In the September 2020 issue of The Ensign, there’s an article entitled “The Divine Pattern of Eternal Marriage”, written by Elder David A. Bednar.
As soon as I saw the article, I knew it’d focus on defending heteronormative marriage as the norm and then outline why other marriages are abnormal.
And I was right.
While he certainly highlights the tired clichés used by “traditional marriage“ defenders, such as marriage being ordained of God, he uses a new strategy to justify the homophobic opposition of right-wing Mormons to such initiatives as marriage equality.
Bednar positions heteronormative marriage as innately self-sacrificing, that those within such marriages “los[e] [their] life in service to family or in self-sacrifice for spouse and children.”
In contrast, he frames the “modern secular concept of marriage” as one that is a “a purely private, contractual model”, one that is “easily entered and easily broken, with a focus on the needs of individuals” and “is based on extreme conceptions of personal autonomy and individual rights that elevate one’s own will over God’s will, that opt for personal choice over personal responsibility, and that prioritize the desires of individuals over the needs of spouses and children.”
He then uses this to lead the reader to this conclusion:
Given this trend, many in our culture could not long resist the call to redefine marriage from the union of man and woman to the union of any two people, regardless of gender. After all, if marriage is little more than a vehicle for advancing personal autonomy and individual rights—rather than a sacred and enduring union between man and woman centered on self-sacrifice and raising a family—then it becomes very hard to deny marriage—any type of marriage—to any couple or group of people that seek it.
You see, to him, gay marriages (or any marriage that isn’t between a straight and cis man and woman) are—to use the wording of one his colleagues—counterfeit, because the only reason anyone would enter into them is a selfish one.
To Bednar, two gay people advance in their relationship toward marriage not because their love for each other grows but because their desire for personal autonomy and individual rights intensifies.
But there’s one major flaw in Bednar’s argument: one of his premises is wrong.
Here’s the crux of his argument
- Premise A: Heteronormative marriages are selfless and self-sacrificing.
- Premise B: Non-heteronormative marriages are selfish and self-serving.
- Premise C: Peace and joy come from sacrifice to family.
- Conclusion: Those in non-heteronormative marriages have no peace and joy.
I agree with premise C; however, there is no proof that the other two premises are true. Marriages—straight, gay, or otherwise—are neither inherently selfless nor inherently selfish. Whether a marriage is selfless or selfish depends on the partners in that marriage. Regardless of sexual orientation, if the partners are selfless, they may find peace and joy; if they’re selfish, they may not.
I don’t know whether Bednar has ever met people in non-heteronormative marriages, but there are plenty of such marriages in which the partners are focused on sacrificing themselves for their loved ones. In addition, plenty of these marriages involve the raising of children.
Certainly, there are plenty of gay marriages where there are no children, but there are plenty of straight marriages with no children. Certainly, there are plenty of gay marriages that “lead to divorce as people bounce from one relationship to another”, but there are plenty of straight marriages that experience the same thing.
The main problem with Bednar’s argument is that he never establishes that gay marriages are indeed naturally selfish. He never presents evidence for the assumption: he merely gives the assumption as fact. And without providing meaningful justification for this premise, it threatens the stability of his argument.
Let’s review some examples from his text.
Men and women too often pursue relationships and marriage focused on their own needs and desires rather than on building stable marital and family relationships.
This is true, but it’s independent of sexual orientation. People of all gender identities and sexual orientations pursue relationships focused on their own needs and desires. Conversely, however, people of all gender identities and sexual orientations also pursue relationships focused on building stable marital and family relationships.
If marriage is little more than a vehicle for advancing personal autonomy and individual rights—rather than a sacred and enduring union between man and woman centered on self-sacrifice and raising a family—then it becomes very hard to deny marriage—any type of marriage—to any couple or group of people that seek it.
Well, that’s just my point. Bednar doesn’t provide compelling evidence that gay marriages are nothing more than a vehicle for advancing personal autonomy and individual rights. He also fails to prove that non-heteronormative marriages aren’t enduring unions centred on self-sacrifice and raising a family. Bednar fails to establish the if at the beginning of this statement, the if that his argument hangs on.
The man and the woman contribute differently but equally to a oneness and a unity that can be achieved in no other way. The man completes and perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn from and mutually strengthen and bless each other.
