Rev. Sensing, pastor of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, writes for the Wall Street Journal:
The walls of traditional marriage were breached 40 years ago; what we are witnessing now is the storming of the last bastion. ... Today ... sexual intercourse is delinked from procreation. Since the invention of the Pill some 40 years ago, human beings have for the first time been able to control reproduction with a very high degree of assurance. That led to what our grandparents would have called rampant promiscuity. The causal relationships between sex, pregnancy and marriage were severed in a fundamental way. The impulse toward premarital chastity for women was always the fear of bearing a child alone. The Pill removed this fear.
It should be noted that people like Sensing disapprove of the removal of that fear. This is a branch of ecclesiastical authority that rules by fear: fear of pregnancy, fear of hell, fear of sin, etc. If it weren't for fear, it's unlikely that their theological position would get any attention whatsoever.
When society decided--and we have decided, this fight is over--that society would no longer decide the legitimacy of sexual relations between particular men and women, weddings became basically symbolic rather than substantive, and have come for most couples the shortcut way to make the legal compact regarding property rights, inheritance and certain other regulatory benefits. But what weddings do not do any longer is give to a man and a woman society's permission to have sex and procreate. Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated.
According to Sensing, then, marriage is merely a symbol without substance - and all because it's possible to have sex outside of marriage. Make sense? No, not to me, either. I guess that in Sensing's world marriage has no other purpose but to legitimize sex and lead to reproduction - that would be consistent with his contention that the "fundamental basis for marriage" has been "obviated" by contraception.
Sensing is right that "society" has decided to reject the idea that marriage is necessary to legitimize sexual relations. At the same time, that "society" has also rejected the idea that the only reason for marriage is legitimize sexual relations. Indeed, I'm not sur when the last time anyone argued that that was the case. Perhaps Sensing sees no point in marriage but the superficial purpose of sex and reproduction, but everyone I know regards marriage has having much deeper significance in their lives.
I must conclude that it is Sensing's conception of marriage that is without substance. My marriage is about much more than "property rights, inheritance and certain other regulatory benefits" - and it was not entered into either for the purpose of legitimizing sex or for the purpose of reproduction. I am thankful that my marriage is not limited to what ecclesiastical leaders like Sensing would like to impose on the nation.
Read More:
So your marriage is based on butt sex?
SICK!!!!