turning everyone who believes in defending traditional marriage into the violators of gays\u2019 \u201crights\u201d and therefore not only mistaken or misinformed but gravely unethical, perhaps even criminal, equal to those who would deny their rights to women or racial minorities. \u00a0I believe that gays ought to have \u2013 and as human beings do have inalienably \u2013 the same rights as heterosexuals, but I do not believe that either gays or straights have a \u201cright\u201d to compel the state to recognize their relationships as marriages.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians of a certain disposition have found several ways to categorize homosexuals as different as themselves, who are in the category of heterosexual and therefore normal and therefore good,\u201d Berry said. What is unclear, he said, is why they single out homosexuality as a perversion.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe Bible, as I pointed out to the writers of National Review, has a lot more to say against fornication and adultery than against homosexuality,\u201d he said. \u201cIf one accepts the 24th\u00a0and 104th Psalms as scriptural norms, then surface mining and other forms of earth destruction are perversions. If we take the Gospels seriously, how can we not see industrial warfare \u2014 with its inevitable massacre of innocents \u2014 as a most shocking perversion? By the standard of all scriptures, neglect of the poor, of widows and orphans, of the sick, the homeless, the insane, is an abominable perversion.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s immensely disappointing to see Berry parroting these superficial points. \u00a0First, no one is saying heterosexuals are \u201cgood.\u201d \u00a0None are good; all are sinful. \u00a0We all stand as sinners in need of God\u2019s grace. \u00a0Second, the frequency with which a sin is discussed in scripture has nothing to do with whether or not it\u2019s a sin. \u00a0There are many things not frequently condemned in scripture \u2014 genocide, spousal abuse, child abuse, and even rape \u2014 that we would all agree are grave sins and deserving of our attention. \u00a0The scriptures emerged from a Hebrew world in which the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality was not a live issue. \u00a0And we need to attend not only to the scriptures condemning homosexual relations but to all the scriptures affirming the proper place for sex and the created definition of marriage. \u00a0Third, Christians since the first century<\/em><\/span> have employed a hermeneutic that distinguishes between ritual and ceremonial laws that were intended for a specific people at a specific time and place, and the moral law that is written into the order of creation for all people. \u00a0To pretend suddenly as though Christians are being arbitrary when they choose to affirm the condemnations of homosexual relations and ignore the shellfish rules (or etc.) is disingenuous in the extreme. \u00a0Fourth, Berry may wish to mount an argument that surface mining is wrong, but that has nothing to do with the proper definition of marriage and God\u2019s design for human sexuality. \u00a0Fifth and finally, yes, the Bible spends far more time encouraging us to care for the least and the laws than it does reiterating the moral law, which is why Christians and their churches spend a lot more time and effort caring for the least and the lost than they do defending their moral views in the public square.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus talked of hating your neighbor as tantamount to hating God, and yet some Christians hate their neighbors by policy and are busy hunting biblical justifications for doing so,\u201d he said. \u201cAre they not perverts in the fullest and fairest sense of that term? And yet none of these offenses \u2014 not all of them together \u2014 has made as much political\/religious noise as homosexual marriage.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The defense of traditional marriage is not about \u201chating your neighbor\u201d but about defending biblical truth and preserving a clear understanding of what God has said. \u00a0Caring for the poor does not create \u201cnoise\u201d because no one wants to tell the stories of Christians doing daily heroic work through Catholic Charities or the Salvation Army or World Vision or Compassion or any number of organizations whose budgets individually are several orders of magnitude larger than any budget for any organization defending traditional marriage. \u00a0And Christian organizations do advocate for the policies they think will best care for the poor and for all people. \u00a0Nothing would please us more than to see this issue go away, but it remains a constant because those interests are seeking to redefine marriage, which we hold sacred, and constantly seeking to brand the defenders of traditional marriage as hateful and bigoted.<\/p>\n Another argument used, Berry said, is that homosexuality is \u201cunnatural.