The comments in a recent thread on same-sex marriage have been heading in this direction, so I thought I'd offer some thoughts about polyamorous relationships and how we can view them from a humanist standpoint.

The reason I (and others) advocate full marriage equality for same-sex couples is straightforward. Marriage is a civil ceremony which confers many legal rights on both partners, rights which are either extremely burdensome or impossible to obtain any other way. At present, the law in many states denies certain couples the right to enter into marriage because of the gender of the participants. This is wrong for precisely the same reason as anti-miscegenation laws, which denied certain couples the right to enter into marriage because of the race of the participants. Both of these are discriminatory policies which deny people the equal protection of the laws by treating them differently based on which group they belong to (black/white, heterosexual/homosexual).

However, laws which restrict marriage to two partners are not discriminatory in the same sense, because those laws apply equally to everyone. Unlike with same-sex marriage, therefore, I conclude that there is no straightforward anti-discrimination argument for extending marriage rights to polyamorous partnerships. This is not a case of legal benefits being offered to certain partnerships but denied to others based solely on morally irrelevant characteristics of the partners, like race or gender. Instead, the law is consistent: no one can enter into a legal marriage with more than one partner. One can certainly argue whether this is the most rational policy for society to follow, but it's not a self-evident violation of anyone's human rights.

So far, so good. But now the further question: even if it's not discrimination, is it the most rational policy for society to forbid multiple-partner marriages?

The first thing to recognize, in my opinion, is that once we decide to allow polyamorous marriages, there's no rational cutoff point at which we can limit their size. Any argument which would permit a polyamorous relationship of N partners would equally well permit a relationship of N+1 partners. (In software engineering, my chosen field, a similar principle is called the zero-one-infinity rule: "When processing input, allow none of X, one of X, or infinity of X.")

But this presents us with some problems, because there are numerous rights and responsibilities that come with a two-person marriage that simply can't be extended in a straightforward manner to a multiple-partner marriage. Take the right not to testify against your partner in court, for example, or the death benefits paid to partners of federal employees, or the right to gain residency or citizenship by marrying someone who is already a citizen. Allowing such rights to be extended to an arbitrarily large group of partners could lead to chaos - but having permitted them for two-person marriages, how could we fairly forbid them to larger arrangements?

And then there are the legal issues, which would be orders of magnitude more complex than the already difficult dilemmas that arise in family law. How do you take a new person into a polyamorous relationship - must it be by unanimous consent of all current partners, or a mere majority vote? If such a partnership dissolves, how do we fairly divide up property, or settle on child custody or visitation rights? If you're married to two or more people and become incapacitated, who would have the deciding vote in matters of care? These problems aren't insoluble - but they would be extraordinarily difficult to grapple with. (This, again, contrasts to same-sex marriage, where the nature, rights and responsibilities of the relationship don't change just because we've removed one limitation on who can participate. Polyamorous marriage, on the other hand, would truly be a brand-new kind of relationship requiring its own set of rules.)

All these factors would seem to indicate that our current policy is rationally justified. And yet, the libertarian in me rebels against the idea that the state has any business butting into people's private relationships. Mutually consenting adults should be able to enter into any kind of arrangement they please. I have to admit that I find considerable justice in this argument. If three people rather than two want to share household responsibilities, by what right can we deny them that? A larger family structure might even, arguably, be superior to pair marriages in terms of sharing childcare duties and other responsibilities, and more resilient against tragedies like the death of one partner.

On the other hand, these lofty principles, so clear and simple-seeming in the abstract, inevitably get snarled in the complications of the real world. And here's one whopping big complication that atheists and freethinkers should be especially sensitive to: in the real world, one of the most common manifestations of plural partnerships is in religious cults that use polygamy as a way to keep women subjugated.

Escapees like Carolyn Jessop and Elissa Wall have written grippingly of their virtual imprisonment in isolated sects like the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints - an extremist offshoot of the Mormons), which force girls into harem-like polygamous marriages with older males whom they're expected to obey absolutely. (See also this article, or my older posts on Warren Jeffs.)

