Military Divorces Up Due to Deployment

One further casualty of the Iraq war: according to the Army, from 2003 when the war began to the following year, more than 3,000 soldiers got divorced, a 78% increase in one year.

War has always been hard on marriages. As the military has gotten more married, the armed forces have of necessity become more involved in supporting marriages in order to retain volunteer soldiers. This makes the war's toll on military marriages a more significant problem for the armed forces. No one, to my knowledge, has calculated the effect of divorce on re-enlistment, but it surely can't be good.

The military's family support apparatus gets bigger, and more necessary, year by year. The Iraq war is the biggest test that the military family system has faced in the all-volunteer era. The fall-out will continue for years to come.

Married with Children … and a Rifle

Yesterday I noted that the All-Volunteer Force has obliged our armed services to be much more family friendly. Betty Alt gives us two statistics that show the sea-change in the family structure of the military.

At the end of the Second World War, 1/3 of the members of the armed forces were married. This is a large increase over pre-war numbers. These 1945 numbers include those iconic rushed marriages of G.I.s about the shipped off – which led to a huge divorce spike in 1947.

Today, 2/3 of the members of the armed forces are married. Moreover, 60% have dependents, though not all the dependents depend on married soldiers.

In the past, the military prohibited, discouraged, or scared off family men. Now, the military way of life is attractive to men, and women, with families.

The Volunteer Military is a Pro-Family Military

I have been reading Betty Alt's Following the Flag: Marriage and the Modern Military this week. She makes a point that I could have figured out, but never thought of: the volunteer military has to support families, or the soldiers and sailors and airmen will leave.

There have always been wives, even children, following soldiers from post to post. They were, at best, tolerated, but never welcomed, especially for enlisted men. What changed the military's attitude toward families was the advent of the All Volunteer Force in 1973. For most of the history of the American military, the force was very small. Only officers would marry, and then only with permission. There weren't that many families to accommodate, and, except for a few lifers, they needn't be accommodated for long. Even in major wars – the Civil War, WWI and WWII – many men were drafted, but whatever accommodations were made to families, and especially by families, were temporary. The massive build-up was followed by a massive demobilization.

When we ended the draft after the Vietnam War, though, we had a superpower's need for a large, permanent armed force all around the world. The military had to make a fundamental change in the way it viewed families. In order to recruit and keep good volunteers, their families needed to be more than tolerated. Permanent base housing was built, a school system was created, medical benefits for families were increased. In time, with more female soldiers (now about 13% of the armed services), these benefits were extended to that new species, the military husband. Childcare services were created for working moms who were married to soldiers, or were soldiers themselves.

The military has been clumsy in adapting to families. And it is in the nature of war that families are separated, and mothers and fathers get wounded or killed. I, for one, think that mothers of small children should not be soldiers, though I would stop just short of making this a law. Still, the armed services have done a remarkable job in only one generation in changing their long custom and adapting to military families. There is more that could be done, of course, but in this area, as in many others, the military actually leads the way in practically accommodating new social formations.

49 Up

The latest installment in the "7 Up" series has come out on DVD. "7 Up" was meant as a one-off when Granada Television profiled a group of 7 year olds in Britain in 1964. The kids were drawn from different classes, and the first show was fairly heavy handed in its socialist critique of the British class structure.

Then they did a follow up at 14. And another at 21. The class critique began to fall away, while the stories of the people came to the fore. By 28 most had married and started to have kids. 35 had a strong theme of parents dying, and the next generation stepping up to full responsibility. Some were divorcing, too. The subjects themselves began to be so famous for being in this series that their resentment of the disruption of their lives starts to come into the documentary as a theme.

"42 Up" seemed to me a turning point. Up to this point, the story was mainly about fulfilling youthful promise – including the opportunities and limits that their initial class position created. Their stories at 42, though, were more about realization. A few still had major turning points coming. The happiest part of that episode was that the nicest guy befriended the most troubled guy, and helped him get on his feet. The nicest guy also got married just before the 42-year-old revisit by the camera crew.

