The sinfulness of my blue-eyes/brown-eyes marriage

In an exchange of papers for the the Anglican Church of Canada, professor Robert Gagnon argues that: 

Same-sex intercourse radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24)." [Emphasis added] 

I’d previously been skeptical of this argument by Gagnon, but now he has convinced me. I’m slapping my palm against my forehead, wondering why I didn’t appreciate his brilliance before. 

To my eternal shame, I now know that by marrying and having children, my wife and I likewise radically offended against another aspect of “God’s intentional creation of humans" — as blue-eyed and brown-eyed. 

Wait, you say: Genesis says nothing about blue-eyed and brown-eyed people. Ah, but the answer’s apparent: There were no blue-eyed people around in the time and place where Genesis was written. This conclusively proves that God intended for his people to be separated into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups, and for each group to bear children of its own eye color. 

(How do I know there were no blue-eyed people around when- and where Genesis was written, and that this was part of God's plan to separate the eye colors? The same way the Genesis authors knew what happened at the dawn of humanity: through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who is protecting my thoughts and writings from error just as he did for theirs.) 

My wife will be as shamed as I am when I work up the nerve to tell her: Our mixed-eye-color marriage is a sin; our love is a lie; our children are the fruits of our wickedness. 

What should I do to atone for my sin? That’s a tough one.

The Bible clearly condones men having multiple wives. So I suppose I could take an additional, blue-eyed wife, and we could do as God manifestly intended for those of our eye color, which is to produce blue-eyed kids. (Unfortunately for my wife, she’s not allowed to produce more brown-eyed kids with a brown-eyed man — according to the Bible, she gets only one mate in this lifetime, unless I happen to die [which just might happen shortly after she reads this part] .)

But there’s an infelicitous catch: Even though I know it radically offends God’s intentional creation, I simply don’t want to . . . "be with" a blue-eyed woman; it’s my brown-eyed wife whom I sinfully desire. 

I guess my only choice is to live in celibacy, acknowledging the depravity of my love and my lust for someone of a forbidden eye color. And you other people in mixed-eye-color marriages had better go and do likewise . . . . 

[End Jonathan Swift mode.] 

As I said two and a half years ago, there may be valid arguments out there for prohibiting same-sex unions (I stress “may"). Gagnon’s isn’t one of them. 

(Hat tip: TitusOneNine)

Comments

[bls]

And for heaven's sake, be careful you don't wear any linsey-woolsey, whatever you do!

[Tobias]

Thanks for addressing the latest nonsense from Gagnon. I stopped reading after the first two pages as the errors and misrepresentations and begging of questions began to pile up. He really can't seem to get past Genesis 2, can he? What was it Paul said about getting caught up in Jewish myths about family origins...

[Mike Watson]

Fr. Haller: It is not unexpected that you would disagree with Robert Gagnon, but it's a bit surprising that you would commend D.C.'s frivolous response, especially since, as was pointed out on TitusOnenine where D.C. posted it as a comment, he isn't arguing from Christian premises. (http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/3792/#68389) Look further to see how D.C. responded there to criticism: by asserting that the traditional view of marriage will lose the culture war and that the traditional view is a Dawkinsian "meme" that will in time die off. (http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/3792/#68819).

Is there some place, Fr. Haller, you have written a substantive critique of one of Gagnon's papers? If so I would be interested in looking at it.

[D. C.]

Mike Watson, I am indeed arguing from Christian premises, or at least from those of Gagnon. Prof. Gagnon says the Bible shows that God intentionally divided humanity into male and female. In Swiftian fashion, I took Gagnon's premise and applied it to God's division of humanity into blue- and brown-eyed groups: by separating the groups geographically, God clearly signalled that he didn't want them to intermarry and have children together, so it follows that my wife and I offended against his plan by doing so.

[Tobias Haller]

Mike W., I've not invested the time in an extensive rebuttal of Dr. Gagnon's repetitive opus, but one does not have to wade too far into his prose to find errors of fact and questionable interpretation. He seems, in particular, to be fixated on Genesis as if it were more than it is; in the document in question, he expands on Jesus' regard for this passage as applying essentially to monogamy and anti-homosexuality, and passes lightly over the real matter Jesus was addressing: divorce. (Gagnon elsewhere actually defends divorce and remarriage in a particularly twisted fashion.)

