Every once in a
while, a rare moment of complete honesty is so refreshing that, even
when it jars our sensibilities, we are glad of it.
An event at
Harvard last week has much to teach us about where we are headed in
a culture increasingly offended by creation. The Harvard Crimson
reports that the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters
Alliance is up in arms. Harvard, they protest, lacks “sensitivity
towards issues of sexuality.”
So what
happened? Some brutal attack against a gay person? Some poisoned
insult? Perhaps an instance of employment discrimination, a
professor fired because of his sexual orientation? Nope. It’s
worse than all of this…much worse.
Jada Pinkett
Smith, wife of Will Smith, spoke at Harvard, and what she had to say
has offended the BGLTSA community. Darling of popular culture,
married to Will, and black and beautiful on movie posters, Jada was
selected as Artist of the Year. If she had only been the quiet
submissive type to accept her award and bat a few lashes at the
camera, all would have been well.
But she couldn’t
leave it at that. Nope. She had to offend the sensibilities of the
Harvard intellectual elite by doing the unthinkable…embracing her
creation as woman. She told the audience, “Women, you can have it
all – a loving man, devoted husband, loving children, a fabulous
career.”
Whoa, Jada. It’s
all right for Hollywood to exploit woman, baring all and filming the
union of man and woman from every possible camera angle. It will
even earn stars coveted awards and invitations to speak at Harvard.
But let’s not affirm Creation’s sexual design between man and woman
as something to be desired. Let’s not be “heteronormative!”
Can we appreciate
the irony of Jada’s insults? Our intellect has perfected the use of
Creation’s gift of heterosexual love to offend families and children
with unending pornography…at the same time that our intellect is
offended by speaking of heterosexual love as a natural gift of
Creation.
This particular
irony is more than humorous. It is an irony that brings clarity.
The current wars
about what we should teach our children about sex are enflamed by
the same debate burning around Jada’s comments at Harvard. It’s
just that few have been willing to speak boldly and honestly about
the great offense of abstinence.
Several years
ago, I asked a critic of abstinence education, “What is wrong with
teaching children the value of abstaining from sex?”
She sputtered and
shook her head from side to side. “Have you seen what they are
teaching?” I had. “It’s so homophobic!”
If one didn’t
know better, you would think she meant it teaches children to hate
gays. But to those who lead the re-engineering of human sexuality,
it’s all the same thing. In their minds, affirming heterosexuality
is equivalent to hating homosexuality.
Abstinence
educators are actually charged with teaching that, “a mutually
faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the
expected standard of human sexual activity.” As we ponder the
offense of affirming heterosexuality and marriage, we have to wonder
what the Harvard intelligentsia would recommend as the antidote to
unwed teen pregnancy? Abortion? Contraception? GLTB sex?
Abstinence
education offends because it has the audacity to teach, “You can
have it all – a loving man, a devoted husband, loving children, a
fabulous career.” It offends when it teaches students that babies
are a natural design of creation coming from sex between a man and a
woman. It is “heteronormative” when it suggests that our children
can have it all…sex, pleasure, babies, and marriage…if they can
succeed in abstaining from sex until marriage.
Sensitive Harvard
Politico Correctos don’t want Jada, the darling of Hollywood to say
it. And they don’t want our teachers to say it.
Men and women
were created for each other, but don’t dare say it out loud.