At 49, quite a few are grandparents, especially those who started in the working class. Michael Apted, the director, asks most of them about the effect of class on their lives. He agrees with the general consensus that they have transcended class, or at least the old class structure. The former East Enders had moved out, succeeded by Asian and Caribbean families who changed all the landmarks of the old working-class citadel.

The theme that I noticed this time was that those who stayed married were notably better off than the others, especially financially. Several of them, notably Tony, clearly teetered on the brink of divorce in earlier episodes. Some had divorced, and went on to make second marriages or partnerships that were pretty good. But the losses to divorce run through the whole story. At 49, a good moment for stock-taking, marriage mattered as much as class in how their lives were turning out.

I think the "7 Up" series is the greatest sociological documentary ever made. In Roger Ebert's interview with Michael Apted on the DVD, Apted, who will be about 70 when the time for "56 Up" comes around, worries that he will die long before all the participants do, or before they all refuse to participate any more. I am a few years younger than the subjects of these films, so I have always found them personally helpful as a glimpse into my own future. I hope, with Apted, that someone will carry the project out to its conclusion – to "98 Up."

Most Women Not Living With Husbands – Congratulations, Healthy Widows!

A new Census Bureau study shows that slightly under half of women are now living with husbands. Some see this as further as proof that women don't need marriage, that it is a minority lifestyle and will fade in the future.

Phooey.

Three fourths of women marry. More than half are still married. The 9 percent who are widows can't be read as "anti-marriage." Most of the 11% who are divorced remain pro-marriage – just not to their exes. And many of the unmarried quarter are younger women who hope to marry.

Moreover, most men are married, and continue to benefit from it.

Many women delay marriage, but still cohabit and have children. This is especially true of children of divorce, who want a good marriage so badly that they will mark time cohabiting until they are sure.

I think that when the word starts to get out that cohabiting prevents good marriages more than it helps secure them, the marriage rate will go back up. And I believe the divorce rate can continue to go down, especially as panicy young marrieds absorb the wisdom that they can ride out the rough spots, just as all previous generations have.

This study is the low moment of the curve, not the wave of the future.

ADDENDUM: Michael Medved reports that the New York Times story is even more flawed than I thought. They included all girls 15 - 19 in the total. This hugely inflates the number of females who are living without husbands, but does not, as they claim, mean that most women are living without husbands. My 17- and 18-year-old daughters are living without husbands, and a very good thing, too. I want them to marry someday, but not any time soon. Shame on the Times for such distorted -- if not deliberately devious - reporting.

Baptists Fire a Teacher for Being a Woman

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas gave Sheri Klouda a Ph.D., hired her to teach Hebrew, and then fired her for being a woman.

The seminary based its decision on its reading of I Timothy 2:12, "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" (King James version). They normally forbid women to teach men in theology or biblical languages, though women may teach men in other subjects.

I think Southwestern Seminary has a perfect right to tailor their hiring rules to their reading of Scripture. My objection is not on feminist or equal protection grounds, or anything like that. They are a free school in a free country, and can follow their conscience in reading Scripture.

I think they have made an incorrect decision, on two grounds. First, on a narrow reading of the verse in question, I can see how they might justify excluding a woman from teaching theology. But Hebrew? If they let women teach music, I think they should let them teach languages. Both can be used for teaching theology, but so can they be used for many other purposes. I don't see why biblical languages are included in the ban.

Second, I think they err in reading this verse as applying to professors. I believe this verse and its neighbors are meant to apply in the home, so I don't even think it rules out women ministers. But even if you think I Timothy rules out women as pastors, as Southern Baptists normally do, I don't think that prohibition carries over to professors. Teaching is not simply proclaiming the word or proselytizing the faith. Southwestern is open to many kinds of Christians, and teaches Hebrew and theology and many other subjects to men and women who want to understand the Bible and the Christian faith for all kinds of reasons.