He is also mistaken on slavery in the OT. He claims among other things that it was not mandated or related to the creation, and is wrong on both counts: Lev 25:44ff for example is a clear mandate (and the Rabbis accepted it as such see Gittin 38b), and God created Adam as his "eved" -- his slave. The whole story of salvation is tied up with God's recovery of "his people" who are to serve him an no one else, for their entire lives. Jesus appears in the lowliest postion "as a slave" in order to bring salvation. Slavery is more closely related to the creation/salvation account than sexuality is.

That's just for starters. As few outside Gagnon's circle of admirers take him seriously, there is really little point in challenging his circular arguments, which begin with his (overly literal) misreading of Genesis.

[Viator]

Tobias Haller contends that Robert Gagnon is wrong when he writes that there is no mandate in Scripture to enslave others. Haller points to Leviticus 25:44ff. and Tractate Gittin 38b of the Babylonian Talmud as proof of his assertion that Gagnon is wrong.

The word "mandate" means a "command or order." Gagnon's claim is that there is no general command or order from God revealed in Scripture to enslave others or to engage in holding slaves while there is such a mandate or command not to engage in homosexual intercourse, therefore, the two are not analogous.

Leviticus 24:44ff. does not, as Haller claims, mandate that the people of Israel enslave Gentiles or hold slaves. It permits the people of Israel to hold slaves which they may buy from the nations (Gentiles) or from strangers (non-Jews) in the land.

Leviticus permits Jews to hold slaves, but does not mandate or command them to do so

Further, since there is no mention in Lev. 25:44ff. of permitting the action of enslaving a person, only buying those who are already enslaved, it seems reasonable to wonder if Exodus 21:16 which forbids on pain of death "stealing" a person to sell or possess as a slave might not be in the background here even though Deuteronomy 24.7 applies this verse to "stealing" men of Israel. Regardless, to permit a person to hold a slave is not to command a person to enslave another or even hold another as slave. Leviticus 25:44 ff. is not a mandate for slavery.

Tractate Gittin 38b discusses whether a Jew may emancipate a Gentile slave that the Jew already holds, not a command to enslave another nor is it a command that a Jew must engage in the practice of holding slaves. The text says that not emancipating a Gentile (except in order to fulfill a religious duty) is an obligation of the Jew according to several great Rabbinic teachers, although it points out also that two of the great Rabbis held otherwise. So, Gittin 38b is not a mandate to actively make slaves of those not slaves, nor is it a mandate that Jews must engage in holding slaves, but it is a mandate not to release those aleady enslaved and held (presumably because it will reduce the purity of the Jewish community by introducing non-Jewish freedmen).

Scripture does mandate or command that no one take the action of engaging in homosexual intercourse, but, as Gagnon says, it does not mandate that those who wish to obey God must take the action to enslave another or to engage in slave holding. The two are not analogous.

If Tobias Haller has directly refuted Robert Gagnon's arguements concerning Scripture's condemnation of homosexual practice, perhaps he would direct us to his refutation so we may read his serious arguements. Otherwise, his comments stated above including "few outside his [Gagnon's] circle of admirers take him seriously" cannot be taken seriously.

[D. C.]

Viator writes: "Scripture does mandate or command that no one take the action of engaging in homosexual intercourse, but, as Gagnon says, it does not mandate that those who wish to obey God must take the action to enslave another or to engage in slave holding. The two are not analogous."

Viator, that's not a great argument if you ask me. Evidently we're agreed that Scripture expressly permits keeping an already-enslaved person in bondage. That's indictment enough; it seems hardly different from (hypothetically) allowing the Israelites to slaughter captured children as a sacrifice to YHWH, but not requiring that they do so.

Certainly by contemporary standards, even permitting another human being to be kept in slavery is at least as "detestable" as male-male sexual activity, wouldn't you say?