This is an evil that no society should tolerate - but if we legally permit polyamory, how can we prevent it? Better enforcement of age-of-consent laws would help, but even so, this would not prevent women who feel they have no place else to turn from being coerced into these relationships of subjugation.

With all this in mind, my qualified conclusion is that society should not legally recognize polyamorous relationships. I certainly don't think consenting adults should be prohibited from doing whatever they want in their private lives, but the full range of legal benefits that come with marriage should be limited to two-person partnerships, at least for now. However, I'm open to counterarguments. Is there a way to treat all kinds of committed relationships evenhandedly without encouraging women's subjugation or opening the door to legal absurdities?

Other posts in this series:

• On the Morality Of...

The Roman Catholic church's stated reason for opposing homosexuality is that it violates a vaguely-defined construct they call "natural law". This viewpoint is explained in essays like this one:

People have a basic, ethical intuition that certain behaviors are wrong because they are unnatural... The natural sex partner for a man is a woman, and the natural sex partner for a woman is a man. Thus, people have the corresponding intuition concerning homosexuality that they do about bestiality — that it is wrong because it is unnatural.

Unfortunately, this article doesn't explain how we tell which of our intuitions can constitute "natural laws" and which cannot. A large majority of people once held the view that interracial sex was "unnatural" - in fact, some people still do hold such views - so would the Catholic church also advance a natural law argument for anti-miscegenation laws? If not, why not? How do we tell which of our intuitions can serve as the basis for natural law and which are simply popular prejudices falsely being passed off as intrinsic parts of human nature?

But even beside the problem of subjectivity and clashing intuitions, we can level a charge of hypocrisy against those who make natural-law arguments. After all, what could be more "natural" for human beings than having sex? We're designed for it, hard-wired for it, physically and mentally. Billions of years of evolution - which the Catholic church accepts - have stamped us with an extremely strong, if not all-consuming, innate desire to pass on our genes. Yet the Catholic church fights against this fundamental part of human behavior by demanding that its clergy should remain lifelong celibates, never having sex and never falling in love. What could be more abnormal, more "unnatural", for human beings than that?

And the facts bear this out: in a large number of cases, the official rule of celibacy is repeatedly and flagrantly broken. Consider this article from this week's New York Times, "A Mother, a Sick Son and His Father, the Priest":

Ms. Bond separated from her husband, and for the next five years she and the priest, the Rev. Henry Willenborg, carried on an intimate relationship, according to interviews and court documents... In private they functioned like a married couple, sharing a bed, meals, movie nights and vacations with the children.

This Missouri woman was approached and seduced by a Catholic priest, a Franciscan friar named Henry Willenborg, which began a long-term romantic relationship. One of their sexual liaisons resulted in the conception of a child, a boy named Nathan. (The article says that Willenborg initially suggested she get an abortion.) After legal prodding, the church reluctantly agreed to pay some financial support to the family, but only on condition that she sign strict confidentiality agreements. By a stroke of tragic fortune, both she and her son are terminally ill, which is why she's decided to come forward with her story. Willenborg's superiors were aware of his relationship well before Nathan's birth, but as you probably expected, he's never been removed from the priesthood or punished in any way.

But what makes this story more than an anecdote is this jaw-dropping statistic:

A landmark study in 1990 by the scholar A. W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine, found that 20 percent of Catholic priests were involved in continuing sexual relationships with women, and an additional 8 percent to 10 percent had occasional heterosexual relationships.

Around 30 percent of Catholic priests engage in sexual relationships with women. This is a clear sign that the Catholic hierarchy's rules run against the grain of human nature. Celibacy is simply not natural for us, and rules which demand it are bound to be broken. And when that does happen, the outcome is predictable: a sexuality that's denied healthy outlets will find unhealthy ones. In this case, rather than admit their desires and resign the priesthood to seek happiness honestly, priests tend to use their position of authority to exert an almost irresistible coercion on members of their flock:

"Here I am this small-town girl, and at the time I didn't feel that I was very attractive," she said, "and yet he's putting his vows on the side and he wants to be with me, in the most intimate, loving way. It was quite an honor."

