Gay Marriage and Cheeseburgers
10 11 2008One of the many jobs of a parent is to teach your kids right from wrong. Don’t steal. Don’t kill. Don’t lie to your parents. Don’t eat cheeseburgers.
Don’t eat cheeseburgers? In the more conservative branches of Judaism, eating cheeseburgers is immoral; it’s one of many things that are prohibited by the Bible. A traditional Jew must teach his kids that God does not want people to mix meat and dairy in one meal. This is not a “nice to have” or a “try your best”; it’s a commandment from God, just like the Ten Commandments and other laws in the Bible. It’s wrong; on par with robbery, cursing the name of God, or violating the Sabbath.
Can you imagine trying to transmit this to your kids, in today’s society? There are McDonald’s and Burger Kings on every corner. TV commercials and ads frequently show people mixing milk & meat. If your kid goes to a secular school, most of her friends will eat cheeseburgers all the time. How do you explain to your child that this common behavior that’s all around her in secular society is immoral, and must be avoided? Is it any surprise, then, that many Orthodox Jews isolate themselves into closed neighborhoods, and avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible?
Conservative Christians believe that gay marriage is immoral. (I’m not exactly sure how conservative Christians decide which parts of Leviticus to follow, but that’s not really the point.) Today, that’s still a relatively easy value to teach; few states allow it, and unless you live in one of the very liberal parts of the country, still something that most people oppose.
If gay marriage continues its march towards nationwide recognition, then what? In 20 or 40 years, there will be many gay couples. Most public schools will have kids that are either being raised by a gay couple, or that are friends with a gay couple. Even the term gay marriage will fade away, because it wouldn’t be considered that strange or unusual. If you’re a conservative Christian parent in that environment, how do you teach your kids that gay marriage is immoral?
Many conservative Christian articles refer to the “Gay Agenda”. Liberals usually scoff at the notion, treating it like an absurd conspiracy theory. From the conservative Christian point of view, though, they are right — there is a “Gay Agenda”. This “radical Gay Agenda” is the push for normality; that gay couples are not treated any different than straight couples. If that happened, it would threaten the ability of conservative Christian parents to instill in their kids the immorality of homosexuality. In order to perpuate their beliefs, they must prevent secular society from treating gay couples as anything other than immoral deviants, and thus they strongly (fanatically?) support Prop 8 and other anti-gay-marriage initiatives. The alternative for them is to end up like the Orthodox Jew trying to teach his kids about the immorality of eating cheeseburgers.
Interesting but it assumes two points… one that all sins are created equal and two that no allowance is made for peoples of different faith. The first seems highly unlikely. If we view God as our heavenly father, it seems likely that our own experience as parents might have some (albeit pale) reflection of how he might feel. I would yell a lot louder if Erin didn’t stop when I told her not to run across the street, then if she colored on the walls with crayon. Many faiths believe that it doesn’t matter what you were raised to believe a sin is a sin for everyone. This may be true for Judaism, but Mormons (what I was raised and know best) everyone is judged based on their own knowledge and understanding. I am not saying that I will or will not teach Erin that Homosexuality is a sin (certainly if I am a good Mormon I will) but either way I will also teach her not everyone is Mormon and therefore not everyone considers it a sin. I have never supported the idea that peer pressure is a good excuse to sin. If we are never tempted, how do we know how strong our faith is?
Peggy,
Re your first point: As I understand Orthodox Judaism, all sins are equal. (It is important to note that Judaism’s concept of sin is very different from Christianity’s, however, so it’s hard to make a comparison here.)
Judaism does believe that different laws apply to Jews and non-Jews, but that doesn’t make it any easier to explain it to kids. (“It’s OK if your best friend at school eats a cheeseburger, but it’s a sin if you do” is a challenging concept to explain to a kindergardner.) It’s a lot easier to do in closed enclaves where everyone keeps Kosher.
Re your second point: Many (most?) Evangelical parents I know want to shield their children (and themselves) from temptation and “dangerous” ideas. They try to avoid or banish anything that may test their children’s faith; thus, Prop 8, creationism in schools, book banning, school prayer, etc. I don’t agree with this approach, but it explains why they work so hard to suppress ideas in secular society that conflict with their interpretation of the Bible.