I think Southwestern Seminary has erred in firing Sheri Klouda, and erred in a way that will bring as much strife within the church as it will draw outside criticism.

Tagged

I was tagged by fellow blogger Dennis Hancock to come up with five odd facts about me.

1. In college, I knew the combination to the college's safe.

2. I once performed P.D.Q. Bach music at Lincoln Center in New York. We even made a record, the Liebeslieder Polkas, of the same renowned fictitious composer's work.

3. Despite teaching a coffee class, I only have one cup a day.

4. I am the richest man in the world (3 kids @ GNP of North America = oodles)

5. I drive barefoot.

Coffee House Debate is a Minority Calling

This morning our seminar on Cafés and Public Life met in our local coffee house to talk about whether public life needs coffee houses (or something like them), and whether most people need public life of the kinds that coffee house debate provides.

Our conclusions: Yes to the first, No to the second.

Habermas argues that society needs a robust public sphere in which the public critically debates the issues of the day. This creates public opinion, the necessary counterweight to the state and the corporations. Otherwise, public opinion is corrupted into propaganda and advertising.

Not everyone, though, wants to think critically about the Big Picture, about the structure of society and the relations of power. As several students said (possibly autobiographically) it is easier and more comfortable to live in a bubble, not worrying about the structures that shape ordinary life.

Those who promote a robust public life often imply that democracy itself is imperiled if the masses don't participate in public debate. As I read the history of attempts to achieve sustained mass participatory democracy, though, this is a utopian quest, and an overstated fear.

For the good of society, it is a good thing that a strategic minority critically debate the issues of the day. They stand over against the interests of powerful institutions – and often support them, albeit knowingly and critically.

For the good of people who want coffee house debate, it is a good thing that there are coffee houses and other third places.

I think, though, that coffee house debate and leadership in public opinion will always be a minority taste and a minority calling.

Coffee Houses vs. Salons

The English coffee house of the 17th and 18th century had its counterpart in the cafés of the continental nations. Jürgen Habermas, though, makes the case that, as far as creating a public sphere for critical debate goes, the real counterpart of the coffee house was the French salon.

The coffee house was public, admitting all kinds. The coffee house was rough, smoky, competitive, and its menu had the "hogo of sirreverence." Few women went there. The salon was private, held in a house, admission by invitation only. Women were not only admitted, they controlled the invitations and the setting.

The advantage of the salon in creating a distinctive public sphere was that it included women and men. The advantage of the coffee house was that included a broader range of classes than any invitation-only group would have in that era.

Now, of course, coffee houses include both sexes and a fairly wide class range. The task is to create critical debate among so varied a group.

Coffee Houses vs. Bars as Gardens of Sedition

When coffee houses take off, the ruling power usually tries to suppress them because they breed sedition. The caliph made such an attempt in Egypt, as did most of the European kings. These attempts all failed, typically because powerful people were already so addicted to coffee and enamored of the coffee house that they nullified the banning order at the outset. To be sure, kings and caliphs found other ways to get coffee houses under control, especially by using spies. But the tension remained.

Kings do not seem to have the same problem with pubs and taverns. Muslim rulers, of course, do not quite have this problem, as alcohol-based public houses were forbidden anyway (though they could still be found). When coffee reached Europe, by contrast, alcohol vendors were well established. On most of the continent, the "cafés" were co-opted into mostly alcohol-serving restaurants, which also served coffee. It was only in the English-speaking lands that coffee houses developed as full-blown alternatives to pubs. There the political contrast was drawn in clearer relief. When Charles II tried to suppress the English coffee houses as hot-beds of sedition, he promoted the good old English pubs as places where people drank without talking about affairs of state that were none of their business.

This history suggests to me an interesting contrast:

Coffee houses pose few dangers to the individual, but some danger to the state; bars pose few dangers to the state, but some danger to the individual.

