The Momentum for Marriage is No Longer Deniable for Opponents

March 07, 2011

Written by Freedom to Marry's New Media Intern Joe Girton

Albert Mohler has something to say. The prominent evangelical and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is telling his people to get ready: the freedom to marry is coming.

Speaking on the Focus on the Family radio program, Mohler’s words seemed, if not to endorse, to fully acknowledge the growing acceptance of the marriage for gay couples in this country. “I think it's clear that something like same-sex marriage is going to become normalized, legalized and recognized in the culture,” he said. The man has a point – Mohler’s alignment with the truth of the marriage movement's ascent in recent years is telling of the times.

His statement comes at an appropriate moment: this week the Pew Center released new poll data again showing rising support for the freedom to marry among voters from all age groups. And notably, the percentage of independents in favor of ending marriage discrimination jumped from 37% in 2009 to 51% today.

Yes, Mohler’s acknowledgment of the inevitability of marriage is progress, but he doesn’t go much further than an objective recognition of the reality. In an essay published on his website, Mohler attempts to explain away support for marriage as a product of this country’s supposedly radical, progressivist obsession with liberating people who are being oppressed – which in his mind cannot exist without religious morals (as he defines them).

Let’s explore the fallacies in his trivialization of the growing popular support for ending marriage equality. First off, Mohler posits that “the movement to normalize homosexuality” has preyed on America’s affinity for “the progressivist version of history” and “took it up with enthusiasm.” The language he uses imposes undertones of radicalism on the push for the freedom to marry, and implies that its advocates have used and somehow cheapened political precedents on civil rights. In doing so, Mohler tries to distance this “progressivist understanding of history” from the preservation of human “moral obligations and commitments.” That’s a mistake.

Why? Because Mohler’s version of “moral obligations and commitments” are subjective, religiously based, and should not be the controlling factor in a dialogue over a legal question that affects a huge number of Americans. He tries to claim that acceptance of the freedom to marry is due to a lack of public loyalty to what he claims are “unifying” morals, and in doing so, takes his description of the concept of liberation of the oppressed to exaggerated and unrealistic extremes: “If the only story we have is the narrative of liberation from oppression, then, as Karl Marx understood, all that remains is an unstoppable revolution that dissolves all bonds of relationship, kinship, tradition, and moral order.” This apocalyptic outcome is not anyone’s goal, nor is it a foreseeable reality. In fact, this hypothetical fear-mongering entirely contradicts the goal of ending marriage discrimination: we’re trying (successfully) to extend the right to preserve bonds of relationship, kinship, and tradition.

Because Mohler is unable to reconcile the freedom to marry with his own personal principles, he makes the assumption that supporters have no principles themselves. This narrow-mindedness outlines the myopic lens with which Mohler observes marriage. By presenting it as a polarity between the supposed timelessness of “traditional” marriage and the somehow poisonous new value of allowing all loving and committed couples to marry, he invokes a manufactured ideological duality that simply isn’t there.

Ending marriage discrimination won’t dilute the historical value of marriage, as Mohler seems to suggest. If anything, it would reinforce the very values that he and other religious people cherish. That’s why more and more clergy are coming out in support of the freedom to marry: because they realize that protecting families and ensuring dignity through government recognition are concepts endemic to the religious pillars they adhere to (as we recently pointed out on this blog). These people support the freedom to marry not in spite of their religious values, but because of them. 

In a concluding point in his essay that escapes logic, Mohler praises marriage as a “liberating, God-given institution for human flourishing.” While marriage isn’t religious for everyone, he seems to hit the nail on the head by describing it as a cradle for human happiness. Humanity is a pretty universal descriptor, right? What’s odd is that he uses this statement as an argument against the freedom to marry, placing it in opposition to “the other side,” which “sees a moral mandate to liberate marriage from its heterosexual limitation.” The only possible explanation of these two statements’ presentation as opposites, with “little shared ground,” is that Mohler inherently excludes gay and lesbian couples from his definition of those humans allowed the right to “flourish.” And yet Mohler does also say that "Fear of minorities, including homosexuals, has led to scapegoating and hatred, cloaked in the language of moral rectitude. These things must give way to moral progress and be denounced with moral fervor." His position is rife with contradictions.

On one hand, it’s gratifying to hear a personality like Mohler recognize the progress of the push for the freedom to marry. But his words come laden with so many misconceptions, old stereotypes, and antagonism that it’s hard to feel anything but exasperated. Yes, we’re glad that you’re in line with the objective reality. Pull your ideas out of the past, too.