It’s behind a subscription firewall, but there’s a lovely essay by Richard Rodriguez in the current issue of Harper’s. He nails down the real connection between heterosexual and homosexual marriage.
Divorce rates in the United States and Europe suggest that women are not happy with the relationships they have with men, and vice versa. And whatever that unhappiness is, I really don’t think gay people are the cause. On the other hand, whatever is wrong with heterosexual marriage does have some implication for homosexuals.
The majority of American women are living without spouses. My optimism regarding that tabulation is that a majority of boys in America will grow up assuming that women are strong. My worry is that as so many men absent themselves from the lives of the children they father, boys and girls will grow up without a sense of the tenderness of men.
The prospect of a generation of American children being raised by women in homes without fathers is challenging for religious institutions whose central conception of deity is father, whose central conception of church is family, whose only conception of family is heterosexual. A woman who can do without a husband can do without any patriarchal authority. The oblique remedy some religious institutions propose for the breakdown of heterosexual relationships is a legal objection to homosexual marriages by defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
IMO it’s all about the patriarchy. It’s why so many (mostly white male) politicians are obsessed with shutting down Planned Parenthood and criminalizing abortion. It’s behind Erick Erickson’s recent rant.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen it spelled out that way before. It makes you wonder if religious institutions’ concern is more about spirituality or self-preservation.
How did we get from ‘Mother Earth,” to “Our Father Who Art in Heaven?”
The even shorter than Readers Digest version:
As we went from hunter-gatherers, to growers, herders, and “storer’s,” men gained primacy.
In hunter-gatherer societies, while the women stayed “home” and raised the children, and did all sorts of other tasks from mending, to sewing, to sowing, men were off hunting.
Because of the dangers inherent in hunting, men were, for lack of a better word, “expendable.”
Societies were centered around the women, and the seasons reflected life – seeds planted, birth, maturation, fecundity, harvest, decline, death. Rinse and repeat. Hence, “Mother Earth.”
That changed in agricultural societies.
Men were much safer in agrarian societies, than in hunter-gatherer ones. They lived longer. They were home more often, instead of being off on long hunts. And so, they wanted to dominate the home, and society. Men didn’t want to be the sheep – they wanted to be the shepherds.
And so, if we humans really do have a “God Gene,” and even if we don’t, religion, being a powerful way to control society, had to reflect the growing primacy of men.
And our Western (Abrahamic) religions reflect that. Read the Bible in that context, and you can see the change, particularly in the story of Cain and Able:
http://aquarianphilosophy.com/2011/09/06/biblical-allegories-cain-able/
Long story short, at the very heart of most of the worlds modern religions, is the continued primacy of men, and that comes at the expense of the suppression of women.
And today, our Abrahamic religions feel threatened – because women are no longer automatically accepting their second-class status, like it was assumed they would for thousands and thousands of years.
Hell, with in vitro and other modern fertilization techniques, men are only needed for their sperm. And with the potential of cloning…
And gay’s threaten these religions, because they don’t reproduce, and that means less people who’ll tithe – and hence, less income for the men in charge.
As with all things human – “Follow the money/power.”
As a man, all I can say is, if women do gain primacy in the future, I hope they do a better job than men.
They can hardly do any worse – and so, I’m all for this coming change. Sadly, though, I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.
“You go girl(s)!”
Them’s my $0.02 worth.
Good point about the guiding metaphors.
I have a priest friend who half jokingly opines that Jesus showed us that “water was thicker than blood”. The sacrament of baptism binds people closer than the blood of family relation. Well, as I said, “half jokingly”. But, despite people like Newt harping on the secularization of America, the fundamentalist patriarchs are the ones who have turned the church itself into a more secular institution. They seem altogether more concerned with politics and unable to quote scripture or form doctrine that deviates from the political message or talking point.
So what kind of community can they have a a church, when they dismiss so many (47%!) as “parasites” or lazy bloodsuckers? That seems to make the communitarian appeal of the church a lot less attractive, when it binds you to a bunch of lazy losers, even if they have “Obamaphones”.
I have a lot of respect for the Christian church as I knew it from the Social Gospel days. But, it is true that after nearly twenty years in the land of fundamentalists, I don’t have a single recollection of anyone offering the words or teachings of Christ as a reflection on our life and times. It’s always the Old Testament blood and fire that they offer. But, understand, I DO try to avoid such conversations whenever possible.
“It makes you wonder if religious institutions’ concern is more about spirituality or self-preservation”
I’ve always assumed it was about passing the hat!
uncledad,
In the Catholic Church, I suspect it was ‘passing the altar boys.’
And, the basket, of course.
…after nearly twenty years in the land of fundamentalists, I don’t have a single recollection of anyone offering the words or teachings of Christ as a reflection on our life and times. It’s always the Old Testament blood and fire that they offer.
Any sufficiently complex scripture or religion is a rorshact test for its adherents. Because conservative, fear based thinking has dominated the world for the last few decades, these people naturally gravitate to the “mean God” of the Old Testament. And if you live in conservative parts of the country, that’s the view of God that dominates. When liberalism was dominant years ago, the “loving God” of the New Testament prevailed.
re Patriarchy – what’s amazing to me about this, is that all of this is mostly unconscious to the people involved. They don’t see it all as about patriarchy. In their eyes, it’s about preserving humanity, which in their minds means preserving the family unit.
They don’t see it all as about patriarchy. In their eyes, it’s about preserving humanity, which in their minds means preserving the family unit.
That’s very true. And very primitive–how incurious do you have to be not notice that humanity organizes itself into all kinds of different social structures?
Of course, people do tend to cling to their unearned privileges. One possible remedy is to show men how little these “privileges” are really worth. If I treat my wife as an inferior, then I’m deprived of her friendship and advice.
Or if men are going to insist on being preoccupied with manliness, you could perhaps point out how profoundly unmanly it is to cling to the patriarchy rather than relying on your own merits and abilities. You’re afraid to compete with women on equal terms? Why?
I hear that Exodus is folding their tent after 35 years of trying to pray away the gay. That might be a windfall for Marcus Bachmann at least in the form of increased market share.
Well, that’s my only comment for now…I’ve got a Promise Keepers rally tonight that I’ve got to get ready for.
Oh, I agree with the Patriarchal assessment, but a strong emphasis needs to be placed on the economical aspect of that assessment.
gulag…Don’t forget checking the baskets of altar boys.