[Tobias Haller]

Sorry, Viator, but you are mistaken, along with Gagnon. The passage from Lev 44 has been watered down in modern translations. The KJV more accurately uses "shall" where the NRSV uses "may" -- there is nothing merely "permissive" in the Hebrew. The verb forms are exactly the same as those in other commandments. This is in fact why Gittin 38b raises the mandate to the level of religious duty; the people are to have [Gentile] slaves and they are not to emancipate them. It is illogical to assume the Rabbis would give such weight to the phrase "for ever" if the rest were merely permissive. All of the language in this section (both Gentile slaves and prohibition on enslaving Hebrews) is in the same form -- regardless of attempts by modern translators to soften parts of the text.

I accept that this is not a universal mandate: that is, not every Jew is required to have a Gentile slave. It is a conditional mandate, similar to the other positive commandments -- that is, You shall honor your father and your mother clearly can't apply to an orphan. (But neither is the Levitical prohibition on male same-sexuality a universal prohibition; more on this below). But the Levitical regulation of slavery is as "mandatory" as a speed limit, which is to say, when you do X you must do it this way. No one would say that speed limits were not mandatory!

Other examples of a biblical mandate to enslavement include Genesis 9:25-27, where it takes the form of punishment on those to be enslaved (and yes, this is in the mouth of Noah rather than Moses, but the intent is clear -- and this in part forms the basis for the later Mosaic commandment). Joshua renders a similar judgment towards the Gibeonites. Then, to get back to explicitly divine ordinance, there is Isaiah 14:1-2, where God says that those who hold Jacob captive "shall" be enslaved by Jacob in return.

Set this against the single Levitical prohibition (and penalty) for a particular form of male homesexual behavior, which according to the best Jewish commentator (Jacob Milgrom) only applies to Jews in the land of Israel, and you see why I find Gagnon's broad brush approach unpersuasive. (BTW, I've also read his response to Milgrom; and even there he characteristically tries to appeal to the Genesis creation story! Hardly the work of a serious biblical scholar; as opposed to Milgrom, who is a giant in his field.) BTW, do you know what field Gagnon's PhD is in?

Speaking of creation, I also find it interesting that you fail entirely to address the other question -- of the role of slave imagery in creation and salvation, another of Gagnon's false assertions. As I noted, Adam was created as God's "slave" -- and God's liberation of the Israelites from Egypt was reclamation of his rightful property, whom he "bought" or "purchased" -- as Christ did the church! The language of slavery is intimately bound up with the mystery of salvation. And while it is true that by the time of Paul we get a more luke-warm tolerance of (rather than mandate to) slavery, we must note that Paul analogizes slavery with the relationship of believer (or the church as a whole) to Christ, in the same way he analogizes the relationship between husband and wife. (Ephesians 5)

Ultimately, and typically for Gagnon, he really misses the point of all this, anyway. The real issue isn't "did the Bible mandate slavery" but, "why did the Bible allow as moral something that we now hold universally to be clearly immoral?" That is the proper obverse of "can we now recognize as moral something classed as immoral in the Scripture."

So, as I said to M.W. above, I don't feel the need to engage in a broader refutation of the many other tendentious assertions and outright errors and misrepresentations in Gagnon's work. (His mis-citation of some of the late Apocrypha; his strange wanderings into anatomical speculation; his a-historical "flattening" of ancient Greek culture and literature as if it were all a single unitary ethos -- which he tends to do with Scripture as well). You may remain among his circle of believers, but you do so, I would say, only by ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

[Mike Watson]

Tobias Haller writes:

Ultimately, and typically for Gagnon, he really misses the point of all this, anyway. The real issue isn't "did the Bible mandate slavery" but, "why did the Bible allow as moral something that we now hold universally to be clearly immoral?" That is the proper obverse of "can we now recognize as moral something classed as immoral in the Scripture."

But Tobias, it was John Thorp, to whom Robert Gagnon was responding, who asserted that Scripture mandated slavery; in saying it was not mandated, Gagnon was responding to Thorp. Further, it is you who first mentioned the mandate issue in the discussion here on D.C.'s blog, and Viator was responding to you on that point. So it hardly seems reasonable for you to claim at this stage that it is Gagnon who is missing the point because he talks about the
mandate issue (while adding your little insult that missing the point is typical for Gagnon).

