The economy tanks, war in Afghanistan heats up and spreads to a nuclear Pakistan, and climate change escalates even faster than scientists originally predicted. But the real controversy, the real issue of the moment facing Americans? Carrie Prejean (currently Miss California, runner-up to Miss USA) takes on gay marriage. She’s opposed, in the name of God and her Christian faith—“no disrespect intended.”
Clearly the culture wars wage on, though pressure continues to build on President Obama to weigh in on same-sex marriage, in which case all bets are off. A Supreme Court appointment may even be at stake.
For those who don’t follow this sort of thing, three weeks ago Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean was asked by judge Perez Hilton whether she thought gay marriage should be legal, to which Miss California responded “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Later, in a videotaped response to questions over whether her position on gay marriage cost her the contest, Hilton unloaded, saying that she didn’t lose because she opposed gay marriage but because she’s “a dumb b***h.” In the following days, Ms. Prejean became something of a cause célèbre for many on the religious right, including James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.
Bad Theology Leads to Bad Ethics
For my part, beauty pageants ceased to be of interest some time ago. In my opinion they are exercises in the banality of soft-core pornography; a feminist critique that appeared over thirty years ago. So it would normally be ridiculous to weigh in on this brouhaha, except that in this case the ethical and theological implications of opposition to same-sex marriage—always in the name of God and Christian faith—are horrible for those who don’t agree with her position, at least some of whom understand themselves to be Christian.
Furthermore, the ironies and inconsistencies that riddle her claims and those of her defenders reveal a deep ambivalence toward human embodiment that extends, beyond the fatuousness of their assertions and their religious loyalties, to the culture at large. Of course, each citizen has guaranteed rights to religious expression and free speech, but what are the implications of what we express in terms of what we actually practice? And how do our practices affect one another? In the last analysis, this is a matter of bad theology and cultural hypocrisy leading to bad ethics.
Regarding cultural hypocrisy, Carrie Prejean had breast implant surgery just weeks before the pageant, bought and paid for by the California Pageant people at her request. More recently, photos of Prejean bare-breasted have surfaced (and keep surfacing—see left half of story image). She was seventeen at the time they were taken. Apparently unaware that the country is currently debating whether to criminalize “sexting” by minors as the transmission of pornography (a conviction that could label them as sexual predators for the rest of their lives), her response is quite simply that she was a model at the time and that everyone makes mistakes. And, she asserted once again that she is now a Christian. Oblivious to the possibility that theological consistency might lead to a conclusion that a god who prohibits homosexuality and homosexual marriage would not look favorably upon her interventions with her own body, she stands by her claim that God intends heterosexual marriage exclusively.
The responses from her defenders exhibit the same theological inconsistencies and cultural hypocrisy, by and large portray her as a victim of the liberal entertainment industry, praising her courage, hailing her as their spokeswoman, and by extension God’s. Jerry Falwell Jr., Chancellor of Liberty University, has offered her a free ride at Liberty to complete her college education. He noted that all of the male students currently enrolled, having seen her bikini pictures, would line up to donate the funds personally. (It’s not entirely clear whether she can meet the dress code, once she were to arrive, however.)
Shrouding Sexual Titillation and Drooling Voyeurism with the Patina of Beauty and Virtue
One commenter on the Miss USA site, a budding theologian identified only as “CF,” asserted that it was obvious that God intended heterosexual sex only, based on anatomy and electricity (not election). CF likened male-female intercourse to plugging in a television set, writing, “If you look at the anatomy of a male and female, you’ll notice that it works in the same way. The male end goes into the female end. And, you need to know that the ‘inward’ end on a male, is NOT a female end! That is an ‘EXIT ONLY’ end, just as it is for a female.” (What would Thomas Aquinas say? Or, alternatively, Joe the Electrician? Is this the price we pay for lack of sex education in the public schools?) One obviously exasperated respondent to CF’s wisdom wrote back emphatically:
Quite simply, gay relationships are not meant to be, period. Thus, “gay marriage” does not exist with God…HOWEVER, A GIRL IN BIKINI IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF MEN, IT’S OK? HEY CF, WHAT RELIGION DO YOU BELONG TO, OR WHO’S YOUR GOD FIGURE?
