When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy.
“I take it as a gift that someone will be that open and honest and sharing with me,” said Rio, using the word “open” to describe their marriage….
A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage ”” one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.
New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years ”” about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.
That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”
See, gay marriage is just like straight marriage except for the ‘married’ part.
[blockquote]According to the research, open relationships almost always have rules.[/blockquote] Yeah, but once you get to the any time, anywhere, anybody part, haven’t you really left the marriage part behind too. What about the lifelong monogamous partnership mantra we’ve been hearing? Leave it to the NYT to put a positive spin on this revelation.
It is good to have all this known and in the open — showing that what some call marriage is something altogether else.
What they didn’t include was the average ‘life expectancy’ of these open ‘marriages’. I can’t imagine they last that long. Or that sooner or later one of the ‘spouses’ doesn’t decide a trade is in order. Not that the heterosexual marriage record provides any role model these days. The state of marriage in this society is getting sadder and sadder all the time.
“Recent studies have revealed that about 45-50% of women and 50-60% of men cheat their spouses at some point of time in their relationship for sex. ” Looks like nobody as a very good record in this area. So would this be more of a reason for the Church to be involved in so called gay marriage or less of a reason?
#4. deaconmark,
[blockquote]So would this be more of a reason for the Church to be involved in so called gay marriage or less of a reason?[/blockquote] I don’t understand your question?
It’s not just the “relationship’s” life expectancy that should be a worry where monogamy becomes optional. Promiscuous/”open” sexual partnering is a [i]disease vector[/i]. Did someone miss the ’80’s?
The wages of sin are real, and those who counsel to disregard them are mortal enemies not only to truth but to the very lives of those they pretend to affirm and uphold.
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#8, that’s not why most here oppose it.
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Christian First,
There is a causal relationship between Homosexual “marriage” and the downfall of heterosexual marriage. But the causal relationship is opposite of what is supposed. Homosexual marriage is the result of the downfall of heterosexual marriage, not the cause. The cause is society’s poor understanding and destruction of marriage in the first place. It has become nothing more than a legal construct. No more is there any idea that divorce is not somthing that should be done.
In terms of the Church, the Church should strongly support marriage and it should not support sin. The Church should have been stronger for marriage and less permissive of divorce and remarriage. But it does not follow that, because the Church erred with heterosexual divorce and remarriage, that the Church should bless sinful actions. Two wrongs have never made a right. Remember that Envy is probably a deadlier sin than lust.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
4. Well, those hetero couples that have infidelity understand it completely differently than the same sex couples mentioned in the post. Fidelity is essential to marriage. If failures occur, repentance, amendment of life and reconciliation is the goal.
I have a hunch that liberal Protestant laxity on divorce and remarriage have a lot to do with our present high divorce rate and infidelity rate. But the single greatest factor in all of this instability trend of the past 60 years at least, has been birth control–something for which Anglicans bear very heavy responsibility.
Christianfirst,
There is not law that says a homosexual man may not get married nor is there a law that a homosexual woman may not get married. “Marriage” is the union of one man and one woman and has been such for all the history of the United States and for all of recorded history in England and Rome before that.
What you are talking about is changing the definition of marriage from “one man and one woman” to “any two people.” Changing the definition of something so fundamental to our society is something that should be done slowly. And, if it is done at all, it should be done through the legislatures or the people directly – not through the court systems.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
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As has been pointed out many times, gay couples do not want what normal married couples have, they don’t want them to have it. Misery loves company and will not be denied.
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Judging from the news, at least half the heterosexual celebrities and politicians Americans idolize and elect don’t count monogamy as a “central feature” of their wedded bliss either…at least, until they get caught. Where’s the study on THAT? (BTW, in MY gay marriage, should I ever be so foolish as to consider non-monogamy, my wife has a simple answer: “Buried in the back yard!” And that’s just fine with me. It’s good to be loved.)
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19. mojnun,
[blockquote]Judging from the news, at least half the heterosexual celebrities and politicians Americans idolize…[/blockquote]
Agreed but neither of the groups you mention are representative of the general population. “Buried in the back yard” may be love to you but sounds like murder to me.
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Let’s see, I’m straight, Christian, married for almost 17 years, still can’t figure out how my marriage is “threatened” by homosexual marriage. How does that work? Nobody has been able to explain that to me. What threatens me? The insatiable American taste for entertainment that combines sex and violence, sexism and vulgar language…. turn on your TV any time of day, listen to people talk in public… we have other problems than trying to be the modern-day moderators of Romeo and Juliet or any other forbidden liaison. I have friends who are gay, straight, married, divorced, partnered, and of course single. I don’t see how anyone else’s private affairs are any of my business — or yours. I don’t see how supposedly Christian people have any business getting all het up about what they imagine other people are doing behind closed doors. I think it must be some vestigial Puritanical heritage thing, that we have to have some kind of control over other people’s private lives. I don’t recall Jesus saying anything about that. There was this one instance with a supposedly adulterous woman, and I think he said Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Judging from the general conservative stance, there are a LOT of people who think they are without sin. Last I checked, a lot of those celebrity naysayers were pretty sinful too. Stop imagining other people’s bedrooms and get a real life!
