Polyamory: The Next Step in the Sexual Revolution According to Newsweek

Newsweek's new business model apparently has concluded that it can make money catering to an anti-Christian audience. So its relentless campaign against Christianity continues.

On Dec. 6, 2008 it presented the "Religious Case for Gay Marriage". Lisa Miller's article was a hit job on the Bible written in the village atheist style at about a Grade 7 level. It was full of slurs and obvious mistakes that any respectable second-year Bible major would laugh at. But it was not an anomoly or fluke.

On Apr. 4, 2009 the cover story was all about how - on the basis of one poll - we are now entering a "Post-Christian America." (The relief that oozed from between the lines was palpable.) By this point the bias was so obvious that Jon Meacham was forced to fend off his critics with an editorial entitled "We Didn't Attack Christianity." (Funny, I didn't see any editorials denying that Newsweek was attacking Islam; no need for that apparently.) By the way, the thrust of the editorial is that Meacham is not attacking Christianity, just the Christian influence on America. In his words:

"Note that we did not say we were discussing the decline and fall of Christianity, or even the decline and fall of Christianity in America. But "Christian America" is something else again. It is the vision of a nation whose public life is governed by explicitly articulated and adopted Christian principles in the hope, I think, that God will bless and protect the country and its people in the spirit of II Chron. 7:14."

So as long as Christians remain quiet about their faith and accept the complete privatization of religion, as demanded by aggressive, Enlightenment secularism, they won't get in trouble. But if they should demand that Christian principles (like justice, peace and concern for neighbour) influence public policy then that is unacceptable.

All this is background for the current edition of Newsweek's promotion of the next step in the sexual revolution. You didn't know there was a "next step" after "Gay Marriage"? Tsk, tsk. You really should get out more. Anyone who thinks that if they just capitulate on same-sex "marriage" then everything will quiet down and all the controversy over sex will go away is naive in the extreme.

The next sexual frontier, that is, the next deviation to be normalized, is polyamory. Polyamory is a kind of institutionalized promiscuity. It is a number of people living together and having sex with multiple partners all with the approval of the others involved in the arrangement. You say you have never heard of such a thing? Well, congratulations on not having been brought up in the sewer. But it is out there and it is a growing phenomenon.

The cover story tells traditionalists to "get used to it" and says polyamory is having a "coming out party." Doesn't sound very unbiased, does it? This is not exactly real, serious, newsmagazine journalism. Anyway, this is supposed to be the next logical step in the sexual revolution, according to Newsweek.

"Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who's also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren't pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO's Big Love; they aren't religious, and they don't have multiple wives. But they do believe in "ethical nonmonogamy," or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn't want to live any other way."

Don't you just love the way language gets mangled in the attempt even to talk about this type of thing: "ethical nonmonogomy" and "multiple-partner families"? How long do you think it will be before someone gets the bright idea that society should allow two men and one woman or any other polyamorus combination to "marry"? This, of course, will further erode the meaning of marriage.

The problem is that many of the leaders of contemporary, Western society have only a vague cultural memory of the true meaning of marriage. All they clearly remember is that it has something to do with society bestowing a sign of approval on the gratification of sexual desire, whereas in all other cases society frowns on such gratification. So it is about respectability and approval. Marital sex is not seen as any different from non-marital sex; both are about obtaining physical gratification and personal fulfillment. So why not slap the "marriage" label on a variety of sexual lifestyles as a way of liberating society and making more people happy?

The problem is that marriage is far more profound that this caricature of it. Sex is not about receiving gratification and personal fulfillment. It is about the total gift of self to the other in an act of committment both to the permanent and exclusive relationship it signifies and to the raising of the children that may be born from it. So sex outside marriage is a lie. It is saying "I'm committed" with the body even while not really being committed. There is a disconnect between what the act means objectively and what the people involved intend. Sex is thus degraded and the people who engage in sex outside of marriage thereby degrade themselves.

There are, in the end, only two moral positions on sex. Either it is for marriage only or it is an individualistic means to self-satisfaction and thus can take innumerable forms. Those who think it can be for marriage and also for a limited number of other contexts but not certain other contexts are confused. Rape is simply an extension of pornography and casual sex. Bestiality and orgies are simply the principle of individual gratification applied in other circumstances.

As uncomfortable as it may be to face up to, the reality is that in sexual ethics it is marriage or it is the gutter.