In fact, a Machiavellian ruler might see bars as a useful tool to keep the population politically quiescent. A sports bar would be the perfect tool of a modern-day "bread and circuses" campaign.

If you want to organize a rally against the war, go to a coffee house. If you want to get people to call in against the coach, go to a bar.

The Hogo of Sirreverence

In the 17th century, when coffee came to England, it was attacked by the traditional ale- and beer-men and women because it tasted terrible and stank. It is true that, in those days, coffee was made in a smelly way. The beans were hand roasted very unevenly, and the grounds were left in the coffee for a long time, often ending up in the cup itself. The many pamphlets against coffee said it looked and tasted like soot, or mud, or worse. Indeed, some said it had the "hogo" (haute gout, that is, scent) of "sirreverence." Sirreverence was a euphemism derived from the apologetic way a servant would describe excrement – "save your reverence."

Markman Ellis, who presents this wonderful expression in The Coffee-House: A Cultural History, says that there was a market in those early days of the modern cosmopolitan market for bitter, astringent, tough tastes and smells. The coffee house, which reeked of coffee and tobacco, served that market. This hogo of sirreverence was another part of the reason that the early coffee houses were overwhelmingly male environments.

Modern coffee houses mostly sell sweet, milk-heavy coffee drinks. But they have within them those who want the bitterness of coffee as it comes from the bean. I have been a mocha drinker since the beginning of the specialty coffee boom, but reflection on how little coffee there is in a large mocha has led me to switch this week, at least halfway. Cappuccino, anyone?

Coffee House Talk Favors Masculine Acquaintances

[I am in the middle of my Cafés and Public Life class, so I thought I would share some thoughts on cafés and coffee houses this week.]

Coffee houses as classic third places – neither home, nor work – where strangers can become acquaintances. Coffee houses promote a kind of sociability through which people from different walks of life can talk about public issues. The regulars in a coffee house may talk often about all manner of things. But the norm for that kind of sociability is that it stays in the coffee house, unless two people make an unusual effort to develop the relationship deeper.

In other words, coffee house comrades can remain at the same friendly acquaintance level for a long time – years, even. I have had a number of coffee house buddies over the years whose last names I never learned, or could recall. This did not diminish the quality of the relationship.

I think this kind of stable friendly acquaintanceship is more typical of men's than women's conversation partners. Ray Oldenburg, the sociologist who coined the term "third place," writes fondly of the group of retired men with whom he regularly gets together to "settle all the problems of the world." I have known many a men's coffee talk group, especially "old goats clubs" of retired men, that did just that sort of thing. They knew one another's opinions on public issues, but they did not know the details of one another's lives very well. The women's kaffeeklatch, in my experience, is quite different. There, the main subject of conversation is one another's lives and families. If a group of women talked regularly over coffee, but never got personal, I expect that most of them would think there was something wrong with the group.

The golden age coffee houses of the 17th and 18th centuries were overwhelmingly male environments. Today's coffee house is much more mixed. Still, I think the distinctive form of sociability of the coffee house as third places favors a more masculine than feminine conversational style.

King at the Mason Temple

Martin Luther King's famous last speech, the prescient "I have been to the mountain top" oration given the night before he was assassinated, was delivered at the Mason Temple in Memphis. I had long wondered why a Baptist minister would be speaking in a Masonic temple. But, as I discovered when I started teaching about American religion, the Mason Temple is not connected with the Masons, the sometimes anti-Christian secret society. Rather, it is the central edifice of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), founded by Rev. C.H. Mason.

COGIC is the largest black Pentecostal denomination in the United States. It might be the largest black denomination of any kind in this country. Sometimes they claim a membership of 5.5 million, which would make it a top-ten American denomination of any kind. However, that number is probably a highly optimistic estimate. Still, it is pretty big. There are more black Baptists in this country, but they are divided into several principal denominations, including King's own, the Progressive National Baptists.

