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TechnoratiOn the other hand, a couple – both men named Brandon – took a different approach:
But the Brandons suspected they were untraditional when it came to their thinking about monogamy. As they saw it, one enduring lesson of heterosexual marriage is that lifelong monogamy is unrealistic for most people – especially men. "Most straight people like to talk a great game about monogamy," Brandon A. said. "But what are they actually doing? Many of them have affairs at some point or break up because they want to sleep with somebody else. We're two guys, we're in our 20s, we haven't been sexual with that many people, and to pretend like we're never going to want to experience sex with another person until the day we die doesn't make sense to us. We're open to exploring our sexuality together in a way that makes us both comfortable."
"Young Gay Rites" is itself a noteworthy signal about the future of marriage. If Denizet-Lewis is right, the legalization of same-sex marriage is changing the ways some homosexuals are living their lives. In other words, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is changing homosexual culture in some unexpected ways.
The Christian concern about marriage is rooted in the picture that marriage provides. Marriage is a covenant and the central institution for human society. The picture of marriage is the bringing together of those who are alike (both made in the image of God) and different (male and female). Out of this picture of difference brought together within covenant comes the gifts that flow from marriage.
The tragedy of same-sex marriage is not the awkwardness and strangeness revealed in this article, but the repudiation of that picture. That repudiation represents a great loss and confusion – but it also represents a violation of God's command concerning marriage.
Denizet-Lewis's article raises at least one final thought. If the legalization of same-sex marriage is changing homosexual culture, is it also changing heterosexual marriage? We can only wonder how long it will take for some heterosexual couples to decide that "emotional fidelity" and "sexual fidelity" can be separated.
We are living in the midst of vast cultural change. It is almost as if an entire civilization is being transformed before our eyes. Reading "Young Gay Rites" should be sufficient to make that realization hard to miss.
Adapted from R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s weblog at www.albertmohler.com.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com. Original Source: www.albertmohler.com.