"It's such a powerful thing because you think — and this is the illness of it, too — you are led to believe and you let yourself believe, that you are a chosen one. That you are so special," she said, adding of the priest, "It's not that they're putting God aside, it's that they're bringing you up to their level."

It's the unmerited aura of supernatural wisdom, their claim to possess special status and power with God, that gives priests the ability to ensnare women so easily - and the irrational celibacy rule that gives them the incentive. If the Catholic church discarded both of those, they would have a (somewhat) more rational religion. If they dropped their absurd and prejudiced "natural law" arguments against homosexuality, divorce, contraception, and all other manners of consensual human sexual expression and freedom of association in our relationships, they might actually have one worth following.

People in Western societies often believe that Eastern religions are more peaceful, less fundamentalist, than Judaism, Christianity or Islam have historically been. And it may well be true that the fluid, polytheistic nature of Hinduism and Buddhism makes them more tolerant, more willing to accommodate differing beliefs, than the fiercely monotheistic religions whose gods are unable to abide any competition.

Nevertheless, every religion has its violent, fundamentalist wing, and Eastern religions like Hinduism are no exception. In India, the problem is mainly in the form of a right-wing, ultra-nationalist movement that calls itself Hindutva, which wants its version of Hindu religious law imposed on the world's largest democracy. Among other things, proponents of Hindutva are virulently anti-Muslim as a rule - some have called for the expulsion of all Muslims from India (there are over 100 million Indian Muslims, so this would be by far the largest forced migration in human history) and the annexation of the disputed territory Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have come to the brink of open war several times. Other Hindutva members have been linked to bombings and other terrorist acts aimed at Muslims.

Hindutva extremists have also targeted their fellow Hindu believers for not being sufficiently strict about religious observances and rules - especially those having to do with sex. In 2009, for example, a mob of youths from a right-wing Hindu group Sri Ram Sena attacked partygoers at a club in Mangalore, beating several people so severely they required hospitalization. The Sri Ram Sena has also warned local businesses not to celebrate Valentine's Day and couples not to show affection in public - although Indian feminists, showing some spirit of their own, have fought back by pledging to bombard the group with pink underwear.

Like most religious extremists, Hindu fundamentalists are also opposed to much of mainstream science and history. In 2006, for example, a Hindu nationalist group filed a lawsuit in California over the content of several world history textbooks which they claimed were discriminatory against Hinduism. In reality, most of the changes they were seeking were to whitewash history to cast their beliefs in a better light - they wanted to soften or delete references to polytheism, sexism against women, and the caste system in ancient India. Although the lawsuit was dismissed, it showed that Hindu groups are not above attempting to rewrite history to serve apologetic ends. (source; see also)

Hindus, like Christians, also have their own creationists who deny evolution and mainstream theories about the age of the earth and humanity - although, in this case, the Vedic creationists believe that humanity is far older than mainstream geology and the theory of evolution say. See this article for more (HT: Sensuous Curmudgeon).

Although these fundamentalists don't have quite as much influence in India as the Christian right does in America or the Muslim right does in most of the Islamic world, it's striking how similar their goals are. It implies that fundamentalism is the same kind of evil, no matter where it springs up; it's only the outward trappings used to justify these actions that differ from one culture to another.

In my last post on the religious right view of marriage, some commenters took me to task for painting with too broad a brush. In this post, I'll consider how widely held such views are.

It's a fair point that not all conservative Christians hold views as extreme as those I criticized. Nevertheless, the views treated in that post are just one end of a spectrum that encompasses nearly the entire religious right. Almost all of them argue that men should always wield the authority in a home and that women be obedient and subservient, and whether they intend it or not, this belief inevitably results in more women suffering unnecessarily from domestic violence and spousal abuse.