In 1968, when King spoke at the Mason Temple, what was most important about the venue that night was not that it was Pentecostal, but that it was black controlled. Ministers of many denominations worked together for the larger cause of civil rights. Since the 1960s, though, Pentecostalism has boomed. My rough estimate (and it is rough, given the available numbers) is that there were probably more people in either of the two largest black Baptist denominations (both called National Baptist) at that time than there were COGIC members. Since then, though, Pentecostal growth rates worldwide have outstripped even the respectable growth rates of all kinds of theologically conservative Baptists. Pentecostal denominations, including COGIC, are only now starting to get the recognition that their numbers have long suggested.

In yet another, less expected way, King was prescient that night in Memphis. When he was speaking to the future of race relations in America, he was also, indirectly, speaking in a vital house of the future of black Protestantism.

The First American Coffee House Began in a Bookstore

In the 1670s, in Boston, before Paris even had a coffee house.

Marriage is the complementary union of a man and a woman to make and raise children

I made this claim yesterday. It has occasioned some misunderstanding, so let me elaborate.

One misunderstanding is that when I say that marriage entails submission and sacrifice, I am contending that homosexual couples are selfish. I did not mean to suggest that homosexual couples are incapable of submission or sacrifice; I am sure that that happens in many actual homosexual couples. My thought is that the complementarity of man and woman entails (mutual) submission, in a way that the similarity of a same-sex couple does not. Likewise, parenthood entails self-sacrifice, and parenthood is entailed in the social institution of marriage. Some actual marriages don't have children, and some homosexual couples do, and no doubt there are many exemplary marriages and parents contained in those groups. I am talking about is the social ideal, not your relationship or mine.

Another misunderstanding is that when I say that the social purpose of marriage includes children, I am condemning childless marriages. Again, I am talking about the social ideal, the reason that society depends on marriage. All actual marriages, mine included, deviate from this ideal. I do think that marriage as an institution entails children. Children are why complementary couples take the step to become a permanent, faithful, one-flesh unit – that is, become married. Some actual couples do not have children. Society, and the institution of marriage, can live with that. However, if all children were produced without marriage, society would disintegrate. And if no marriages produced children, society would end.

A third misunderstanding is that I am ignoring love as the basis of marriage. I do think that the deepest love among human beings is found between parents and their children, and between husbands and wives. Marriage, though, adds to that love a permanent institution that changes husband and wife into one flesh. This relationship, unique in all social life, has deep consequences for their material lives, as well. Sometimes the feelings of love fluctuate, especially between the husband and wife. The marriage does not need to end, though, if love is at low ebb; rather, the institution of marriage is there to protect the couple from their changing emotions, and especially to protect their children from rash emotional actions that their parents might feel like making.

Why Would Civil Unions Harm Marriage?

I am in favor of civil unions, as I argued two days ago. I favor them despite the fact that I think they will contribute to undermining marriage. I have been asked by some respondents to explain why I think civil unions would harm marriage at all.

Some argue that if I am free to marry, what difference does it make if other people conduct their relations differently? I believe that we should tolerate many different ways of conducting our relationships. But this is not because they don't affect mine.

Marriage is a social institution. It works because society as a whole believes in it, and supports marriage as such. My marriage is not just made by my wife and me, but by the whole society. Marriage is one of the most powerful of social institutions because it has huge social support.

If marriage were treated as just another private contract (as it is in increasing danger of descending to), fewer marriages would be formed, more marriages would fail, and each marriage would be more tenuous because less taken for granted.

Marriage is the complementary union of a man and a woman to make and raise children. This is the social model for marriage, around which all actual marriages are arranged.

Civil unions are, I think, a species of intense friendship between people of the same type. A civil union is designed to benefit the couple. Children may be brought into the union, but they are secondary.

