Should Sexuality be a Matter of Choice?

A Liberal MP of Canada, Charles Hubbard, warned that there is no logical reason for restrictions against incestuous marriages if same-sex marriage is permitted.

Well, Hubbard’s warning wasn’t fanciful. On December 17, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com reported,

• The attorney for David Epstein, a Colombia university professor charged with incest with his adult daughter, is defending sex between family members by appealing to homosexual “rights” as a precedent…Epstein’s lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo, told ABC News that “It’s OK for homosexuals to do whatever they want in their own home. How is this so different? We have to figure out why some behavior is tolerated and some is not…If we assume for a moment that both parties are consenting, then why are we prosecuting this?”

Same-sex marriage is a triumph of choice over principle – the consideration of right and wrong regarding sexual behaviors. If sexuality is simply a matter of choice between consenting adults – like choosing between spaghetti or ziti – then Epstein has every “right” in the world to have sex with his daughter and to even marry her.

However, in a world where “choice” determines sexual norms, the doors will swing open to more than just incest. As far as I can tell, during this entire sex-sex marriage debate, the Islamic community has remained silent. Perhaps they perceive acceptance of same-sex marriage as the removal of any possible argument against polygamy, which has been a major vehicle in Muslim evangelism. According to Shariah law, Muslim children must remain Muslim, and children born to a Christian mother and a Muslim father must be Muslim.

Therefore, we have heard that in Malaysia, a “moderate” Islamic nation, there is a saying among Muslims: “This first wife is for dachwa [evangelism – bringing more Muslims into the world]; the second is for love.”

The supremacy of “choice” opens the doors to other problems. By virtue of what, can there be a law that prohibits a man from marrying multiple, poor, third-world women in order to secure for them USA citizenship with all its benefits? By virtue of what, can society prevent humans from marrying their animals to get them health benefits?

And then there is the question of the age-of-consent! Why must it remain at 18 years? Why shouldn’t pubescent children also have the right to choose? Why should their families be allowed to exercise control over their decision making? In most places, the family has already been marginalized when it comes to school sex education and even decisions about abortion.

Should society leaving sexual choice up to the individual, like choosing the color of your shirt? There seem to be far greater implications to our sexual conduct than to our fashions. As adults, sexualized children have reported the disastrous impact that an early seduction has had on their lives. Clearly, sex impacts lives far more profoundly than eating a hamburger! In this regard, John J. Davis (Evangelical Ethics) writes of the work of British Anthropologist, J.D. Unwin:

• After a comprehensive study of both Western and non-Western cultures throughout human history, Unwin concluded that the record of mankind “does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it had been absolutely [heterosexually] monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.” Unwin observed that a society’s adoption and maintenance of heterosexual monogamy as a social standard “has preceded all manifestations of social energy, whether that energy be reflected in conquest, in art and sciences, in extension of the social vision, or in the substitution of monotheism for polytheism.” (p. 116)

Sexual experimentation degrades its pioneers. No wonder, we universally find taboos against it:

• “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.” (1 Cor. 6:18-19)