The preeminent example is the Southern Baptist Convention, which in 1998 revised their official statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message, to say that a wife is expected to "submit herself graciously" to the commands of her husband. (Two years later, they revised it again to clarify that women were not permitted to be pastors either.) Over a hundred prominent evangelicals, including Franklin Graham, Charles Colson, Bill Bright and Mike Huckabee, later signed a statement praising the SBC for its sexism.

A common corollary to this belief is that, even in cases of abuse, divorce is not biblically permitted. Saddleback Church pastor Tom Holladay, for instance, says that the Bible only condones divorce for two reasons, adultery and abandonment, but adds "I wish there were a third" for domestic abuse (thus demonstrating that he recognizes the immorality of the biblical teaching on divorce, and would probably be a better person if he didn't feel bound by this cruel religion). Holladay added, "There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, 'If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them'" (source).

The most common teaching in "mainstream" churches like Saddleback is that spousal abuse can be solved by separation, so long as the woman is willing to forgive her abuser and move back in with him if he apologizes and promises to seek Christian counseling. This may sound like a reasonable compromise, but in reality it's anything but. Since it doesn't permit women to unilaterally end the marriage - to decide that enough is enough - it's an open invitation for endless cycles of abuse and violence. As any domestic-abuse expert knows, it's very common for an abuser to plead remorse, to apologize and pledge to make things better, only for the abuse to start again as soon as the woman is back in his power.

This viewpoint has been preached by powerful evangelical leaders such as James Dobson and John MacArthur, according to author and domestic-abuse survivor Jocelyn Anderson:

"We do see some very big-name evangelical leaders blaming the battered woman for the abuse," Andersen explained. "You know, talking about how she may provoke her husband into doing it; or that her poor, non-communicative husband can't handle maybe what she's trying to communicate to him and he lashes out and hits her -- [that] shifts the blame right off him and to her."

...In her book, Andersen cites an incident in which a battered wife wrote to Dobson telling him that "the violence within her marriage was escalating in both frequency and intensity and that she feared for her life." Dobson "replied that her goal should be to change her husband's behavior--not to get a divorce..."

...According to a tape titled Bible Questions and Answers Part 16, a member of Grace Community Church asked MacArthur how a Christian woman should react "and deal with being a battered wife."

MacArthur's answer contained "some very dangerous advice to battered wives. He said divorce is not an option to a battered wife, because the Bible doesn't permit it... He warned wives to be very careful that they were not provoking the abusive situations. Because, he said, that was very often the problem."

In another article, Andersen expands on this argument. Though a Christian herself, she blames "church teachings of wifely submission and male headship" for creating an epidemic of domestic violence within the church, by teaching women that leaving abusive relationships is not an option and that it is their wifely duty to obey their husbands.

Some authorities among the religious right go so far as to blame the victim, teaching that domestic abuse is the woman's fault for not submitting enough. This was the exact viewpoint advocated by Bruce Ware, a theology professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said in 2008 that women often provoke their husbands to violence by rebelling against their God-given role of obedience. Ware described this view as "what Southern Seminary as a whole represents".

The twin views that women are expected to submit to men and that divorce is not an acceptable response to abuse are widespread in the religious right, advocated by major church denominations and influential evangelical leaders. Even when they don't explicitly defend domestic violence and abuse, these views go a long way toward establishing the conditions that make it more likely to happen.

Christian conservatives always talk about "defending traditional marriage" - which has that warm, homey, fresh-baked-apple-pie feeling to it - but never make it clear precisely what they're defending.

This is deliberate, of course, and a clever political strategy: they choose phrases with positive mental associations but otherwise leave their position vague. That way, ordinary people can project onto it whatever idealized notion of a happy family they happen to hold. By this tactic, the religious right makes it sound as if all they want is to protect millions of imaginary-1950s, smiling-wife-and-picket-fence families against the godless hordes who want to take this all away. (How would granting equal rights to same-sex couples take anything away from heterosexual couples? Don't ask!)