Two very astute theological questions.
The sad truth is that neither a feminist’s nor a theologian’s work is ever done. The critique still holds. We as a nation promote biologically reductionistic, soft-porn views of human bodies and human sexuality, views that do real violence to real people. Don’t get me wrong; my objection is not to naked bodies and eroticism, but to shrouding sexual titillation and drooling voyeurism with the patina of beauty and virtue, a phenomenon hardly restricted to the religious right alone. We don’t have to be right-wing evangelicals to be confused about our own flesh; bought, marketed, and consumed through various print and electronic media. Indeed, the Carrie Prejeans and Jerry Falwells Jr. of the world are just more transparent.
Another case in point, Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol recently appeared on the Today show, sitting next to her father, her aptly named son Trip nestled asleep on her arm. She struggled to articulate her sense of her newfound mission to travel around the country urging adolescents to abstain from sex in order to avoid early pregnancy and motherhood. She tried to find words to express how baby Trip himself was a blessing not a mistake, but premarital sex and pregnancy were to be avoided. She simply kept repeating to Matt Lauer, “It’s hard work all the time [to rear a child].” Her father stepped in and simply spoke for her, though he struggled as well.
If You See Someone Ugly-Looking, Don’t Judge ’Em
Almost concurrently, the news broke on the first face transplant in America. Connie Culp, shot in the face five years ago by her husband, standing with shotgun a mere eight feet from her, appeared on the screen. Her new face, still a work in progress, is a grotesque image in no way resembling her earlier likeness, though a definite improvement over the face her husband left her with. Before the transplant (but 30 plastic surgeries after the assault), she had no palate, no sense of smell; she could take food only through a straw. Now blind in one eye, she, like Bristol, struggled for words: “If you see someone [ugly-looking], don’t judge ’em,” she pleaded, “because you never know what happened to ’em.” Of her husband’s upcoming release from prison in 2012, she said, “Don’t go there,” adding, “I’ll always love him; he was my first love.”
I am left with sad musings rather than great, profound responses to the messiness of our attitudes toward our bodies and the loves with which we love one another. This much is clear: Marriage as we know it is all too often a nasty arrangement. Nearly half of American heterosexual marriages end in divorce (down from an earlier era). Irrespective of its nastiness, it is first and foremost a legal determination, essentially for economic purposes, a matter of State, not Church, and in this country the State is banned from establishing religion in any form.
Nastiness notwithstanding, to bear and rear children outside the institution of marriage in this country is, as Bristol Palin declared so plaintively, “hard work all the time” at best, and especially cruel for mothers (unless, of course, you are Angelina Jolie or Madonna). As for Carrie Prejean, no disrespect intended, I believe it presumptuous to speak on the subject of marriage so easily, for God and all Christians. Nevertheless, she too is a victim of a cultural pornography that cuts across the political spectrum, masking itself as beauty, virtue, and moral outrage. Both Prejean and Palin are being used, albeit with their own cooperation; we might do well to consider Connie Culp’s plea: “If you see someone [ugly-looking], don’t judge ’em, because you never know what happened to ’em.”
We project gods, secular as well as religious, that bear remarkable resemblances to ourselves and proceed to absolutize our most cherished values as universal, binding to all, whether they share those values or not. We proceed to act accordingly in their name, punishing those who resist. Thus, our gods say much about who we are, what we hold dear, what we dream for the future. I think the exasperated respondent got it right when asking CF, “WHAT RELIGION DO YOU BELONG TO, OR WHO’S YOUR GOD FIGURE?”
