Your Sex Life, Evolution, And the Christian Right-A Theory

[Stoid]

The people who make up the Christian Right, as we all well know, are constitutionally incapable of adopting a “live and let live” attitude, and are obsesssively concerned with monitoring and controlling the sexual behavior of everyone else. They are freakishly determined to stamp out homosexuality, sex outside marriage, pornography, etc. Their fervent quest to force “Abstinance Only” education on everybody’s children, no matter how many pregnancies and diseases this has been proven to ultimately promote, is infuriating and seems unstoppable.

And we have all said to ourselves, I’m sure: “Why? What in the world drives these people? How can anyone be THAT concerned with the bahavior of other people?” yes, we know the perfectly ridiculous excuses they come up with, like “defending marriage”…excuses that they can’t even logically explain. But that’s all just noise. Of course there here IS a real reason, or the situation wouldn’t exist.

And I believe I know what it is, even if they don’t.

It is the same answer that drives the same people to try and have creationism, oh, sorry “Intelligent Design” (snort) taught alongside or even instead of evolution:

Fear and insecurity.

It’s exactly this simple and this obvious and this sad: If the hard core religious right were to simply turn a blind eye to the behavior and choices of others, to live and let live…well, hell, we might discover that their hysterical assertions about how evil it all is are just that: hysteria. Not a lick of truth to any of it. People can be big fat homos and raise kids and those kids can come out just FAAAAAbulous human beings. People can look at porn all their lives and not only NOT turn into Ted Bundy, they can have many wonderful, loving, positive and productive things happen to them and emanate from them.

And so, if it turned out that their hysteria was wrong, that maybe (their understanding of) the Bible was wrong about homosexuality and other supposedly sinful sexual practices…(and creation)…then maybe…maybe it’s ALL wrong and that means * there is no God. * (Not a logical path I am arguing follows, only that they believe and fear follows, because they are, by definition, from the all-or-nothing school of belief).

And that’s it. It’s just that simple. It’s all about protecting what is inarguably a very fragile belief system to begin with.

Bummer for the rest of us, eh?

[newcrasher]

Well, with all due respect, I think the motivating factor for most people who oppose homosexuality, sex outside marriage, pornography, etc. is not fear or insecurity.

For homosexuality, they believe the Bible speaks out strongly against the behavior.

They believe that sex is something to be enjoyed in the context of marriage. Some of the repercissions are unplanned pregnancies and STDs.

Pornography not only condones and encourages irresponsible sex, but if more often than not emotionaly damaging to the people making the video. I am not sure how some people opposing pornography should really bother you though, its not like it is restricted. It’s just an issue with more than one side.

So all that said, they do have reasons for their stances, you simply don’t agree with them.

Furthermore, I think you are buying into a charicature of Christianity painted by the media. It is very convenient for the media to have neat little labels to place on people like homosexual, liberal, far-right, Christian etc. I think the image of Christians in the media is a far cry from the day to day Christians trying to live their life.

I teach High School age Sunday School at my (Southern Baptist) church and am very active as a youth leader. Do I make it clear to them that its best to wait to have sex until marriage? Yes. Do I beat them up when I find out they have done it? No. We have had teen pregnancies and we have rallied to the aid of the young mother. Would she have been in a better circumstance if she had heeded the abstinance message? Certainly.

We have homosexual teens in our youth group. Big deal. No one cares.

Will you hear about churches like ours? Nope. Not in the main stream media. And people who have no other frame of reference will continue to think of churches like mine, and 1000s of others, are little islands of intolerance. But that sells papers and commercial space better than the addiction recovery ministry we are in the process of organizing.

[Shodan]

No, no, no - feminists hate men because they are too ugly to get laid, gays want to be Scout masters so they can molest boys, and marijuana leads to heroin addiction.

Didn’t you get the memo?

Regards,
Shodan

[Mr2001]

@newcrasher

They believe that sex is something to be enjoyed in the context of marriage. Some of the repercissions are unplanned pregnancies and STDs.

If they believe unplanned pregnancies don’t affect married people, I hope someone sets them straight, pronto.

Furthermore, I think you are buying into a charicature of Christianity painted by the media. It is very convenient for the media to have neat little labels to place on people like homosexual, liberal, far-right, Christian etc. I think the image of Christians in the media is a far cry from the day to day Christians trying to live their life.

Don’t blame the media, blame the people like Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson (and their followers) who embody those caricatures.

Will you hear about churches like ours? Nope. Not in the main stream media.

Certainly not if you don’t try to make yourselves at least as visible as those hateful, intolerant folks have made themselves.