This is not inherent to just heterosexual couples. Queer couples can easily come into their relationship with complementary qualities, talents, and abilities, creating a more whole relationship. This is not something straight people have a monopoly on.
A home with a loving and loyal husband and wife is the supreme setting in which children can be reared in love and righteousness and in which the spiritual and physical needs of children can be met.
Nothing hinders a gay couple from being loving and loyal or rearing children in love and righteousness any more than it would a straight couple.
Bednar tries to paint a picture for the reader where all the benefits of marriage and parenthood are, for some reason, exclusive to straight couples, but he—like I said—never provides evidence for this assumption. And as someone who knows several queer people in long-term marriages, and even raising children, I can assure you that queer couples can have marriages and raise children.
I’m one of them.
You see, my marriage isn’t really based on my sexual orientation. It’s based on my love for my spouse. Similarly, our family isn’t based on my sexual orientation. It’s based on the love my spouse and I have for our children. I didn’t have children because I’m queer. I had children because my love for my spouse led me to want to create and raise children with her. It never had to do with my oritentation.
And if—for whatever reason, after over 25 years—we end up no longer married to each other and I find myself in another relationship, that relationship would also be based on love, not selfishness.
And on that note, there’s one more thing from Bednar’s article I wanted to address:
This view inevitably leaves in its wake traumatized children who needed the rich and committed soil of selfless and dedicated parents in which to sink their roots, abandoned because a father or mother has determined that he or she just is not being “true to himself or herself” by remaining in a marriage that he or she selfishly perceives is no longer serving his or her own interests or orientation. Ironically—and tragically—the freedom and personal autonomy they seek will, in the end, leave them bound by chains of isolation, loneliness, and deep regret.
This paragraph is the most damaging of all the commentary Bednar provides in his article.
Here, he’s referring to queer people who entered a heteronormative marriage but then later left it. Often, people in these circumstances either deny their queerness and are attempting to be straight (as I did) or they repress their queerness on purpose and think performing as straight can help them overcome the disease labelled “same-sex attraction”.
For the longest time, people who were ecclesiastical leaders when Bednar was bishop and stake president would counsel their congregants who approached them with their struggles trying to be queer and Mormon by telling them to perform as straight: date the “opposite“ sex, go on a mission, marry the “opposite” sex, and have children.
They pathologized queerness, and assumed that since it was a disease, it could be cured. And the best cure was heteronomative performance: the straighter they acted, the less queer they’d be.
People who enter a marriage “as a straight person” do so because they’ve been taught—explicitly or implicitly—that queerness is wrong. They’ve been taught that straightness is the ideal and that they must fit this ideal. It’s exaggerated in the church through things like temple marriage, where it’s required for the highest salvation but only those in heteronormative relationships can access it.
And all that creates pressure.
Queer people who enter straight marriages do so because of pressure: pressure to deny or repress their queerness. That pressure doesn’t diminish over time, and for some people, it actually intensifies, leading to mental and emotional struggle.
The fact that Bednar thinks leaving a marriage you felt forced to enter will end up in “isolation, loneliness, and deep regret” is the epitome of irony. Staying in a relationship with someone you aren’t sexually attracted to will, itself, lead to isolation, loneliness, and regret.
The fact that Bednar thinks that persons who leave such marriages do so out of simply a perception (let along a selfish one) is a testament to his own homophobic bigotry.
You see, the marriage never “served their orientation”. They didn’t marry because it “served their orientation”. They married because of pressure of expectations: expectations forced on them by society, family, and church. They don’t leave because the marriage “no longer” serves their orientation. They leave because it never did; they leave because it damages their orientation.
Would Bednar ever insist that a straight woman stay married to another woman? Or a straight man stay married to another man? All in an effort to provide children with “the rich and committed soil of selfless and dedicated parents in which to sink their roots”?
If the answer is no—that he wouldn’t force straight members to stay in a gay marriage—then he shouldn’t be advocating for gay members to stay in straight marriages.
Instead of telling gay members that they should suck it up and live the rest of their lives in mental and emotional pain, he should be using his energy to changing the rhetoric—both explicit and implicit—within the church that convinces queer members in the first place that they even need to be in a straight marriage at all.
But then again, this is the same person who thinks gay Mormons don’t exist. So, I’m not going to hold my breath.