\u201d \u00a0\u201cIf it can be argued that homosexual marriage is not reproductive and is therefore unnatural and should be forbidden on that account, must we not argue that childless marriages are unnatural and should be annulled?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cOne may find the sexual practices of homosexuals to be unattractive or displeasing and therefore unnatural, but anything that can be done in that line by homosexuals can be done and is done by heterosexuals,\u201d Berry continued. \u201cDo we need a legal remedy for this? Would conservative Christians like a small government bureau to inspect, approve and certify their sexual behavior? Would they like a colorful tattoo verifying government approval on the rumps of lawfully copulating parties? We have the technology, after all, to monitor everybody\u2019s sexual behavior, but so far as I can see so eager an interest in other people\u2019s private intimacy is either prurient or totalitarian or both.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Colorful images, but again disappointing. \u00a0Has Wendell Berry never actually read a defense of traditional marriage? \u00a0It\u2019s not as though we just discovered the problem of childless couples. \u00a0Has he never heard of the Catholic Church, which has a very sophisticated theology around this question? \u00a0If he has heard it, he chooses to caricature it instead with colorful images of backside tattoos. \u00a0Once again, this is not about legally forbidding sexual behavior. \u00a0Trying to turn this time and again into an effort to illegalize same-sex sex may be effective rhetoric, but it\u2019s fundamentally dishonest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe oddest of the strategies to condemn and isolate homosexuals is to propose that homosexual marriage is opposed to and a threat to heterosexual marriage, as if the marriage market is about to be cornered and monopolized by homosexuals,\u201d Berry said. \u201cIf this is not industrial capitalist paranoia, it at least follows the pattern of industrial capitalist competitiveness. We must destroy the competition. If somebody else wants what you\u2019ve got, from money to marriage, you must not hesitate to use the government \u2013 small of course \u2013 to keep them from getting it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n One wonders how a mind as supple as Wendell Berry\u2019s can accept these talking points so uncritically. \u00a0Christians and their churches devote enormous amounts of resources to marriage ministries in an effort to strengthen marriages. \u00a0A favorite target of the left, Focus on the Family, is almost exclusively focused on building up marriages and families. \u00a0The lion\u2019s share of effort\u00a0does\u00a0go toward strengthening heterosexual marriages. \u00a0But just because heterosexual marriages are struggling is not a reason to abandon the biblical definition of marriage. \u00a0There is no fear that homosexuals will \u201ccorner the market.\u201d \u00a0This probably ranks among the most ridiculous things Berry has said in a long series of ridiculous things. \u00a0The concern is that, in a society where marriage is already suffering, altering the fundamental definition of marriage will only hasten the disintegration of the God-given family structure and therefore of society as a whole. \u00a0Whether or not we find it convincing, let\u2019s be honest about the argument.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were one of a homosexual couple \u2014 the same as I am one of a heterosexual couple \u2014 I would place my faith and hope in the mercy of Christ, not in the judgment of Christians,\u201d Berry said. \u201cWhen I consider the hostility of political churches to homosexuality and homosexual marriage, I do so remembering the history of Christian war, torture, terror, slavery and annihilation against Jews, Muslims, black Africans, American Indians and others. And more of the same by Catholics against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics, Catholics against Catholics, Protestants against Protestants, as if by law requiring the love of God to be balanced by hatred of some neighbor for the sin of being unlike some divinely preferred us. If we are a Christian nation \u2014 as some say we are, using the adjective with conventional looseness \u2014 then this Christian blood thirst continues wherever we find an officially identifiable evil, and to the immense enrichment of our Christian industries of war.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Accusing churches that are trying to hold fast to how (they believe) God defined marriage of perpetuating the same \u201cChristian blood thirst\u201d that led to the annihilation of Jews and American Indians is calumny of the highest order. \u00a0Wendell Berry should be ashamed of himself. \u00a0Worldwide, homosexuals historically have been persecuted. \u00a0Christians, who have been persecuted worldwide as well, should be sensitive to this. \u00a0But tying those who believe homosexual sex is wrong and that God made marriage for male and female to the instigators of genocide and religious warfare is truly beyond the pale.