[JXJohns]

@Mr2001

If they believe unplanned pregnancies don’t affect married people, I hope someone sets them straight, pronto.

True, but a married couple has far fewer isues to deal with regarding an unplanned pregnancy, social stigma being a big one.

Don’t blame the media, blame the people like Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson (and their followers) who embody those caricatures.

Pat Robertson aside, who makes sure to cover a meaningless asshat everytime he “preaches” his brand of filth? The local media. I’d rather see the finals of the 4H Pig Judging than his version of Christianity on my TV.

Certainly not if you don’t try to make yourselves at least as visible as those hateful, intolerant folks have made themselves.

It is not the mission of my Presbyterian church to make a name for ouselves in the national spotlight, or even at the state level. We accept everyone regardless of their race, the car they drive, who they sleep with, IF they sleep with anyone, etc. At the local level we donate 1000’s of hours and 1000’s of dollars to local causes because we can. We don’t get involved in politics because that is not our job or calling.

[newcrasher]

@JXJohns

True, but a married couple has far fewer isues to deal with regarding an unplanned pregnancy, social stigma being a big one.

Pat Robertson aside, who makes sure to cover a meaningless asshat everytime he “preaches” his brand of filth? The local media. I’d rather see the finals of the 4H Pig Judging than his version of Christianity on my TV.

It is not the mission of my Presbyterian church to make a name for ouselves in the national spotlight, or even at the state level. We accept everyone regardless of their race, the car they drive, who they sleep with, IF they sleep with anyone, etc. At the local level we donate 1000’s of hours and 1000’s of dollars to local causes because we can. We don’t get involved in politics because that is not our job or calling.

Well said.

Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps would be nowhere without the media. The media chooses to represent Christians in a certain light and Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertaon, Phelps et al fit the mold nicely.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@newcrasher

For homosexuality, they believe the Bible speaks out strongly against the behavior.

So what? What makes them think they have a right to force everybody else to adhere to their own misinterpretation of an ancient religious text? I don’t see Orthodox Jews getting upset because other people don’t keep kosher.

The media chooses to represent Christians in a certain light and Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertaon, Phelps et al fit the mold nicely.

I’m calling bullshit on this. From what I’ve seen, the media bends over backwards to be as fawning and deferential to Christians as it possibly can. What “light” in which do you think the media wants to portray Christians? Why? The news industry is a business and they would be cutting their own throats for no reason if they were to insult or distort Christianity for no reason. The media is afraid to say that evolution is a fact or that the Resurrection is a belief. The media isn’t forcing school boards to try to teach a Sumerian creation myth as science. The media isn’t trying to force an anti-gay hate amendment into the Constitution. The media didn’t force 11 states to pass anti-gay marriage laws in the last election. The media didn’t force mobs of self-rightous fundies to descend on a hospice in Florida to interfere with the end-of-life wishes of a brain dead woman or to demonize her husband in the press or to send death threats judges, lawyers and family members who disagreed with them. The media is not trying to force my kids to pray in school or participate in religious chants to a piece of cloth. The media isn’t trying to teach irresponsible “abstinence only” sexual education programs which seek to teach a religious morality rather than provide the information children need.

The media just covers what happens, they don’t create it.

[Polycarp]

@Diogenes the Cynic

So what? What makes them think they have a right to force everybody else to adhere to their own misinterpretation of an ancient religious text? I don’t see Orthodox Jews getting upset because other people don’t keep kosher.

The distinction here is that Orthodox Jews believe that Jews are under commandment to keep kosher, not that everyone is. They are quite clear that the obligation for Gentiles is to keep the Noachic Law (seven items).

On the other hand, Christians are under obligation to proclaim Christ’s salvation, and to lead the willing to Him. From the perspective of most conservative evangelicals (and note that not all people who meet one of those adjectives necessarily agree), there is an obligation on all people to keep those elements of God’s Law not abrogated by Christ, in the manner they understand them to apply, under penalty of eternal damnation. Therefore the following of Christ, which they are obliged to call people to, entails living what they consider constitutes morality.