If some people pursue unions with their opposite sex partners to benefit just themselves, with only a secondary consideration for children, this undermines marriage. Not just that marriage, but marriage as an institution.

It is natural in an individualistic culture such as ours to recast social institutions to benefit me, rather than forcing me to discipline and sacrifice myself for others. Even without children, marriage entails the discipline of submission – mutual submission. With children, to that submission must be added self-sacrifice. It is hard for us to sustain this high standard of marriage anyway. We only make the task harder when we add a competing marriage-like relationship that does not entail the same kind of self-sacrifice, and may not even require self-submission.

Married Homosexuals Can Stay That Way

Children do better if their parents stay married. Sometimes a married parent discovers or decides that he or she (more likely he) has a primarily homosexual orientation. Obviously, we are not talking here about people who have an exclusively homosexual orientation, or they wouldn't have gotten married and had kids in the first place. Rather, we are talking about the dilemma of those who feel torn between their love and duty toward their spouse and children, on the one hand, and their newly estimated sexual orientation.

A pastor recently told me of a discussion in his church about homosexuality. The talk was stopped dead by the stories told by two women whose ex-husbands discovered that they were gay. In this pastor's mind, that case settled the issue: gay men can't be married to women, so they should be free to divorce their wives and, if they want to, marry other men. And the same would go for married lesbians.

I think, though, that these sad cases do not settle the issue at all. There are many married men and women with a homosexual orientation, who nonetheless remain effective and contented spouses and parents. This situation is not ideal, but it is good enough. Michele Wolkomir's studies of effective ex-gay ministries found that the men in these groups (her study did not include lesbians) were not trying to change their orientation. Rather, they were getting all kinds of help in disciplining their actions because they loved their wives and children.

I am not saying that married parents who discern their own homosexual desires must stay married, and I am certainly not saying they should be forbidden to divorce. Rather, I have noted that there are success stories and supportive resources for men (and women, though I know this less well) who wish to stay married.

There is a peculiar tendency on the liberal side of the aisle to regard sexual identity as a mere social construction, a "gender," – whereas sexual orientation is imperious biological identity that we must always bow to. This is odd, if not upside down. At the least, I think it would be safer to think of both sex/gender and sexual orientation/preference as composed by both nature and nurture. Personally I think of both of them as 50/50 propositions.

When married parents discern a homosexual orientation in themselves, they are not obliged to drop everything and respond. Married parents have other identities, orientation, preferences, and duties that call at least as forcefully.

Why Civil Unions?

My post of January 5, 2007, " A Free Society Can Accommodate a Homosexual Minority," generated a rich set of comments. One thread asked the important question, why civil unions? Why not same-sex marriage? My answer is a bit different for civil society and for the church.

For both kinds of society, I believe that marriage as an institution is designed to unite the equal and complementary halves of the human species, a man and a woman, to make and rear children. Individual men and women, and individual marriages, approximate this ideal more or less fully. If they do not fully realize the ideal, they are not any lesser morally or ethically. Individual variation is normal and can have many benefits. The social norm of marriage sets a form of what is usually good for society as a whole, a norm around which all the actual marriages vary. A healthy society can tolerate quite a bit of variation, as long as the core is robust.

A free society ought to tolerate quite a bit of variation, for the sake of freedom. Too much variation, and too much freedom, can, of course, destroy society. That is always a risk. But we should err on the side of freedom wherever possible.

I think that our free civil society in the United States should support the social norm of marriage as a man and a woman united to make and rear children. This norm has ample support in our law, history, practice, and popular custom. Indeed, most people think it is the foundational institution of our whole society; I agree.

Some people, for one reason or another, cannot or do not wish to achieve that norm. I believe that our society is free and robust enough to accommodate many of those variations. Celibate people, married couples who cannot have children, even married couples who choose not to have children in the interests of a different social good are all good forms under the umbrella of our traditional standard of marriage. Single parents of many kinds, cohabiting couples, and cohabiting parents are good-enough forms of family life.