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Tags: beauty pageant, carrie prejean, gay marriage, homophobia, miss usa, paula cooey, perez hilton, pop culture, same-sex marriage, symbolism
Ok so your headline got me to read the article, knowing fully in advance that Ms. Prajean is really just a nice, above average beauty contestant who holds conventional Christian views, and is being pilloried for them. Ms. Prajean, unlike the editors of this newsletter, did not hold anyone up to personal ridicule, she merely repeated, respectfully, what has always been Christian teaching, universally acknowledged by every denomination from every pulpit until very, very recently. Ms. Prajean did not and has not sought the mantle of "Prophet", and to refer to her as a "Porn Star" (even with the question mark, an old Fox News tactic allowing any sort of smear) is loathsome. And by the way, Barrack Obama has weighed in on Gay Marriage, and his views, unless he's lying to us, are the same as Ms. Prajean's, John Kerry's, Hillary Clinton's, Bill Clinton's, and many others I've also voted for. Before social normalcy was abolished, her views would have been termed normal. Perhaps "irreligion" dispatches works better for this article.
Rather than look down your nose at Christians who are supporting Ms Prejean, I'd like to know how you think it is theologically inconsistent to not support gay marriage and yet have no problems with "interventions" on your body.
I'm sorry, but that is patently absurd. By the same logic, you would condemn me for going to the gym and working out in order to look more attractive. I think it can be carried to the extreme, if you obsess with the idea of "looking sexy" for the sake of looking sexy. But modest breast implants? C'mon.
It's actually quite theologically inconsistent, and in very interesting ways. People oppose gay marriage as inconsistent with the nature of heterosexual union described in Genesis, right? By the same token, tattoos, piercings, and vanity-based plastic surgery are proscribed on the basis of the Torah (e.g., Lev 21:5), with the interpretation that God saw the human body He created as perfect, and so intrinsically defiled through such "mutilations." So, Phil A., by the Bible's standards there is a load of difference between working out and getting a bigger breast, or a smaller nose, or an ear-piercing -- that should be obvious. And once again, opponents of gay marriage pick and choose which divine laws they want to live by.
What a wonderfully rich theological analysis of this pop culture story. I hadn't heard the bits about Liberty University--but those sorts of attitudes go a long way to help understand why it is that evangelical men have one of the highest incidences of pornographic addiction among religious groups--a fact that even conservative religious leaders will quietly and ruefully admit. Putting the Connie Culp news in tandem with Miss California sharpens the contrast of, "Who's your God figure?" Indeed. With all the venom, sexism, and homophoia poured out on this story, I'm actually a little worried to find out how some people would answer the question.
To spell it out for those who don't intuitively understand the author's point:
1. Opponents of "gay marriage" say that it's against Nature, it's "un-natural", and it's not the way God created the world...
2. Silicone breast implants are similarly "un-natural", "against Nature" and most definitely NOT "the way God created the world" (Read Genesis...Dow Corning isn't mentioned even once!)
3. Therefore, those who are against "gay marriage" for those reasons and yet avail themselves of breast implants are definitely being inconsistent.
What I wonder is why these people (and the troll who was SHOUTING in the deleted comment) are even reading materials on this site? How do they get here in the first place? Are they "spying" for some Christian Dominionist outfit? Do they get their jollies this way? Do they think they'll change anyone's mind with their rants? What a puzzle...
Thanks to the author & editors for this fine piece.
The same chapters in the Bible which are against gay marriage, are also against:
- Eating Pork
- Wearing cloting made of 2 fabrics
- Working on Saturdays
So shouldn't opponents of gay marriage be mobilizing to outlaw the above acts as well?
The first 2 are from the Old Testament and are no longer binding for non-Jews. The third I agree with. If we kept the Sabbath-this world and country would be much better--but since we run on a global economy, that is hard to re-implement. I remember the quiet and spiritual Sundays of my youth--no businesses were open and the day was spent reading or visiting family and friends. Yes I think we should work to outlaw working on the Sabbath.
