“Love is love” was the slogan of the most successful rhetorical campaign of the turn of the century, ushering in widespread acceptance of same sex relationships and marriage licenses. It’s often invoked to this day. Since it’s clearly not meant to be a meaningless tautology, what is it supposed to mean? Nobody objects to love in principle, nor to loving anyone and everyone: “the freedom to love who you love”. Jesus enjoins us as his greatest commandments to love God and to love our neighbor, indeed, even to love our enemy. No, “love is love” is not about love. It’s a euphemismm, coyly substituting “love” for sex. The underlying claim is: sex is sex. More specifically, it’s a claim that same sex behavior is equivalent to sex, to coitus, between a man and a woman. Undressed from its cloak, the claim is obviously false. Often, sexual acts are not loving. And, not all sexual acts are created equal.
Sex between a man and woman is potent. Every consummation is pregnant with the possibility that a miracle of new life will occur. Human organisms are comprised of many marvelous physical systems, from the respiratory system to the digestive system. All of these life sustaining systems are possessed in totality by each individual, with one exception: the reproductive system. It comes in parts. Nobody can initiate a new precious human person on his or her own. When a man and woman unite, literally two halves of a single system become one. If conception occurs, a new life begins that kicks off an incredible array of complex and ingenious changes in the body of the mother and her child. By contrast, same sex acts, and acts upon oneself, are impotent, sterile. Though there is fleeting physical pleasure in each case, these acts are fundamentally different.
Because sex between a man and a woman is so uniquely life-giving, creating children who will need a stable home and the provision and protection of their mother and father, societies across time and place have uniquely sanctioned and supported the marriage of a man and a woman. They understood that not all sexual behavior is of the same character. They understood that marriage is intrinsically the complement of a man and woman and uniquely the province of making a family. Because this fundamental aspect of reality is the grounds for marriage, the attempt to redefine marriage as merely a contract between willing individuals required obfuscation.
It had always been the case that anyone could marry, and many with same sex attractions did in fact marry, sublimating some of their desires. Understandably, many yearned for their non-marital sexual relationships to have the same institutional sanction and societal approval as married lovemaking. Already, the stigma of pre-marital and extra-marital sex had waned in the wake of the sexual revolution. As a result, the United States boasts the tragic distinction of having the highest rate “Marriage Equality”,
What is Love?
In contrast to the empty notion of love offered up by the “marriage equality” campaign,
Love wins, we’re assured. But what is love?
Biblically, there has always been a clear understanding. Love is putting another above oneself. You first, instead of me first. And as Jesus Christ pointed out, love is most distilled when one gives their life for another. Not only that, but the Apostle Paul helpfully describes what putting others before oneself looks in the everyday.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
#lastofus You will love me like I want to be loved. or Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love is love, but sex is not sex
Beyond the vacuous truism — that x is x, blue is blue, and — is a true idea that love is love no matter whether it’s directed toward a man or a woman, a child, a sister or spouse, a Samaritan or a Jew. But of course, nobody objects to loving whomever you will. The issue is sex. And sex is not sex. We are not indifferent to spouse or sibling, adult or child when it comes to sex. And whether sex —or whatever you want to call it — is with someone of the same sex, that makes all the difference in the world. No as yet conceived child’s future hangs in the balance in such an event. Conflating these two issues is of course the purpos;evof the slogan.
“Love is love” was the slogan of the most successful rhetorical campaign of the turn of the century, ushering in widespread acceptance of same sex relationships and marriage licenses. It’s often invoked to this day. Since it’s clearly not meant to be a meaningless tautology, what is it supposed to mean? Nobody objects to love in principle, nor to loving anyone and everyone: “the freedom to love who you love”. Jesus enjoins us as his greatest commandments to love God and to love our neighbor, indeed, even to love our enemy. No, “love is love” is not about love. It’s a euphemismm, coyly substituting “love” for sex. The underlying claim is: sex is sex. More specifically, it’s a claim that same sex behavior is equivalent to sex, to coitus, between a man and a woman. Undressed from its cloak, the claim is obviously false. Often, sexual acts are not loving. And, not all sexual acts are created equal.
Sex between a man and woman is potent. Every consummation is pregnant with the possibility that a miracle of new life will occur. Human organisms are comprised of many marvelous physical systems, from the respiratory system to the digestive system. All of these life sustaining systems are possessed in totality by each individual, with one exception: the reproductive system. It comes in parts. Nobody can initiate a new precious human person on his or her own. When a man and woman unite, literally two halves of a single system become one. If conception occurs, a new life begins that kicks off an incredible array of complex and ingenious changes in the body of the mother and her child. By contrast, same sex acts, and acts upon oneself, are impotent, sterile. Though there is fleeting physical pleasure in each case, these acts are fundamentally different.
Because sex between a man and a woman is so uniquely life-giving, creating children who will need a stable home and the provision and protection of their mother and father, societies across time and place have uniquely sanctioned and supported the marriage of a man and a woman. They understood that not all sexual behavior is of the same character. They understood that marriage is intrinsically the complement of a man and woman and uniquely the province of making a family. Because this fundamental aspect of reality is the grounds for marriage, the attempt to redefine marriage as merely a contract between willing individuals required obfuscation.
It had always been the case that anyone could marry, and many with same sex attractions did in fact marry, sublimating some of their desires. Understandably, many yearned for their non-marital sexual relationships to have the same institutional sanction and societal approval as married lovemaking. Already, the stigma of pre-marital and extra-marital sex had waned in the wake of the sexual revolution. As a result, the United States boasts the tragic distinction of having the highest rate “Marriage Equality”,
What is Love?
In contrast to the empty notion of love offered up by the “marriage equality” campaign,
Love wins, we’re assured. But what is love?
Biblically, there has always been a clear understanding. Love is putting another above oneself. You first, instead of me first. And as Jesus Christ pointed out, love is most distilled when one gives their life for another. Not only that, but the Apostle Paul helpfully describes what putting others before oneself looks in the everyday.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
#lastofus You will love me like I want to be loved. or Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love is love, but sex is not sex
Beyond the vacuous truism — that x is x, blue is blue, and — is a true idea that love is love no matter whether it’s directed toward a man or a woman, a child, a sister or spouse, a Samaritan or a Jew. But of course, nobody objects to loving whomever you will. The issue is sex. And sex is not sex. We are not indifferent to spouse or sibling, adult or child when it comes to sex. And whether sex —or whatever you want to call it — is with someone of the same sex, that makes all the difference in the world. No as yet conceived child’s future hangs in the balance in such an event. Conflating these two issues is of course the purpos;evof the slogan.