Bishop Spong’s agitation for the ordination of practicing homosexuals received “moral” support last February from the Special Task Force on Human Sexuality of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Presbyterian commission recommended the ordination of homosexuals as well as the provision of medical and pension benefits to same-sex couples, and their recommendations will be submitted to the church’s 1991 General Assembly. This represents a further advance of the radical proposals put forward by a study group that met earlier in Charlotte, North Carolina. Although there seems to be little doubt that this task force is no more representative of the convictions of the majority of Presbyterians than Spong’s views are of those of Episcopalians, their behavior makes it plain that traditionalists will have a hard time blocking this recommendation to legitimize conduct that many would consider evidence of moral degeneracy.

The Presbyterian task force, of course, is merely following the lead of San Francisco and a number of other communities that have legally recognized so-called “domestic partnerships.” Although the legislation covers a number of different situations, its primary beneficiaries are homosexuals, and its primary victims are traditional family values. Following the first group of “domestic partners” to be registered in San Francisco, an “interdenominational worship service” celebrated this travesty of Christian marriage.

If we distill all the “wisdom” that seems to be embodied in abortion rights (“freedom of choice”), “gay” rights, “no-fault” divorce, and the like, we might conclude that the ideal “lifestyle” for males would be monastic celibacy (no children, no wife, and of course no sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS), and for women, lesbianism (no troublesome pregnancies, no abortions, no children, and no AIDS). Perhaps the only thing wrong with this vision is that in a few score years, if adhered to, it would mean no people. This might seem unfortunate, but at least it would leave the environment to proceed on its way untroubled by human manipulation, and thus achieve one of the goals of our “greens” of various shades. Of course, neither would there be any greens around to appreciate it.

The separation in principle and in practice of sexuality from reproduction began in earnest with the widespread use of the birth control pill in the late 1950’s. At that time the sociological and moral implications were not fully foreseen, and those who made dire predictions were dismissed as puritans and prudes. But the consequences are now clear: abortion on demand (at a rate approximating one abortion for every two births) is the price we pay for the “freedom” of heterosexual license, and AIDS is the price of homosexual promiscuity. Yet public officials and the media have accepted the dogma, actively promoted by Planned Parenthood and certain “sex educators,” that no one is able to abstain from sexual behavior, even for a brief time. The corollary to this is that it is also unrealistic to expect people to abstain from promiscuous sexual relations with all sorts of partners. In other words, we are to presuppose that promiscuity, homosexual as well as heterosexual, is the accepted norm, and that the only way to deal with AIDS and with other sexually transmitted diseases (AIDS has not yet been officially designated as such) is by providing the most antiseptic and least contagious conditions under which to engage in highly septic and contagious practices.

It ought to be possible to avoid the dangers of self-righteous condemnation without abandoning the right to call sin sin and to warn of the very real and virtually inescapable perils that sexual excesses bring. Many have criticized, and justly so, the efforts of some media and sex educators to call sex with condoms “safe sex,” and recently some authorities have gone in for the somewhat more correct expression, “safer sex.” But it is time for religious leaders to recognize that by failing to designate perversion and degeneracy as what they are, in the name of a false tolerance, they may very well be creating “safe sin.” The pronouncements of people who ought to be moral teachers, such as Spong and the members of the Presbyterian task force, are not causing the problem, but they are contributing to its severity and making recovery more difficult.