Where is the Outrage?
One man, one woman. That’s the way marriage is supposed to be, or so we’re told. Doesn’t matter that women in these marriages and relationships suffer painfully and deeply at the hands of their mates – or that homosexual relationships are often loving and deeply caring. Unfortunately, the evangelical church can’t seem to see the difference.
This week in Cincinnati, Ryan Widmer is on trial, accused of drowning his 24-year-old wife in the bathtub. Drew Peterson is engaged again, even as he is a suspect in at least two of his wives’ disappearances. Chris Brown is still dating the beautiful woman he allegedly beat to a bloody pulp after an inconsequential argument. His statements imply that she had it coming.
I’m sure that these men do not know each other, and I don’t know if they are guilty, although the evidence in each case is decidedly overwhelming. But what they all have in common is an enormously arrogant disregard for and disrespect for women who trusted them. To keep them safe, to be good mates for them, to be the one man in their lives whom they could love and honor. One man, one woman. That’s the ideal of marriage, is it not?
In November 2008, the Prop 8 measure in California was passed, preventing gays and lesbians from legally marrying in that state. The evangelical church, and especially James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, were bold in that fight. Westboro Baptist Church regularly denounces, with rage, the funerals of American soldiers because America doesn’t put a stop to homosexuality, an abomination of God’s word. The Anglican church nearly fell to pieces because of the ordination to bishop of an openly gay man, who, by the way, is in a committed and caring relationship with his partner. Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard–the list of evangelical luminaries goes on and on–all let us feel their outrage at the scourge of homosexuality and the desires of gay and lesbian people to have a marriage that is trusting, honorable and filled with respect for their partners.
One can expect to see and hear news-bite Christians whenever something out of their experience is the issue, whether it be gays, lesbians, women who want abortions (a direct affront to a man’s masculinity, by the way, though they never say so), and closet racists. “God damn America,” says the Reverend Wright, for having people who are not like he is. America is going to Hell, they all imply, because there are people who are not like they are. It’s scriptural, they say, knowing as they do what God seems particularly to hate.
But the drowned wife, the women who disappeared, the thousands of woman who every day are beaten, belittled, choked physically and emotionally, what of them? Does God not care for these? Where is the outrage? Where is the funerary picketing, the sound-bites in the national media? Where is Dobson on domestic abuse? Where is Al Sharpton when his nose isn’t up a racist skirt?
Maybe it’s too much like them, and all of us. Maybe it’s too close to home. Maybe the wink-wink nudge-nudge when it all plays out before us is from embarrassment and shame, when rage would be hypocritical.
But these women learned about Hell, in a most personal way. When will the defenders of the faith, the ones we trust, feel rage at that?
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On April 6, 2009 at 12:31 pm
This article is nothing more than a bigoted rant against Men, and heterosexuality. It is fine that you prefer homosexuality as far as I am concerned however it is not necessary to heap all the negativity upon heterosexual men.
You imply in the piece that all heterosexual marriages are fraught with violence against women by beastly men, and that all homosexual relationships are all flowers and sunlight, and free from violence however that is a lie.
A certain percentage of all relationships are touched by violence and homosexual relationships are not immune from it. Books have been written on domestic violence in homosexual relationships, and I recall reading of many accounts of homosexual violence against their domestic partners. Domestic violence in homosexual relationships has been called the “closet within the closet” as it is deeply hidden by gays who prefer to perpetrate the lie that Gays are so much better than straights, and could not be violent toward their lovemates.
It is unnecessary, and intellectually dishonest to bolster with falsehoods and bigotry your arguments in favor of same sex relationships. Domestic violence visits both the queers and the straights.
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