‘Once one says that a homosexual orientation is no more culpable or disordered than a heterosexual orientation, and once one observes that Scripture does not teach that God says that homosexual activity is always wrong, I think we’re left to conclude that justice requires that the church offer the great good of marriage both to heterosexual couples committed to a loving, covenantal relationship, and to homosexual couples so committed’.
Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff
American Philosopher
All One Body Lecture
A pedophile should be held responsible for his conduct — but not for the underlying attraction.
Margo Kaplan
New York Times Article
How long until we hear that the orientation for pedophiles is no more culpable or disordered than a heterosexual orientation? Where in Scripture do we see that bedding children (even of the same sex) is wrong if done in the context of a “loving, covenantal relationship, and to Man-boy love so committed,” as stated by Dr. Wolterstoff in regards to sodomy?
After all, if God is the one who gives the underlying attraction and if God is the one who wired some adults brains differently who are we to deny what God has done? If God has made pedophilia (or Necrophilia, or Beastiality) as merely a creational variance of sexuality who are we to challenge God?
In 1986, a short 31 years ago, SCOTUS Chief Justice Warren Burger considered by many to have been a liberal could write in the Bowers v. Hardwick decision,
“To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.”
In the same Hardwick decision Burger also cited the “ancient roots” of prohibitions against homosexual sex by quoting William Blackstone’s description of homosexual sex as an “infamous crime against nature”, worse than rape, and “a crime not fit to be named.”
Somehow, in 30 years as a culture, we have gone from a liberal Supreme Court Justice inveighing against sodomy to a well-respected Churchmen and philosopher giving his imprimatur on the same.
Also, we have to note the linguistic play that is found in describing marriage as something two people of the same biological sex can enter. Scripturally, as well as historically, marriage, by definition, is an institution that only can be occupied by males and females. In the 1888 California court case, “Sharon vs. Sharon,” we find marriage defined,
“Marriage is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge to each other and to the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex. “
In Scripture Jesus defines Marriage as being composed of males and females,
Matthew 19:4 – Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ 5and said, ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
So, when people begin to talk about the “church offering the great good of marriage … to homosexual couples so committed.” we should recognize that linguistic deception has just been leveraged, even if unwittingly done. Because of the definition of marriage, we can no more offer the great good of marriage to sodomite couples then we can legitimately offer the great good of the US Presidency to someone born in Kenya. Neither of the Institutions, by definition, are allowed legal occupancy by those who don’t adhere to the definition.
And while we are at it, we might as well note the same is true for the word “sex.” Given definitional realities, it is not possible for sodomites or lesbians to engage in “sex,” whatever it is they may be doing to and with one another with their reproductive organs.
When we get sloppy with our language we begin to lose what the reality that the language is supposed to represent.