But when Christian conservatives talk among themselves, they're not nearly as concerned with disguising their true goals. And if we listen in to those internal conversations, we can see exactly what their model of "traditional marriage" is: what they want to defend, and more so, what they want to impose on everyone else. And it bears mention that the ideal religious-right model of marriage and family is nothing like ordinary people's conception of those things. In fact, most ordinary people would be shocked and revolted by their true plan and desire.

As Exhibit A, I present this utterly horrifying article (sent in by a Daylight Atheism reader - thanks, Stacey!) from No Greater Joy Ministries, a religious-right group. The article, by Michael and Debi Pearl, concerns how good Christian wives should deal with emotionally and physically abusive husbands, and all the cheerful imagery of smiling children on the masthead can't change the pure, unfettered evil it contains. If you think I'm exaggerating, just wait.

The Pearls' argument is that divorce is forbidden by the Bible, no exceptions. Therefore, if a Christian woman is in an abusive relationship, it is her God-ordained responsibility to stay with her husband, to obey his every desire, and bear his abuse without complaint or protest.

It's hard to decide which part of this is the most obscene, but there's no shortage of candidates. First, there's this, the eternal refrain of battered wives everywhere: "If I try even harder to please him, eventually he'll change!"

One day you will wake up, turn your head to smile good morning to your husband, and see the tears of thanksgiving glistening in his eyes as he tells you one more time how much he loves you and how proud he is to have you as his wife.

...This happened because day by day, minute by minute, you chose to believe God's Word and honor him even though your flesh wanted to scream in anger and defeat. And in that moment of weakness, when you bowed beneath the load, God reached down and gently reminded you to keep on because some day your children will "arise and call you blessed; your husband also, and he praiseth you. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

This promised carrot comes with a stick, a none-too-subtle threat to the woman: if you divorce your husband, God will condemn your children to eternal torture.

There is no promise in Scripture to spare your children if you leave your lost husband. I could give you a list of hundreds of godly Christians that chose to leave their unbelieving spouses and then married a believing spouse, had decent marriages, but lost their children to the world and bitterness. I have sat and listened to many say, "We sinned; our children suffered, and we lost them to the world. They hate us. My divorce was wrong. Oh if only..."

It extols the virtue of obedience to an abusive husband and demands that the woman suffer in silence without telling others about her situation (and note the clear implication that the man is also expected to control the finances of both partners):

God says that as a husband looks on and sees the way his wife responds to him, he will be won. He will hear and see her cheerful countenance... He will see her giving up her rights and not taking offense when he knows he has wronged her. He will see she honors him, obeys him, treats him with respect, and serves him with a non-rebellious, non-resistant attitude... He will see she doesn't puff up and talk incessantly in criticism of him — or others. He trusts her. He knows she is not going to discuss him with her pastor or friend. He sees she is wise with what little money he gives her. She is a remarkable woman, not because she is classy in the way she dresses or looks, but in the way she controls her spirit. She rejoices for an opportunity to bless him, and he knows her heart is good. He tries her; he deliberately tempts her into hurt or anger; he judges her unfairly; he demands things of her that he knows embarrasses her, yet she is in subjection to him in all things.

But if I had to pick the single most insane part of this entire horrifying screed, I'd choose this one. Although the authors say that divorce is never allowable under any circumstance, they do offer one way out for a woman who just can't take it anymore: pray to God that he'll kill your husband for you.

There have been occasions, both in Scripture and in our ministry, where a man was so vile that God has killed him. A woman can come to God asking Him to deliver her from a man if he will not repent, but a woman should be sure she has obeyed God in her relationship to her husband, before she asks such a thing.

The only slender reed of credit I'll give this article is that it does say a woman can go to the police and have her husband arrested if he's physically violent towards her or if he sexually molests their children. But even then, it says divorce is still forbidden, and the woman is expected to stay married (and alone and without companionship, one presumes) if her husband is serving a prison sentence.