<\/p>\n \u201cCondemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred,\u201d Berry said. \u201cCategorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob. It makes cowards brave. And there is nothing more fearful than a religious mob, a mob overflowing with righteousness \u2013 as at the crucifixion and before and since. This can happen only after we have made a categorical refusal to kindness: to heretics, foreigners, enemies or any other group different from ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps the most dangerous temptation to Christianity is to get itself officialized in some version by a government, following pretty exactly the pattern the chief priest and his crowd at the trial of Jesus,\u201d Berry said. \u201cFor want of a Pilate of their own, some Christians would accept a Constantine or whomever might be the current incarnation of Caesar.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now the defenders of traditional marriage are likened to those who crucified Jesus. \u00a0Apparently no blow is too low here. \u00a0Even though Christians today are not advocating laws against adultery, or against premarital sex, or homosexual sex, nonetheless Christians are trying to get Christianity \u201cofficialized.\u201d \u00a0(I think he has a point here, but it has to be much more nuanced and qualified.) \u00a0And what would Wendell Berry say of condemnation of habitual adulterers or environment-destroyers \u201cby category\u201d (which really means to say that those actions are sinful)? \u00a0My only point is to underscore the ridiculousness of the charge that \u201ccondemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred.\u201d \u00a0While I do not disagree that there are some out there who are simply hateful bigots, the great majority of people I\u2019ve come to know who wish to defend traditional marriage are not hateful but simply attempting, in the face of epic slander such as this, to uphold what they perceive to be the truth of God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally,\u201d says one commenter, \u201csanity in the discussion.\u201d \u00a0Says another, \u201cWe have been blessed with such a profound mind.\u201d \u00a0Comments like these, in some ways, sadden me even more than Wendell Berry\u2019s comments themselves. \u00a0Have we lost the ability even to recognize a sane and balanced and nuanced discussion? \u00a0Because Wendell Berry, in this case, offers neither sanity nor profundity. \u00a0There is no nuance here, no attempt to understand the arguments on both sides \u2014 really, there\u2019s no grace here whatsoever. \u00a0There is a raging condemnation of one side of the argument as the \u201cperverts\u201d who indulge in \u201cthe lowest form of hatred\u201d and can be justly identified with the perpetrators of genocide and inter-religious slaughter.<\/p>\n Tell me again who is engaging in \u201ccondemnation by category\u201d?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In case you were wondering, those who defend traditional marriage and oppose same-sex marriage are continuing the tradition of those who slaughtered the Jews and the Native Americans. \u00a0They\u2019re also perverts who are trying to theocratize America. According, at least, to Wendell Berry. \u00a0And no, I\u2019m neither making this up nor exaggerating. I write this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":3559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,27],"tags":[1356,1331,1333,356,1144],"class_list":["post-3558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homosexuality","category-marriage","tag-gay-marriage","tag-homosexuality","tag-marriage","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-wendell-berry"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/46\/2013\/01\/wendell-berry-300x199.jpg\" "\\"wendell-berry\\"")
<\/a>Bear in mind that I have openly suggested<\/a> that the time may have come for evangelicals to drop their\u00a0legal<\/em>\u00a0opposition to same-sex marriage, even as they uphold biblical standards for the morality<\/em> of sex outside of wedlock and the theology<\/em> of marriage in the true sense ordained by God. \u00a0I\u2019ve also been repeatedly critical of the ways in which evangelicals historically have responded to homosexuality, and called for a radical grace and extravagant love shown toward our GLBT neighbors and friends. \u00a0Also, sincerely, I\u2019m very tired of talking about this. \u00a0But the constant onslaught of hatred (read the below and tell me that word isn\u2019t justified) for those who affirm traditional biblical sexual ethics and who wish to defend legally the model of marriage instituted by God is so extreme that I find myself compelled time and again to respond.<\/p>\n