A gay voice I am glad to hear
Rev Dr Marvin Ellison, gay ethicist and academic, provides very positive corroboration for Charles Colson’s article (see here). Marvin does a good job covering his material. He rightly notes the different camps and their concerns: traditional marriage, gay ‘marriage’, post-’marriage’. He demonstrates the (for him) downside of gay ‘marriage’ and how what is needed is a ‘decentering’ of heterosexuality and marriage and a ‘recentering’ upon what he terms ‘justice love’. This sort of love is embodied in intimate egalitarian relationships which may be marital or not, binary or plural, same-sex or opposite sex, permanent or not (though that aspect appears rather neglected in his presentation). Moreover, this sort of love will give ‘pride of place’ to ‘pleasure as a moral resource and guide’. He is slightly victorian here — pleasure is used in an orgasmic sense. That is what he is implying, but in proper bourgeois, sanitized fashion.
What I most appreciate was that Marvin was saying what I have been saying for years! He notes that mainstream ’straight’ culture (that in which most of our young people in the West are growing up and being influenced by) is increasingly gay-looking and gay-acting. Indeed, life is perceived through an increasingly dominant gay lens. He notes three areas where gay culture has made a significant impact: gender flexibility, family forms and the celebration of a largely unrestricted eros, with the proviso that aspects of mutuality, care, ’safe’ sex and power-sharing are ensured. He terms this gay-icization of culture ‘reverse assimilation’ and makes the remark (which his LGBTQ-affirming crowd at the Episcopal Divinity School loved) that this phenomenon is driving the political and religious right ‘crazy’.
Marvin is well worth listening to! He is easy to hear, thorough and moderate in how he speaks. His content, however, is completely revolutionary. He is confident that his New-World-in-the-Morning is even now making a significant impact upon society and appears sanguine at the hopes for its future. Those among us who keep thinking that the GL issue is only minor and what really counts is ‘love’ perhaps will believe him when he insists that far more is at stake. The issue of the future of the family is a very real and burning one now, today, this 17th of November. Just because good, well-meaning people are ignorant of these worrying developments does not mean that they do not happen. It just means that those who should be concerned are completely ill-prepared and fail to respond in necessary, appropriate ways and the sexual slide continues unabated.
For a little reality check: try imagining you and your husband or wife living in a ’justice love’ relationship and what that actually would be like. Both of you are able to explore, engage and celebrate psycho-sexually with others either in binary or plural relationships, as long as certain conditions were met. Do you think this would not impact your marriage?
See here for Marvin’s presentation: https://admin.na3.acrobat.com/_a204712264/p27233274/
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