Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 54

50
Popular Culture Review
As for Dr. Dobson’s concern about younger generations losing their
“understanding of lifelong commitments, emotional bonding, sexual purity, the
role of children in a family, and from a spiritual perspective, the ‘sanctity’ of
marriage,” the younger generations have grown up with a near 50% divorce rate
and equally high rates of infidelity. They already know the reality of “lifelong
commitments, emotional bonding, sexual purity, the role of children in a family,
and . . . the ‘sanctity’ of marriage,” and homosexuals had nothing to do with
them learning that lesson. Instead it could be said that they may be inspired by
gay people’s fight for the right to marry and commit to a lifelong emotional and
spiritual bond. The younger generation is a lot more savvy than faith-based
ideologues give them credit for.
Dr. Dobson also predicts that if gays marry, marriage will be “reduced
to something of a partnership that provides attractive benefits and sexual
convenience, but cannot offer the intimacy described in Genesis.” Logic and real
life experience confirm that if a marriage isn’t a “partnership,” it is most likely
doomed to fail. Married partners would not think of their mate as a “sexual
convenience,” nor would they have married solely for the “att ractive benefits”
afforded by law.
“Intimacy described in Genesis”? Upon re-reading the First Book of
Moses called “Genesis,” I found virtually no mention of intimacy, but I did find
a lot of hate and wrath, sanctioned murder and mutilation, implied incest (where
did Mrs. Cain come from if Adam and Eve were the only two procreating
humans?), and sanctioned polygamy. (“And Lamech took unto him two wives:
the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.” Gen. 4:19).
This is rather ironic since Dr. Dobson asserts in his second “reason” that “the
introduction of legalized gay marriages”—allegedly in opposition to biblical
scripture—“will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one
man/one woman unions” (48). Polygamy was the norm in more than a few
theocratic cultures. Harems were the right of divinely appointed rulers. And
there was a time not that long ago when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
Day Saints argued for the biblical basis and morality of polygamy, beginning
with Genesis 4:19, Genesis 29:17-28, and II Samuel 3:2-5 that say a man may
have more than one wife; and on into II Samuel 5:13 and I Kings 11:3 that says
marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to a wife
or wives. Again, just to set the record straight, according to Robert Wright in
The Moral Animal: The New Science o f Evolutionary Psychology, “A huge
majority—980 of the 1,154 past or present societies for which anthropologists
have data—have permitted a man to have more than one wife” (78).
Dr. Dobson’s “third reason marriage between homosexuals will destroy
traditional marriage is that this is the ultimate goal of activists, and they will not
stop until they achieve it. .. . The intention here is to create an entirely different
legal structure” (50, italics Dobson’s). Homosexuals can’t destroy “the sanctity”
of traditional marriage. For all intent and purposes, that’s already been done and