With the left having won its right to marraige for gays I am beginning to see
a new war starting on fidelity. Sadly we know infidelity is hardly even
disparaged outside of conservative Christian followers any more and even
too many of them are guilty of the very same sin.
In watching the coverage on Petraus and seeing some things start to come
up in the media excusing the sin it makes me wonder if this is the lefts next
battle in helping to move us past a Christian backing for our society?
As a society we left behind the Christian ideal of marriage a long time ago.... and that includes the majority of churchgoing folks too.
We enter into marriage often ill-prepared for it, with unreasonable expectations and with inadequate forethought and not knowing our partner very well.
No-fault divorce has probably done more to wreck the idea of lifelong monogamy than any other change in the past century.
However, we have to realize that our legal code is, to a large degree, a reflection of our society.
What I mean by that is, SOCIETY changes, then the legal code changes, in most cases.... not the other way around.
Divorce became more common and less stigmatized, and required less reason and became easier to obtain... AFTER more and more people began to discard the notion of lifelong monogamy and press for changes in the law to reflect changes in society.
A few generations ago, you didn't have a marriage LICENCE from the State... you had a marriage CONTRACT, between the two people marrying. Before that, marriage was less a civil matter than a social and religious one.
Once upon a time, societal pressure tended to create an atmosphere in which divorce and infidelity was frowned on... at least when publically exhibited. When that social convention went into decline, the laws on it began to change.
Changing the laws back to what they were in, say, 1950... won't change society back to what it was in 1950. It is hard to unspill milk.
There's also the question of whether it is right to try to impose morality under legal penalty... in the absence of choice, rightousness becomes mere legalism, rather than springing from a genuine conviction of the heart... you know which of those God seems to prefer.
Changing hearts and minds is what is required... and we would do well to begin that task by putting our own house in order and trying to do something about the divorce/infidelity rate among Christian homes, which is almost as bad as the general rate.