I do not see under our Constitution why same-sex couples, with and without children, are not good-enough approximation of marriages to be allowed under our civil law.

I think the term "marriage" means the equal and complementary forms of man and woman. A same-sex couple cannot, therefore, be married. This is the overwhelming sense of our tradition and our popular opinion about what "marriage" means. However, a civil union would give same-sex couples a good-enough legal status that was as close to marriage as the nature of their relationship allows. The countries with the most experience with homosexual civil unions, the Scandinavians, have found that most people – gay and straight -- can accept this approximation. Opinion surveys in the United States suggest that most people could accept a similar accommodation, especially in the younger generations.

I do not think homosexual couples would ever form civil unions at the same rate that straight couples marry. I think same-sex unions would have a higher break-up rate than marriages, in part because same-sex unions are much less likely to have children. Nonetheless, I believe a free society should offer the option to homosexual citizens who desire it. The effects on society of this accommodation would not be large.

The situation in the church is a little different, because, as I have argued earlier, I believe that the Bible does hold that same-sex sexual relations are sinful. I do not see how the church can condone an intentionally sexual relationship between persons of the same sex, even if such a relationship is likely to curb more or worse sins. I believe that the furthest that the church can go down this road is to tolerate same-sex relationships among those who are trying to avoid sex, even though we all sometimes lapse.

I do not relish reaching this conclusion, but I can see no other way around what appears to me to be the clear word and intention of Scripture, and the reality of desiring people in a fallen world.

I further think that the church can support same-sex civil unions, without asking the civil society to make any judgments about the sexual practices therein. The church itself, though, must make judgments about the sexual practices of those very same unions when they involve church members and officers. The church can, without inconsistency, recognize that the standards of the Constitution are not as demanding as those of the Bible. All citizens are entitled to the protection of the Constitution from the state, while all church members are entitled to choose to put themselves under the more stringent rule of the Bible in the church.

Thus, I support same-sex civil unions, but not same-sex marriage.

Starting the Year With a Bang

I like to start the new year with a bang. This past week's series on a centrist Christian approach to homosexual practice has certainly done that. I am still working through the comments -- I will give a more thoughtful overview tomorrow.

One point has struck me, though: we do not have a good name for a category of moral acts which are discretely tolerated, or formally overlooked, if the actors are making a good faith effort to wrestle with the dilemma. And yet, I think, in dealing with real people, we make such allowances all the time. There is no good way to build this kind of toleration into an ethical principle, because it really is a species of practical judgment in a particular case. Because we have to rely on many actors to make correct practical judgments in cases like this, the issue cannot be settled at the level of ethics.

The Presbyterian Position is Already a Viable Centrist Position - Almost

The upshot of the argument that I have been making over the past week is nearly identical to what the Presbyterian Church (USA) already teaches and promotes.

The church says that homosexuals are welcome in all offices of the church, and should be protected in civil society.

The church teaches that in God's plan for human beings the gift of sex is only properly expressed in marriage (of a man and a woman). Celibacy is a good though difficult discipline. We all have impulses to sex outside of marriage, including homosexual acts, but they are not part of God's plan for us. We should try to control them, and ask for help to do so. We should repent of our lapses. This applies to everyone, regardless of act or orientation.

The one point not yet clarified is whether it is better to try to curb those impulses within a committed relationship, or whether that is already too much of a structure of temptation. The church has already accepted this kind of unmarried but committed relationship as a good-enough starting point for opposite-sex couples. The issue now is whether it will do so for same-sex couples.

SO,

IF conservatives in the church were willing to accept the idea that two people of the same sex in a committed relationship is not ideal, but good enough;

AND

IF liberals in the church were willing to accept that idea that homosexual acts are something to repent of,

THEN

The church could have both its people and its standards, and achieve peace, unity, and as much purity as this fallen world allows. On this issue, anyway.