In fact what Gagnon does in the paper linked by D.C. is engage in a comprehensive assessment, including but not limited to the import of actual or supposed moral evolution. In responding, you seem to want to snipe around the periphery of what he is saying where you think you can spot a vulnerability, but not meet his central arguments. But at least as much as that, you seem to want to throw barbs and insults: "nonsense," "fixated," "few take him seriously," "hardly the work of a serious biblical scholar," and in your last paragraph, nonspecific references to his further errors and your superior knowledge.

As for Lev. 25:44, I don't pretend to know Hebrew, but if I understand correctly what you are saying, particularly in relation to the KJV, I don't get your point. You acknowledge, as I understand it, that any "mandate" is "conditional" in the sense that it specifies only how one may acquire slaves if one is going to hold them. But what was at issue is your statement that Gagnon was wrong in saying in his paper there is a mandate in Scripture to enslave others. What you now say, including your speed limit analogy, doesn't seem to demonstrate that there was such a mandate. Why isn't the "watering down in translation" you speak of just a case of a particular verb form having a different meaning when used in a sentence structured differently, so that the translator rendered it differently. Nor does "the curse of Ham" seem to support the existence of a mandate to enslave others.

[Tobias Haller]

Mike W., what I mean in the paragraph you cite is that Gagnon is misrepresenting what Thorp said (have you read Thorp's paper? -- if so you will see that I have fairly summarized his point, which is not the one Gagnon addresses). Thorp is trying to portray an evolution in moral thinking from a time at which an institution we now find reprehensible was completely approved and held to be morally blameless. He is suggesting that a similar movement (though in an reverse direction) might be made on the issue of same-sexuality. Gagnon claims in response -- ignoring the issue of moral development and focusing on his view of the legal code -- that these are not equivalent because slavery wasn't mandated, and homosexuality was utterly forbidden. (As I've noted, the latter claim is specious, in particular regarding female same-sexuality, about which the Law says nothing; but also goes far beyond the law's explicit ambit on male same-sexuality -- see Milgrom)

Gagnon creates the red herring about mandate to distract from the real argument -- for the only place Thorp mentions "mandate" is in the interpretation given to Genesis 9:25ff in the 17th through 19th century -- as a mandate to enslavement of Africans. This is the only reference Thorp makes to "mandates." And I should probably have left it at that, rather than trying to expose the shakey scholarship of Gagnon on the mandate issue, instead of his misrepresentation of Thorp.

That being said, I will stand by what I said above concerning Lev 25 -- to say nothing of the passage from Isaiah, which I don't see as possible to read in anysense other than as a definitive commandment to enslave (as with the passage in Joshua). People seem reluctant to accept that the Torah records God commanding some things that we now find terrible: genocide and the total annihilation of populations, for instance, and the slaughter of innocents with their parents. Slavery is among the least problematical of the commandments we would today find "immoral." Gagnon seems unwilling to accept that there can be such a thing as a moral evolution -- a change in moral understanding, in spite of the clear evidence. He desperately wants homosexuality to be kept on the "no change allowed" list -- and so spins out some rather fantastic arguments to that effect. I'm not the only one who finds them so.

To get back to the matter at hand, I suppose part of the confusion here is the range of meaning to the word mandate -- which can go from a strictly required command to a grant or title to act in a certain way. I am using it in this latter sense, which is also clearly the sense in which Thorp used it: the slave traders believed they had a mandate to enslave Africans. It was more than merely permitted or tolerated; it was "good and right so to do." Mandate isn't a Hebrew word; though the various commandments in Leviticus are styled as such. I am a student of Hebrew, and believe that the translators have tried to soften the effect of the language in modern versions. I suppose a clear free translation of the Lev passage in question could be "When you take slaves, male or female, they shall be from the nations.... and they shall be yours for ever." This is clearly a mandate in the sense of a conferred authority to act -- the sense in which Thorp uses it, though he is referring to the curse of Ham passage as interpreted in Europe.

None of this may convince you of the problems with Gagnon to which I refer -- and I note you've not addressed his assertions about the lack of any connection between slavery and the creation, which I think I've amply documented. If you want to read critiques of Gagnon they are plentiful, and I don't feel the need to add to them.