I’m calling bullshit on this. From what I’ve seen, the media bends over backwards to be as fawning and deferential to Christians as it possibly can. What “light” in which do you think the media wants to portray Christians? Why? The news industry is a business and they would be cutting their own throats for no reason if they were to insult or distort Christianity for no reason. The media is afraid to say that evolution is a fact or that the Resurrection is a belief. The media isn’t forcing school boards to try to teach a Sumerian creation myth as science. The media isn’t trying to force an anti-gay hate amendment into the Constitution. The media didn’t force 11 states to pass anti-gay marriage laws in the last election. The media didn’t force mobs of self-rightous fundies to descend on a hospice in Florida to interfere with the end-of-life wishes of a brain dead woman or to demonize her husband in the press or to send death threats judges, lawyers and family members who disagreed with them. The media is not trying to force my kids to pray in school or participate in religious chants to a piece of cloth. The media isn’t trying to teach irresponsible “abstinence only” sexual education programs which seek to teach a religious morality rather than provide the information children need.

The media just covers what happens, they don’t create it.

I would have to agree with the basic premise here. In the case of graffiti on a synagogue, the media does not feel it necessary to get a spokesman for the Aryan Nation to provide counterpoint to the outrage. If an anti-smoking measure is under consideration, they do not seek out an activist for allowing smoking to provide balanced coverage. But it is absolutely necessary, they feel, to provide balance from “pro life,” “pro family,” anti-gay, and Creationist views when abortion, gay rights, evolution, and related issues are advocated.

[Lissa]

I went to a Christian high school (not by choice, mind you) run by Fundies. They, too, were intensely concerned with controlling other people’s behavior, and legislating morality.

The reason why this is so important, they said, is that God has blessed America because it’s the “only” Christian country, founded exclusively on Biblical principles. (I know. I know.) Should we allow the nature of the country to be changed by giving “the gays”, baby-killers, women’s libbers and secular humanists carte blanche, God will remove his blessings and the whole country will go to hell in a handbasket. Thus, they must be thwarted by right-minded people at every turn.

That’s why we should be so glad we were in a Christian school, they told us. Those gays recruit, you know, and how would you feel if you made a seemingly innocuous friendship and woke up one morning to find yourself gay?

And women’s lib-- that seductive and dangerous viewpoint . . . they actually called it “witchcraft.” Women should be happy in their God-given subordinate role. God would not bless a marriage in which the woman thought herself equal to her husband. She should obey his leadership, which was why it was important to choose a good, Christian husband, who would understand his authority. Nor would God bless a nation of mouthy, strong-willed women. You could see Satan’t influence in all of the women’s magzines and commercials urging girls to be strong, play sports and be confident.

And abortion ---- well, you know how they feel about that concept. But it was also tied in with uncontrolled sexuality. During my time in school, President Clinton sent letters to schools urging them to teach sex-ed. Our prinicpal dramatically ripped up the letter before us. (During this, I remember I whispered to the girl beside me, “Fight the real enemy!” which led to uncontrollable giggles and detention.) Giving us sex ed, she declared, was tacit permission, no, encouragement to have sex, just like teaching us about drugs would make us want to use them. (Of course, they apparently didn’t know everyone was already fucking. The current joke at school was: Why couldn’t Jesus have been born at our Christian school? They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.)

It was a battle for our very nation, they assured us. We would decend into anarchy if God turned his back on us, which surely, he must be about ready to do unless we all worked to turn back the tide.

[Ludovic]

Much of most religions is meant as a tool for others to control others: whether the weak to rise up and oppress the strong, or most often the other way around.

Similarly, the oppressive sexuality of Christianity is mainly a way for strong males and sexually-repressed females to make sure socially-disadvantaged males and females don’t get involved in that dirty nasty sex which only the made men can take advantage of. These rules don’t apply to those who can get away with it for some reason.

[JXJohns]

@Ludovic

Similarly, the oppressive sexuality of Christianity is mainly a way for strong males and sexually-repressed females to make sure socially-disadvantaged males and females don’t get involved in that dirty nasty sex which only the made men can take advantage of. These rules don’t apply to those who can get away with it for some reason.

Please elaborate. I would like to see some sort of cite regarding the oppressive sexuality of Christianity. Is it the whole, wait to have sex before you are married thing? Cause God only know how many people have been oppressed over the years because of that one. Remember though that you used the word Christianty, not Christians, not Tele-evenagilists and not the Pope or something. So I ask again, please elaborate.

[JXJohns]

Lissa, you didn’t go to school in Iowa did you? Your experiences and mine seem to be too similar to be just a coincidence…

[AHunter3]

Lissa:

And abortion ---- well, you know how they feel about that concept. But it was also tied in with uncontrolled sexuality

While I’ve come to accept that many serious right-to-life folks, both on this board and elsewhere, are genuinely motivated by an ethical concern about killing embryos and fetuses, I think it’s still true that the backbone of the RTL movement is the desire to stop “uncontrolled sexuality”.

