In gay relationships, is all sex premarital?
Ashley posted the following in the guestbook at jenaustin.com:
“Jen, it is mentioned on your website that you live with your partner. Now, after reading this I found myself asking, "Does she fall into the temptation of pre-marital sex as would any other couple living together?" I would really like to know the answer to this; not for the fact that I want to pry into your personal life but to know if you find pre-marital sex right as you do homosexuality.”
Ashley raises a great question. Given the fact that homosexual couples cannot legally marry in most geographic locations, at what point in a gay relationship does sex become okay? Ashley doesn’t exactly say in this post whether she is for or against homosexuality, but I would venture to guess she disapproves. Which reminds me of a great quote—“It always seemed a bit pointless to me to disapprove of homosexuality. It’s like disapproving of rain.” -Fran Maude. You go Fran.
Thank you Ashley, for using the phrase, “as would any other couple” in your question about premarital sex. We homosexuals are so used to being set apart and ostracized from the land of normalcy that it is refreshing to finally be included, or at least considered to be within the realm of common experience when it comes to relationships.
The basic Christian understanding of sex suggests that if sex is performed outside of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman, then it is condemnable. This puts a lesbian like me between a rock and a hard place. Homosexuality is an expression of truth which is good, yet on those occasions when I live the truth, I am condemned because this expression does not fit beneath the marriage umbrella. (Perhaps umbrella is not the word to describe the canopy that hovers over the institution of marriage. The term seems a bit wide and is usually intended to envelope a number of varied attitudes and ideologies. Marriage has become much more narrowly defined, especially in recent years.) I would marry my partner if I could, but since I live in Texas—a state so red I am surprised it does not spontaneously combust more often than it does—I am legally forbidden to become betrothed. To state the obvious, if the pre-marital sex issue is bothersome, why not let homosexuals marry? The fact that homosexuals cannot marry precisely because of the sex issue, speaks to a fear not of differences between people, but to a sexual fear that masks one’s ability to absorb anything positive about the underlying orientation.
The direct question remains. Do my partner Angela and I engage in premarital sex? I can tell you with certainty that we do not. We are married in the eyes of God. We had a holy union in October, 2002, and from that moment forward our relationship has been sanctioned and blessed by God, just as a heterosexual marriage is. Our relationship was blessed by God before this union because God was the one who brought us together and began drawing us into spiritual harmony during the five years prior to our union, but the ceremony was the culmination of that process. Did we wait until marriage? No. We’re not infallible. That was part of the process as well.
Marriage is a Christian celebration which spiritually joins two people and their lives. More importantly, a marriage ceremony allows these two people to stand on holy ground before God, and to vow to love and honor one another during every moment of each day. Angela and I made our vows, exchanged rings, and became wed at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, and by doing so we entered into a covenant relationship with God. Having a covenant relationship is what’s important. A covenant is an agreement that becomes binding on all parties, and a promise that deepens the significance of the relationship and makes it more valuable than all the other relationships in your life. You cannot take a covenant relationship lightly. God does not take my covenant relationship with Angela lightly. God continues to demand excellence of us—trust, honor, courage, truth, servitude, respect, and love—and we try our best to respond with just that, individually and as a couple. It’s a human thing to cheapen a relationship because it is homosexual.
Sex is part of a marriage relationship, but as any couple will likely say, it is not the thing that defines a healthy relationship. God is much more concerned with the condition of a person’s heart than with the state of affairs in the bedroom. And God is much bigger than a piece of paper from the county courthouse. God is huge. There’s no way to sufficiently stuff God into our tiny, finite human minds. A legally recognized marriage is afforded many more civil rights than one that is not, that is certain, but God’s power to work in a relationship is not connected to any discriminatory earthly amendments or bans, or even to a positive result of a civil rights movement. To put it bluntly, God does not wait on Congress. I’m privileged to have a partner who understands that, and who felt just as humbled as I did the day we entered into a covenant relationship with a force of that magnitude. It was awe inspiring.
I’m not going to say that all couples—homosexual or heterosexual—should marry. Each couple is on a separate journey and should walk the path at a pace that suits them. But you asked, and this is my truth. We don’t engage in premarital sex because we are married in the eyes of God. And to this point, have I even mentioned love? The love I feel for my partner travels much more deeply than any action might display. Love itself makes no effort to categorize those it touches, and yet we still find it necessary to talk about heterosexual love and homosexual love as if they are two different things. Religious dogma may be quick to draw rigid lines and require that love fit inside, but God does no such thing. Love is universal. And it’s only a matter of time before the institution of marriage will be as well.
If we stop letting fear be our guide.
