"Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide."
Published November 23, 2003
So begins David Brooks' column in yesterday's New York Times. More:
- He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations.
Sounds like the Pope, doesn't it? But Brooks goes on to make a fierce, powerful case for gay or lesbian marriage, which definitely is not the Pope speaking. More:
- The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such committments. It is to expect that they make such committments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.
When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote.
Marriage is not voting. It's going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage. Not making it means drifting further into the culture of contingency, which, when it comes to intimate and sacred relations, is an abomination.
Finally, after all these months, the guy the Times hired because of the penetrating, controversial insights of his book, "Bobos in Paradise," lays down a marker. A firestorm is going to follow in the wake of this column, from all sides. That's the sign of a great piece of writing: it enrages everyone.
- "Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide."
- Published: November 23, 2003
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: bookofjoe
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Good for Brooks - it only makes sense from a conservative perspective unless you consider gay people to be subhuman, which in their hearts of hearts, I don't think very many people really do. At least I hope not.
Total laff riot. What a loser Brooks is. Guy needs to smoke some dope. I'm all for gay marriage, if that's what gays want, but wrapping it in this moralizing bullshit does more harm than good. Like he isn't in the spare bedroom at night jerking off to "Watch Her Suck My Big Dick.Com."
You know what really burns my biscuits about this whole marriage thing? That people are assuming that marriage is a natural condition.
I'm single, always have been, and given my general nature, probably always will be.
What makes these people think that being married is somehow desirable, or even sane?
What sort of people would engage in a contract to be bonded for life? If these hypocrites are so hopped up about marriage, then where is the push to make divorce illeagal?
You want to make marriage so all that and a bag of chips, then ban divorce.
And burn the divorced hypocrites at the stake, starting with the men who are against gay marriage.
I see both sides of it. Marriage is indeed the legal conferrance of assorted rights and responsibilities, but the reason behind it, one hopes, is love and commitment. I won't speak against those who have multiple partners, having had more than one lover in my life over the years. The greatest truest love I had (have) was one I could not wed, sad to say. My nonmarried relationships were things of beauty and honor and goodness; I don't regret them at all.
Fidelity is a beautiful concept, IMO -- perhaps not a natural one, but a lovely one and an honorable one too. So neither will I speak against those who opt to spend a lifetime together exclusively. Yes, I think gay marriage should be sold on the commitment ideal and on the equality ideal. But I see no reason to cast aspersions on the married or the happily single.
We tried the "banning divorce" thing for several centuries and it didn't work. The situation we have now, though less "stable," is much more humane. People make mistakes, people change: marriage should be a "make every effort"-type deal, then if it isn't working, go your separate ways.
The point is marriage is good for society, for children, for the spouses - they are healthier, live longer, always rate higher on quality of life and happiness indexes, make more money, etc. Why shouldn't gays be able to partake of these felicities, these "family values"? There is no good reason, and Brooks make a brave case geared toward conservatives, those least inclined to be supportive of gays in general, and for that he should be applauded.
I believe Brooks is on to something, so I've followed up with an entry on courting the conservative gay voter here.
If that's the opening line, I'd be turning the page. What a load of rubbish. If you were married or in a serious relationship, it might have more than a grain of truth ... but if not, it's a load of bollocks. What, are we going back to Victorian-era moralising now?
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Maybe you commit spiritual suicide, but oh, baby, you rise from the dead every morning. I attained many blissful spiritual states during the too brief period I engaged in this shameful, sordid, soul-deadening behavoir. They were the worst years of my life, a searing hell that will forever haunt my memory. Can I ever forgive myself?