It is certainly true that Gagnon has a following; but he is to a large extent an "apostle to the convinced" -- and critical scholars with far more knowledge than I have seen through the holes in his arguments. I know of no one who wasn't already convinced of the wrongness of homosexuality who was swayed by him. That is what I mean about his circle of support. If you cannot see the logical inconsistencies in Gagnon's work -- to say nothing of taking the time to deal with his particular errors, a few of which I've noted briefly -- then I doubt anything I can say will convince you.

[Mike Watson]

Tobias: Although Thorp said (p. 8) that Gen. 9:25-27 not only permitted enslavement but mandated it, I see the point that he may not have meant to imply that Scripture in fact mandated slavery but only that an argument was made by slave traders, etc. that it did. So to that extent I may have been incorrect in implying that Gagnon's argument that there is no scriptural mandate to enslave others was specifically a response to a claim by Thorp that there was such a mandate. (See, however, Thorp's claim that the gist of Scripture was well summed up by Jefferson Davis in saying that slavery was established by decree of God.)

However, it doesn't follow that Gagnon was misrepresenting Thorp. Gagnon's "no mandate" point goes with three other principal differences between Scripture's stance on slavery versus homosexual practice. These are used in Gagnon's response to Thorp's moral evolution argument and address why an evolution in thinking about slavery shouldn't imply there should be a similar one about homosexual practice.

I still see some inconsistency or confusion about the sense in which "mandate" is being used. You say that you don't see how it is possible to read Lev 25 or the passage from Isaiah "in any sense other than as a definitive commandment to enslave" while a paragraph later you say that you are using "mandate" not in the sense of a strictly required command but "a grant or title to act in a certain way," which sounds awfully close to permission. I don't believe it's been shown why the ordinary understandings of "mandatory" and "permissive" aren't adequate here.

I haven't addressed all your points but I'm going to be traveling shortly for the rest of the day and need to move on.

[Tobias Haller]

I appreciate your willingness to stay with me on this Mike, as it is difficult. I think there are shades of meaning here that Gagnon is missing. I think for example that there are more shades of gray than "mandatory" and "permissive." (I would also suggest that most people use "mandatory" in a stronger sense than "mandate" alone implies -- such are the vagaries of language. (Compare, for example, the difference between "That fee is mandatory" and "I have a mandate to act.") Perhaps I'm being too subtle for my own good here ;-)

But I read the language of Lev 25:44ff as more than "permissive" or "tolerant" of something, especially when some suggest that Scripture really didn't approve of it. I'd suggest looking at the passage in the KJV, where it is stripped of the later political correctness of the RSV / NRSV. In addition, the passage should be seen in the larger context of commands to annihilate the native populations (the Gibeonites get enslaved rather than slaughtered thanks to their duplicitous deception); so naturally, if it is forbidden to enslave an Israelite, the slaves _must_ come from the remaining nations round about. There is no question of not having slaves -- it is intrinsic to the culture and time. The people thus receive a mandate to act.

I don't know about you, but I get the odd feeling that reasserters (such as Gagnon) are doing with these texts what reappraisers are accused of doing to the "clobber texts" against gays -- interpreting them in ways favorable to their conclusions instead of accepting the difficulties. Here the difficulty is that Scripture more than tolerates slavery -- it is behavior entirely approved. That is a difficult thing to come to terms with if one wishes to assert an unchanging moral code on all matters of human affairs; and I find here that Gagnon has failed to provide an adequate response to Thorp's demonstration that moral issues (including some resting on divine sanction / mandate / prohibition) and long held (up through the 19th century) are subject to elucidation and change.

That, it seems to me, is the proper focus for the discussion; and I would gladly depart from further fussing with the secondary issue of the degree to which Scripture shows slavery to have been approved; as it does not seem to be a particularly strong point in Gagnon's argument even if it were to be conceded.