“Jen, it is mentioned on your website that you live with your partner. Now, after reading this I found myself asking, "Does she fall into the temptation of pre-marital sex as would any other couple living together?" I would really like to know the answer to this; not for the fact that I want to pry into your personal life but to know if you find pre-marital sex right as you do homosexuality.”
Ashley raises a great question. Given the fact that homosexual couples cannot legally marry in most geographic locations, at what point in a gay relationship does sex become okay? Ashley doesn’t exactly say in this post whether she is for or against homosexuality, but I would venture to guess she disapproves. Which reminds me of a great quote—“It always seemed a bit pointless to me to disapprove of homosexuality. It’s like disapproving of rain.” -Fran Maude. You go Fran.
Thank you Ashley, for using the phrase, “as would any other couple” in your question about premarital sex. We homosexuals are so used to being set apart and ostracized from the land of normalcy that it is refreshing to finally be included, or at least considered to be within the realm of common experience when it comes to relationships.
The basic Christian understanding of sex suggests that if sex is performed outside of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman, then it is condemnable. This puts a lesbian like me between a rock and a hard place. Homosexuality is an expression of truth which is good, yet on those occasions when I live the truth, I am condemned because this expression does not fit beneath the marriage umbrella. (Perhaps umbrella is not the word to describe the canopy that hovers over the institution of marriage. The term seems a bit wide and is usually intended to envelope a number of varied attitudes and ideologies. Marriage has become much more narrowly defined, especially in recent years.) I would marry my partner if I could, but since I live in Texas—a state so red I am surprised it does not spontaneously combust more often than it does—I am legally forbidden to become betrothed. To state the obvious, if the pre-marital sex issue is bothersome, why not let homosexuals marry? The fact that homosexuals cannot marry precisely because of the sex issue, speaks to a fear not of differences between people, but to a sexual fear that masks one’s ability to absorb anything positive about the underlying orientation.
The direct question remains. Do my partner Angela and I engage in premarital sex? I can tell you with certainty that we do not. We are married in the eyes of God. We had a holy union in October, 2002, and from that moment forward our relationship has been sanctioned and blessed by God, just as a heterosexual marriage is. Our relationship was blessed by God before this union because God was the one who brought us together and began drawing us into spiritual harmony during the five years prior to our union, but the ceremony was the culmination of that process. Did we wait until marriage? No. We’re not infallible. That was part of the process as well.
Marriage is a Christian celebration which spiritually joins two people and their lives. More importantly, a marriage ceremony allows these two people to stand on holy ground before God, and to vow to love and honor one another during every moment of each day. Angela and I made our vows, exchanged rings, and became wed at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, and by doing so we entered into a covenant relationship with God. Having a covenant relationship is what’s important. A covenant is an agreement that becomes binding on all parties, and a promise that deepens the significance of the relationship and makes it more valuable than all the other relationships in your life. You cannot take a covenant relationship lightly. God does not take my covenant relationship with Angela lightly. God continues to demand excellence of us—trust, honor, courage, truth, servitude, respect, and love—and we try our best to respond with just that, individually and as a couple. It’s a human thing to cheapen a relationship because it is homosexual.
Sex is part of a marriage relationship, but as any couple will likely say, it is not the thing that defines a healthy relationship. God is much more concerned with the condition of a person’s heart than with the state of affairs in the bedroom. And God is much bigger than a piece of paper from the county courthouse. God is huge. There’s no way to sufficiently stuff God into our tiny, finite human minds. A legally recognized marriage is afforded many more civil rights than one that is not, that is certain, but God’s power to work in a relationship is not connected to any discriminatory earthly amendments or bans, or even to a positive result of a civil rights movement. To put it bluntly, God does not wait on Congress. I’m privileged to have a partner who understands that, and who felt just as humbled as I did the day we entered into a covenant relationship with a force of that magnitude. It was awe inspiring.
I’m not going to say that all couples—homosexual or heterosexual—should marry. Each couple is on a separate journey and should walk the path at a pace that suits them. But you asked, and this is my truth. We don’t engage in premarital sex because we are married in the eyes of God. And to this point, have I even mentioned love? The love I feel for my partner travels much more deeply than any action might display. Love itself makes no effort to categorize those it touches, and yet we still find it necessary to talk about heterosexual love and homosexual love as if they are two different things. Religious dogma may be quick to draw rigid lines and require that love fit inside, but God does no such thing. Love is universal. And it’s only a matter of time before the institution of marriage will be as well.
If we stop letting fear be our guide.
posted by Jen Austin at 6:40 PM
2 Comments:
You need GOD!
this is a pretty vague question, but how do you reconcile homosexuality with procreating? Neither two men, nor two women are capable of procreating, Yet, is this not what God intended for relationships/building families?
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