The next time you hear a right-wing fundamentalist start talking about "protecting traditional marriage", think of this article. This is what they want. They'd like to see every marriage and every family turned into a miniature dictatorship, where the man is the king and the woman (and children, one assumes) are slaves, expected to obey him without question and absorb whatever abuse and degradation he delivers without complaint.

Fortunately, we have a better vision of marriage: a harmonious joining of equals, a partnership embarked upon for the sake of mutual happiness. And if one partner is unloving or abusive, that marriage deserves to end, so that the innocent partner can seek the happiness they deserve elsewhere. The fundamentalists' vision is a nightmare, but we can still prevent it from coming to pass.

It's common for fundamentalist Christians to think of themselves as the moral guardians of our culture, a bulwark against the rampant sex and violence in the mass media. But this self-flattering caricature runs up against inconvenient reality: there is plenty of evidence which shows that Christians as a whole are every bit as drawn to sex and violence as everyone else.

One of the best examples of this is Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. This movie had a worldwide gross of over $600 million, of which we can safely assume most came from Christian viewers. Of the movie's two-plus hour runtime, nearly all is devoted to depicting the torture and execution of Jesus in obsessive, graphic detail, from brutal floggings to the hammering in of crucixifion nails, even adding extra tortures not mentioned in the gospels. Film critic Roger Ebert called Passion "the most violent film I have ever seen", and Slate critic David Edelstein suggested it should be renamed "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre".

Another example is the video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a real-time strategy game based on the Left Behind novels. In the game, players take the role of commander of the "Tribulation Force", an army of Christian believers, converted after the rapture, who must battle the forces of the Antichrist. In essence, the player's mission is to either convert or kill all non-Christians. U.N. soldiers are represented as minions of the Antichrist, and the player characters exclaim "Praise the Lord!" each time they shoot one of them.

And then, of course, there are the violent and gory scenes from Left Behind itself, where Jesus returns to earth to slaughter his enemies by the millions:

"Tens of thousands of foot soldiers dropped their weapons, grabbed their heads or their chests, fell to their knees, and writhed as they were invisibly sliced asunder. Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ."

For deeply religious Christians, it seems that violence is acceptable as long as it's depicted in the proper religious context. When it's presented as God's righteous judgment, they find violence perfectly okay and often even praiseworthy. The Bible itself, of course, is the greatest example of this - considering the many brutal slaughters and wars of extermination it records the Israelites waging against their enemies at God's command, none of which ever seem to give fundamentalists any concern. (The sexual content of the Bible doesn't bother them either.)

Turning to the topic of sex, there's little difference to be found between Christians and non-Christians here as well - or rather, if there is, it's in the wrong direction. It's long been known that, statistically, socially conservative states and evangelical Protestants in particular have higher rates of teen pregnancy, divorce, and STD infection. The "abstinence-only" sex education programs and virginity pledges so beloved by religious conservatives have repeatedly failed to make any measurable difference in sexual behavior.

Corroborating evidence comes from another study, by sociologist Benjamin Edelman, concerning access to online pornography. It turns out that of all American states, the one with the highest rate of subscriptions to adult sites is the socially conservative, Mormon-dominated Utah. The FBI also confirms that Utah outranks most other states when it comes to web searches for explicit content. Nor is this just a Mormon thing, as Edelman adds:

"Subscriptions are slightly more prevalent in states that have enacted conservative legislation on sexuality," Edelman writes. In the 27 states where "defense of marriage" amendments have been adopted, there were 11 percent more porn subscribers than in other states, he reports. Use is higher also in states where more people agree with the statement "I never doubt the existence of God."

Clearly, there's a great deal of sexual repression lurking beneath the surface facades of piety. When it comes to sex and violence, religious teachings may instill an outward attitude of condemnation, but they evidently make little difference in people's actual desires and behaviors.