Were I a gay person seeking to legalize same sex marriage, I'd tend to think that comparing my situation to that of someone seeking cosmetic enhancement utterly trivial. But for the sake of criticising Ms. Prajean, people sympathetic to the same sex marriage cause are doing just that, which results in trivializing their own position. And they're using what my Logic textbook refers to as the oft misunderstood "ad Hominem" argument, using the particular situation of the opponent to attack them. Rush does it all the time, do you really want to follow his lead? Likewise, there's a posting here indicating Evangelical men use porn more than any other group, it would be nice to show a source for that assertion. Yet were it true, it's hard to see how tossing an accusation rises to the level of rebuttal. And publishing pornography is illegal in the United States, by the way, and I daresay you won't find many evangelical men marching in protest should the federal government ever choose to enforce those particular laws.
From the perspective of traditional Judaism (and I had thought conservative Christianity agreed on this point, but I guess not), one of the things that always strikes me about people like Ms. Prejean (or Ann Coulter for that matter) is how immodest they are - certainly in dress but also in behavior. If one presumes to represent a religious point of view, shouldn't one try to do so with as little hypocrisy as possible?
What we we have people do then?
Withhold praise and support for telling the truth from everyone who has ever sinned?
It also seems to imply that the Church should now say, "Let them who are with sin cast as many stones as they can at her. We'll hold your clothes so they don't get spattered."
It's a fairly fat line between "casting stones" and critically engaging with the world. Paula isn't wagging her finger at Prejean but rather pointing to an inconsistency in the theology that begs the question: what is the true nature of conservative christian opposition to gay marriage?
One of the first books I bought when I was becoming a young Christian was a little tract from Association Press. It was Seward Hiltner’s “Sex and Christian Life.” The tract was helpful as has been much theology I read during the next 61 years.
I own a large private library on romantic love, sexuality, theology, biblical studies—all part of my effort to understand his core part of myself in theological terms. I recall with gratitude the ministry of the Rev. Roland Perdue and later of the Rev. Milner Ball at Westminster House at the University of Georgia as well as the ministry of the Rev. Robert Burns, late pastor of Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. The Methodist Churches sponsored major studies in human sexuality that influenced Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and the Cross Road Interfaith Bookstore in Portland, Oregon provided excellent resources that I enjoyed and celebrated. To boot, my marriage counselors were a Baptist pastor and a former Catholic priest who had taught pastoral care at a seminary. However, in many ways, the Church has not always been a healthy arena for me to explore sexuality.
Ambiguities abound, at least they do for me. With all the help from churches, scholars, and theologians, I found that my Christian identify confounded my sexuality. To explain would be too autobiographical for brief comment.
Complaints about Carrie Prejean and so-called beauty contests seem to pertain to how we make young women (and me) fetish items. We tend to limit our range of sexual expression to those who fit these fetish images or models. I recall young feminists including my first lover protesting this process of making fetishes out of young women even as she enjoyed the fruits of representing a fetish image.
We still talk double-talk about sexuality. We still seem embarrassed to be sexual beings. At least, we still seem confused about what being sexual means. That is not to say that Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Lawrence Durrell were any better or more helpufl.
Professor Cooey is an important commentator on theology, feminism, and sexuality. Like me, I think she remains in awe of the mystery of embodied love and the mysteries that define being a human being.
This is not a direct reaction to the article because I do not quite understand the article. The mysteries are still mysteries that facile expressions, debates, icons, and theories do not quite define or cover.
Well, I guess I was sometimes a fetish icon in my younger years--at least to some old gay men.
If Carrie's poses are considered pornographic then there are many commercials on television that should be condemned. Public beaches should be closed if they are frequented by California's infamous string bikini babes. We should demonstrate in front of art galleries that display far more revealing images, and access to the Sistine Chapel should be restricted to 18 years and older.
Then all those women that paint there faces, have plastic surgery or facial enhancing injections should be required to wear burkas ...... oh, wait that is already a requirement in certain parts of the world and it's on it way to a site near you in the coming decades.
I'm not very religious, I prefer to see the forest, but I do believe in all of the important principles.
You can play word games with this until domes day (probably not that far away) but it prefer the distant view that shows a young lady barely out of her teens being STONED for being honest. Yes honesty is one of those fundamentals that I believe in without requiring pages of scripture to justify.
So have at it with your theology, it all just smoke.
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