And in the larger sense,

Stoid:

What in the world drives these people?

what drives them, whether they directly use the concept or not, is the desire to restore patriarchy. When you read feminist descriptions of patriarchy and its values and the things most central to how it operates, and then look at what the fundamentalists are doing or trying to do, you don’t merely see a lot of overlap, you see a 1:1 correspondence on every major point. (And vice versa, for that matter. If you’ve never really read feminist theory, and only think of feminism as an “equal rights” movement taken over by some shrill harpies or something like that, think of it as the antithesis of everything the fundamentalist Christians (or fundamentalist Muslims for that matter) represent and you’ll be pretty much dead-on accurate in your reassessment.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Polycarp

The distinction here is that Orthodox Jews believe that Jews are under commandment to keep kosher, not that everyone is. They are quite clear that the obligation for Gentiles is to keep the Noachic Law (seven items).

I suppose I should have picked a better example than kosher laws.

On the other hand, Christians are under obligation to proclaim Christ’s salvation, and to lead the willing to Him. From the perspective of most conservative evangelicals (and note that not all people who meet one of those adjectives necessarily agree), there is an obligation on all people to keep those elements of God’s Law not abrogated by Christ, in the manner they understand them to apply, under penalty of eternal damnation. Therefore the following of Christ, which they are obliged to call people to, entails living what they consider constitutes morality.

But there’s a difference between calling and legislating and it’s the legislating I object to. If people think that homosexuality is endangering people’s immortal souls and they feel compelled to warn folks away from it, that’s their right and everyone else can pay that as much or as little heedance as they want and that’s America. But when they want to make something illega based purely on their religious beliefs, that’s when they begin to infringe the basic rights of others and that’s not America.

[JXJohns]

Has there been a movement to make homosexuality illegal? I missed that in the church bulletin last week.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I was talking about gay marriage, but homosexuality itself has been illegal in the recent past. They just had a big court battle about it in Texas a couple of years ago. Rick Santorum is one of the prominent conservatives who opposed making “sodomy” legal. So yes. There are significant numbers of people who not only want homosexual sex to be illegal, but have already done so in the past.

[JXJohns]

Define significant numbers?

According to THIS cite, some 224 million (with an M) people self identify themselves as Christian. One dumbass Senator in PA or a few activists in TX, do not make significant numbers now do they? Everyone likes to lump Christianity into one nostril flaring, fire and brimstone preaching, fag hating, bunch. If you think that 224,000,000 people in US are of one mind and set of ideals you are kidding yourselves.

With those numbers mentioned, if the Christians REALLY wanted to make this place a theocracy, what would stop them?

• 2004 total population numbers were calculated by multiplying each group’s percent of the total adult 2001 population (207,882,353) by the 2004 total population (using the June 1, 2004 U.S. Census Bureau extrapolated estimate of 293,382,953 total Americans). The U.S. Census Bureau total U.S. population estimate for 2000, based on the actual 2000 Census, was: 281,421,906. The U.S. Census Bureau total U.S. population estimate for July 1, 2001 was: 293,655,404. The adult (ages 18 and over) population estimate for July 1, 2001 was: 220,377,406. The total adult population for 2001 used in the 2001 ARIS study (apparently counting only adults aged 21 and over) was: 207,882,353. For 2001 figures, see: 293655404http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/SC-est2004-01.html. This method of extrapolating the 2004 total population of each religious group from the 2001 adult population of each group does not factor in differences in the average number of children per adult for each religious group.

[Stoid]

@newcrasher

For homosexuality, they believe the Bible speaks out strongly against the behavior.

They believe that sex is something to be enjoyed in the context of marriage.**

I am familiar with these excuses. It does not explain why people who believe this way feel it is their right and duty to ** impose and legislate ** these beliefs on** others who do not believe the same thing** . The society I grew up in was quite clear about the fact that this is a free country, in which all people are free to believe and behave as they like, so long as their behavior does not infringe on the rights of others.

** but if more often than not emotionaly damaging to the people making the video. **

I call bullshit on this being the reason that pornography is opposed by most people on the Christian Right.

** I am not sure how some people opposing pornography should really bother you though, its not like it is restricted. **

You are mistaken about this. The current Administration and the new AG have vowed to make stamping out porn Job One. Cuz they don’t have anything better to do, ya know, what with real crime, not to mention terrorism, being all fixed and everything.

** Furthermore, I think you are buying into a charicature of Christianity painted by the media. It is very convenient for the media to have neat little labels to place on people like homosexual, liberal, far-right, Christian etc. I think the image of Christians in the media is a far cry from the day to day Christians trying to live their life. **

I think I was quite specific about to whom I referred. I would never lump Polycarp, for instance, into this group, and he is easily the most truly Christian person I can think of around here.