#22
The Woman at the Well was some sort of serial monogamist. Jesus ministered to her and told her to “go and sin no more.” Note he did not say: “follow me and stay as you are.”
Jesus said if you [i]look[/i] on another person with lust in your heart you’ve committed the sin of adultery. These aren’t the words of someone thinks what goes on in the bedroom is unimportant. (Perhaps this observation is more for #23.)
Jesus says that no one can be a disciple who does not hate his own family. Likewise no one can be a disciple who takes one area of life, sets it aside and says “Jesus doesn’t care about that” or “Jesus wouldn’t ask me to change that.”
Jesus also says that no one starts to build a tower or fight a war without first sitting down and adding up the costs of it all. Have you considered that the cost of following Jesus might be never having sex again?
Judgment is a very serious issue for Jesus. Fortunately Jesus assures us that where “two or more are gathered in his name” He will be there to guide us as we make judgments. This is why Christians try (though we often fail) to seek the “mind of the Church” rather than our own personal opinions. The mind of the Church on same sex intercourse is clear.
amen, lizziewriter. not one mention of “man lying with man” or “man leaving his wife to take up with another man” or any such combination in Jesus’ words. if HE had felt the compassion for ALL mankind (as we are told and as i believe he did), he would have warned His gay and lesbian brothers and sisters about the destruction they were risking foisting upon themselves. instead, as you suggested, he was more concerned with the morality (and immortality) of hypocritical virtue police (the same type of language that we see here and in many other places)
christianfirst #18, I don’t understand your reference to DOMA. As I read it, it defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
And by the way, Jesus DOES say ““If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,” and “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” It is kind of hard to ignore those statements. Most scholars point out that those commandments refer to more than the one to love.
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Apparently “till death do us part” has a different meaning as well, rather like “fidelity” and “monogamy”: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123898296 , but maybe that’s a Brit sorting?
Heh.
Good post, Kendall — nice to see that its content is as threatening to the progressive activists as I would have expected.
RE: “please try to understand that this is a matter of CIVIL RIGHTS EQUALITY. we pay the same taxes as our heterosexual counterparts. . . . ”
Of course this is not the case at all. [i]For if it were, we would hear the noble progressive gay activists advocating for the expansion of the legal definition of marriage to apply to all persons with minority sexual attractions, not merely their own favored minority sexual attraction.[/i]
What’s appalling is that gay progressive activists wish for the legal definition of marriage to be expanded — but only for their particular minority sexual orientation and not for others. The real question is . . . why are those practicing same-gender relationships who are demanding society’s legal and public blessing on their particular and specific sexual orientation so hypocritical and self-serving as to only want society’s legal and public blessing on their particular and specific sexual orientation—but not for all of the other sexual orientations out there?
They alone should have society’s blessing and approval expanded for [i]their sexual activities[/i]. But not the other sexual orientations. Society’s definition of marriage should be expanded—[for reasons that they have not made clear other than that they want it and they are special]—for gays, but society’s definition of marriage should not be expanded for any other people who have differing sexual orientations, such as the polyamorous, the life-challenged, and those consensual, mutual, affirming, loving, adult, same-sibling relationships.
Ignorant, unreasoning, self-serving prejudice by progressive gay activists. It is appalling to watch them demand “justice†for their own particular minority sexual orientation—but not for any other minority sexual orientations.
Rank hypocrisy.
That’s what this is all about. A group of persons who have a minority sexual attraction wish for society to expand the legal definition of marriage to accommodate their special attraction — but not to accommodate all the other sexual attractions out there.
Why? Well — because they are special.
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26. Sarah
Could you use more bolding in your discussion? I seem to be losing my hearing.
Interesting how my post seems to have been entirely deleted, although post #23 by St. Cuervo refers to it. I should have gone with my initial hunch that this is just another of those enclaves of hatefulness which would have driven me out of Christendom long ago were it not that I have been fortunate enough to know that it does not encompass all of Christendom. I would not be concerned with control-freak haters who say Jesus this and Jesus that, to cover their own small-minded long-winded self-centredness, except that they are a very very large mob. But a mob nonetheless. I’m outta here.
The woman at the well is not the woman caught in adultery. You seem to have confused the two.
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A new commenter registering under at least three different member identities [that we have found] has posted over nine comments on this thread and a number more which were not posted. Posting under multiple identities [sock puppeting] is not permitted on T19 and these comments have been removed. We apologize for the disruption to this thread which has now had comments closed – Elf]