[Mike Watson]

Tobias: To pick this up again, I thought it would be instructive for me to think back over this exchange and see whether I thought you had made any criticism of Gagnon that I could agree with. I'm afraid that at this point I can't see any. By way of recap (and here I'm going to shift back to referring to everyone in the third person):

Tobias Haller maintains (6/23, 10:30 am) that Gagnon is wrong in saying that there is no mandate in Scripture to enslave others (and that Viator is wrong in supporting Gagnon on this), saying that a proper translation would use "shall" rather than "may" and that there is nothing merely permissive in the Hebrew. But it turns out that Haller's clear free translation (6/23, 6:42 pm), although using a "shall," uses it within a conditional that assumes a case in which slaves are being taken. So Gagnon (and Viator) are not really wrong; it's just that they weren't using "mandate" in the way Haller would like them to. The examples from Gen 9:25-27 and Isaiah 14:1-2 seem to suffer from similar terminogical problems and, further, they are concerned about who might or should be enslaved rather than whether there is a mandate to enslave others.

Although I may have thrown Haller off the track in suggesting initially that Gagnon's discussion of "mandate" was specifically in response to Thorp's use of the word (rather than simply part of Gagnon's response to Thorp's argument), it is clear to me that Haller hasn't substantiated the claim (6/23, 6:42 pm) that Gagnon is misrepresenting Thorp.

Haller claims that Gagnon has made a false assertion that there is a lack of any connection between slave imagery and creation. I'm not sure where exactly this assertion is. But if it is the statement on page 9 of Gagnon's paper that "the biblical writers viewed heterosexual unions, unlike slavery, and normative and transcultural" I think that has to be read in the context in which he is using it -- in opposition to Thorp's moral evolution argument, where the slavery involved is one human being holding another in bondage, rather than a creation image of Adam as God's slave.

Haller says Gagnon's claim that homosexuality is completely forbidden is "specious," saying that the Law says nothing in relation to female same-sexuality (but not addressing Romans) and otherwise relying on Jacob Milgrom's minority view (6/23, 6:42 pm), Milgrom being "a giant in his field" while Gagnon is "hardly . . . a serious biblical scholar" who "characteristically tries to appeal to the Genesis creation story!" (6/23, 10:30 am).

Haller implies that Gagnon wishes to assert an unchanging moral code on all matters of human affairs (6/24, 3:01 pm). This is wrong. See pages 4 and 8 of his paper. What is at issue is whether a changed understanding is warranted in the particular circumstances being considered, and that is what Gagnon examines at length and with greater comprehensiveness than has been considered in this exchange. Haller also writes as though the burden of proof on this is the opposite of what it should be.

Since I am not persuaded by Haller's arguments against Gagnon on the isolated points where an issue has at least been joined, I am not that impressed by his less specific claims (e.g., 6/23, 10:30 am, last paragraph). Haller states that he doesn't feel the need to engage in a more comprehensive rebuttal of Gagnon. That's fine, it's not his particular responsibilty, but neither, apparently, does anyone else in the TEC reappraiser camp want to do this. To me, this is somewhat reminiscent of the situation with the acknowledged absence of a theological case being made for SSUs before the consents were given for Gene Robinson. One thing that can be said for Gagnon, in addition to being thorough, is that he's tenacious, and isn't above keeping an exchange going with someone who does take him on in a comprehensive paper or talk. See his website for examples.

[Tobias Haller]

Mike, I'm perfectly happy to let matters rest here. I never expected to convince or persuade you, as you clearly accept Gagnon's view on this subject. I leave it to others to read Gagnon and Thorp (and Wink, Milgrom, and the many others who have critiqued and been critiqued by him) and determine for themselves who they agree with. (I doubt many opinions are going to change). I think we can agree Gagnon is a most tenacious interlocutor.

[J]

Is it a sin to have blue eyes? Or its okay as long as you are with someone of the same color?

[Randy Woodruff]

Thanks DC. This finally explains what I knew in my heart to be sinful. I just couldn't figure out why.

The intermarriage of UT alums to A&M alums - clearly a separation desired by God. Why else would he have placed the schools in different cities and provide no decent highway between them?

[Dave in Dallas]

Randy... too funny!

Personally, I always think it's funny that we can "offend" God.

The great, big, almight, omni-everything, creator, and powerfull God is "offended" by something we little-specs-of-cosmic-dust do.