** Do I make it clear to them that its best to wait to have sex until marriage? Yes. Do I beat them up when I find out they have done it? No. We have had teen pregnancies and we have rallied to the aid of the young mother. Would she have been in a better circumstance if she had heeded the abstinance message? Certainly.**

Do you give them other information that might protect them from pregnancy and disease if they decide that abstinance is not for them after all? Or are you of the “Well, that’s sending the wrong message, much more important to keep them ignorant so they will be certain to pay the price” school?

[Stoid]

@AHunter3

Stoid:

what drives them, whether they directly use the concept or not, is the desire to restore patriarchy.

I completely agree. But I don’t think it invalidates my theory, either. Restoring the patriarchy is the motive at layer two or three. My theory is really about the reason at the very deepest level, the one which resides in the gut and which underlies all the others.

Religion at its most fundamental is simply a(n extremely elaborate) mechanism for coping emotionally with the most terrifying reality of our self-aware lives: ** * we’re gonna die * ** . Fear of death is almost unimaginably powerful in the ways it motivates us. Religion, particularly religions like Christianity and Islam (assuming you can manage to believe, which I sometimes really wish I could, given my own very pronounced death anxiety), promise us what we desire most: to not really die at all. (And the Mormons go them one better: you get to be a God yourself! Not to mention the continued sex. Is there any wonder they are supposedly the fastest growing religion in the world? Come on down!) They offer an extremely soothing way to deal with that terror - truly the ultimate security blanket. Any (perceived) threat to something so critically important to one’s emotional well-being is going to be fought with extraordinary passion and energy, and preserving that security blanket will supercede all reason and logic. Because for religious people, reason and logic have limited value…they aren’t going to ease the process of facing the end.

Which is terribly sad. More from my new hero, Richard Dawkins, when asked how we would be better off without religion:

---

We’d all be freed to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We’d be free to exult in the privilege – the remarkable good fortune – that each one of us enjoys through having been being born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion’s morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.
**

And as long as we’re on the subject of life, sex, death, and religion, here’s another favorite quote of mine, dated circa 1880:

---

Yet this divine function, this coupling of the man and woman in the supremest ecstacy [sic] of mind and body, this sexual conjunction, this fucking, which is the foundation and the stay of love between the sexes,  this act which may form and give life to a sentient being, to a being with a soul, to one partaking of the ethereal life - of the Divine essence,  this act which by the law of nature may create in God's own image a being with a soul to be hereafter by Him either blessed or damned in all eternity,  this act of mighty power and eternal endowments is called foul, bestial, abominable!  It may not be mentioned or talked about. Yea, even when the law has sanctioned it, and the Priest has blest it, it may not even be hinted at in public!  Nor may the sexual organs, those blessed implements of coition with which the pleasure is got, and the act is done, be named or alluded to.  Age after age has wasted its thoughts in inventing words to refer to the act and its organs which shall puzzle and perplex as to their meaning, but which are called for the time decent, under the false notion that the penis and pudenda are indecent, filthy things.  Yet thoughts about the use of these organs or the sensations they afford are ever present to the sense, and a delight to both sexes in health. The hopes of earthly happiness are mainly derived from them, and without their function life is worthless.

Yet this grave necessity of life is thought obscene! Has the creator made this necessity of our existence foul and obscene? Is it not to blaspheme him to say that it is so?

We who know so little of the beginning or the end of all things instead of calling the sexual organs and their conjunction foul and obscene should rather sing loud paeans in praise of them, for they are emblems of the Creator, and fucking is obedience to His laws and is worship of Him.      

**

Amen! Hallelujah! And pass the condoms…

[Mangetout]

@newcrasher

Well, with all due respect, I think the motivating factor for most people who oppose homosexuality, sex outside marriage, pornography, etc. is not fear or insecurity.

For homosexuality, they believe the Bible speaks out strongly against the behavior.

My impression is otherwise (and it’s an impression based on a lot of dealings with fellow Christians over more than a decade) - the reaction to homosexuality amongst Christians is a visceral one; it’s merely convenient that the Bible contains passages that can be used to support a doctrine of condemnation.

That’s why homosexualiy is such an emotive issue with Christians (at least much more so than any number of other things which the Bible appears to speak out against, like divorce or eating meat with blood in it); the opposition is rooted in fear and insecurity, the Bible just affords them an excuse to be vociferous about it.