In Defense of Gordon College
Today
in the Advocate, Rachael Zoll of Associated Press, reported on the affect of
President Barack Obama’s misguided aggression in favor of same-sex marriage.
Underlying Obama’s mistakes is Massachusetts’ unintended social chaos, begun in
2003. This is to review the issues in response to the ethics of physics[1] as
a basis for civic compromise.
Reviewing Zoll’s article[2]
When President
Obama ordered gay-favor by federal contractors, religious organizations with
faith-based federal grants requested exemptions, to defend their beliefs. The
passionate same-sex expose, “We’re in love and want marriage, too,” has, with
Obama’s force, enjoyed emotional social support with unintended consequences. Institutions
like Gordon College have come under social and financial attack by same-sex
supporters.
Like
some others, Gordon holds that marriage is between a man and a woman and bars
sex outside marriage, specifically noting homosexual sex. LGBT sponsor
OneGordon asserts that the standards should be equal. “The college hires gays
and lesbians, but . . . effectively requires them to be celibate. Some inhabitants
claim Gordon is a public school in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage;
therefore, Gordon must change its convictions.
Gordon’s
president, D. Michael Lindsay, asserts that civil unions should happen, but a
religious institution cannot compromise its doctrine.
Discussion of the issues
Marriage applying to a man and a
woman, a couple, holds, not because of religious or divine rules. According to
human physics, conception of a child is by a man and a woman. The mother,
father and child are a biological unit. They are also a psychological unit, and
indeed the mother and child psychologically attached during the latter months
of gestation. An ethical father participated. According to the consequential
ethics, the couple cultivates this biological and psychological unit for life.
Detachment denies the child equality and dignity. Thus, “marriage” is a term
that defends a child’s inalienable right to be reared by its couple. The word
is not important: The child is important.
Physics yields to neither religion
nor law. Therefore, the prudent conduct for civic governance of by and for a
people is to accommodate every personal pursuit of happiness that does not defy
the ethics of physics. Religious practices may follow the hopes of believers as
long as the practices are civically negotiated and accepted. Civil order that
violates the ethics of physics must be amended. For example, after four
centuries’ struggle, some Americans do not accept that white people are people
(one person here calls them “Republicans”), in violation of the ethics of human
physics.
Sex before marriage is a
controversial issue which should not be taken lightly. Many people, who are
influenced by the aftermath of the Kinsey reports,[3] the
sexual revolution sometimes reminiscent of Caligula (check the cannibal death
in today’s news), overlook the significance of monogamy. In my view monogamy
means intimacy with one person for life. Such monogamy for life is part of
cultivation of personal autonomy, discussed in a separate essay at understandtheknowledge.blogspot.com .
The Church has in this century held
that marriage is for procreation, a view that denies the importance of bonding
before procreation. Bonding does not necessarily involve sexual relations, but
the Church, by focusing on a couple’s family has neglected personal bonding by
partners. Another controversial factor is emphasis on the soul, which
diminishes the urgency of this life—to some, makes it seem that anything goes,
for now, since it may be "forgiven."
According to physics, a human is
comprised of body and mind that determine a unique person. Persons who fall in
love, with the body each partner is in, are noble, and their monogamy is
honorable. However, if they are same-sex, they cannot cultivate the monogamy through
procreation. Furthermore, if same-sex partners break the monogamy to procreate,
they impose on the child detachment from either its mother or its father. In
any case, same sex partners cannot be father and mother to a child and thus are
not a couple; union, yes, couple, no.
I think President Obama’s legacy
will be: most liberal use of the English
language in American history; in other words, he seems to be a master of
doublespeak. Not only does this seem so in the above mentioned favor toward
LGBT in government contracts, but in his use of Congress’s unfortunate Defense
of Marriage Act to bring about US v Windsor.[4] Windsor
is perhaps the worst Supreme Court opinion since Dred Scott, 1857. (Dred Scott
is a clear example that a people overrule United States Supreme Court
injustice.)
We see doublespeak in OneGordon’s
reasoning. They want equality in marriage, but exclusion from Gordon College’s
ban on sex outside marriage: It equates to the requirement of celibacy between
partners. Well, duh. No sex outside marriage is a requirement of celibacy
between couples: It is a case of
equal treatment. Obama seems to agree that abstention from sexual relations is
not applicable for partners, and the Supreme Court is on record that sodomy
does not entail the risk of pregnancy and therefore is of less interest than
intercourse.[5] When
understood in plain English, same-sex inversions[6]
carry no civic justice. However, for same-sex supporters such as Obama, “[The]
process of mental inversion . . .
inevitably undermines the very conception of facts.”
There is a second doublespeak in
the OneGordon assertion. Personal autonomy and cooperative autonomy by partners
demands and involves privacy in
mutual consent for sexual practices. People have known and practiced this
ethics of physics ever since. What has not been widely recognized is the
third-party personal autonomy--to be cultivated by any progeny of heterosexual
practice. Society does hold parties responsible for their progeny, regardless
of marriage, and when the couple defaults takes charge of the child. However, there is no risk
of pregnancy in same-sex sex. Therefore, there is no reason for harmless
same-sex practices to be made public---a civic issue, let alone an issue within
a religious institution. The same-sex people and their supporters wield
doublespeak and deny civicallity by making their privacy a public debate.
Massachusetts and all the states
that have approved same-sex marriage have the opportunity to reform, and the
ethics of human physics is the basis for the negotiations. Reform is called for
by this point: "The freedom of the
subjective person to do as he pleases is overruled by the freedom of the
responsible person to act as he must." [7] For
churches, seeking the ethics of physics strengthens their ultimate goal, which
is to help people’s lives while they are living, perhaps giving hope for their
afterdeath.[8]
People need to be free to pursue the happiness they perceive for themselves:
living in peace, having the family they want, serving society as best they can,
cultivating psychological maturity, and not suffering to research some seven
trillion man-years of personal history. But their church must possess integrity—keep
their doctrine consistent with discoveries of physics. Some people perceive happiness their own way and will go their own way, discovering the consequences anew.
Michael Lindsay proposes equality
and dignity under the ethics of physics when he says partners are entitled to
civil unions. Such an arrangement leaves one valid complaint about civil
marriage: It grants to heterosexual partners the tax and other benefits
intended to support children and their couple. We suggest, below, a remedy for
that inequity.
Civil monogamy licensing
To
remedy the dilemma of honoring the same-sex commitment by partners and
preserving the support of children to stay with their couple, we suggest civil
monogamy licensing to replace civil marriage licensing. The application form
starts with a question: can the applicant and the intended partner procreate in monogamy?
If “no,” each partner is assigned the tax and other pertinent status as
“single,” and if “yes,” the same status is assumed until progeny emerge. Also, with “yes,” the license contains the
statement that each applicant is obligated to and responsible for any progeny
(including grandchildren and beyond) until death do them part. Churches
still manage marriage ceremonies according to their doctrine and believers
apply if they choose. The civil monogamy license would strengthen the better
guidance the Church has always offered regarding intimacy.
Copyright©2014
by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the
publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright
notice is included.
[1] In
the simplest form, a person does not spit into the wind. In a more pertinent
form, a child is conceived by a man and a woman, a couple who are each
responsible for respecting and protecting the child’s equality and dignity.
[2]
Online at bigstory.ap.org/article/e20119a1e2444c0a910836f1faf1d08f/evangelical-college-gay-rights-stand-causes-uproar
[4]
Text online at www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307
.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Quoting Michael Polanyi, Personal
Knowledge, 1958, page 240.
[7]
Ibid. page 309.
[8]
That expectedly vast time after each person’s body dies.
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