In Second Corinthians, the Bible contains a widely cited teaching against interfaith relationships:

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? ...Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." (6:14-17)

Entire sites are devoted to this passage; the cited one says sternly, "If you are involved in a relationship with an unbeliever, and are not married, I would urge you to think very seriously about ending this relationship. God's Word must be obeyed."

It's not just Christianity where this problem arises. I recently got an e-mail from a Muslim woman asking my advice about marrying her ex-Muslim, now atheist, boyfriend:

i wouldn't mind sacrificing anything for him...

here's my problem: in islam, we CANNOT marry a non believer. Its forbidden. If i do marry him it's gonna be a life long sin. thats the deal.

...im not sure what to do... unless he converts (or i do) none of us could be together.

We may cite holy wars and inquisitions, but this is a far more common, and more often overlooked, way in which religion causes harm: it divides people who could otherwise be happy together. This is most visible in the case of gay marriage, where tyrannical religious bigots are intruding into the lives and relationships of others. But it does almost as much harm within relationships, where religious people are forced to break off relationships with the ones they love because of beliefs which teach them that their love is a sin.

This problem almost always arises in the fundamentalist faiths which teach that theirs is the only true way and that all other beliefs bring only misery and unhappiness in life. A believer who marries an atheist, or a theist of another sect, would discover the falsehood of this teaching and undermine the basis of their belief, so it's little wonder that these sects would want to keep their members isolated and relating only to each other.

That this teaching is so common speaks to the fearful, self-negating, and anti-humanistic outlook on the world that so many religions hold. Any faith that demands its members subordinate love to dogma is denying one of the basic elements which make us human. True love, the kind that views another's welfare as of equal importance to one's own, is the most uplifting and powerful emotion of which the human mind is capable, and the fact that it keeps arising, despite these unjust rules, is testament to its power.

If two people have real and serious differences of opinion on subjects that could harm their relationship, then it's probably best that they stay apart. But if they're committed to being together and willing to compromise to overcome those differences, then that should be their choice to make. (Since every couple has their differences, it's the intent to bridge those gaps that's by far the most important thing.) A blanket ban on interfaith dating, however, is a cruel and unjustifiable law born out of fear. People should be happy together, and nothing takes precedence over that - particularly not bowing to the whims of imaginary dictators. If anything can be called "sin", then lying, cheating or harming others are the only acts that can or should qualify. The genuine love that people feel for each other is not a sin and never can be, and any religion which says otherwise is a false and wicked creed that does not deserve our allegiance.

A much-heralded study in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics has concluded that the premarital "abstinence pledges" so beloved by evangelical Christians are ineffective. Teenagers who sign up for religious programs such as True Love Waits or Silver Ring Thing, in which participants pledge to remain abstinent until marriage, are just as likely to have premarital sex as nonpledgers, and significantly less likely to use contraception when they do. They also contract STDs at the same rates as nonpledgers, have their first sexual encounter at the same average age as nonpledgers, and have the same average number of sexual partners as nonpledgers. In short, in every way that can be measured, these programs are completely useless and may be actively harmful. (Also, note that all the "abstinence pledge" programs are specifically Christian in nature and content - which has led to First Amendment lawsuits when their advocates try to get them taught in public schools.)

However, we do have a contrary view from William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal, which has some fallacies to be dispensed with. McGurn first points out that:

...the only way the study's author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers.

He treats this as if it were a dirty trick, when in fact it's basic statistics: to eliminate confounding factors from your results, the best method is to compare two populations that are similar in every respect except the variable you want to study. That's exactly what Rosenbaum's study (full text online here) did, choosing two groups of teenagers with similar social and religious backgrounds, except that one group took virginity pledges and the other did not. McGurn apparently does not dispute the conclusion that the pledges made no difference in behavior. Nevertheless:

...virginity pledging teens were considerably more conservative in their overall sexual behaviors than teens in general -- a fact that many media reports have missed cold.

...Let's put this another way. The real headline from this study is this: "Religious Teens Differ Little in Sexual Behavior Whether or Not They Take a Pledge."

McGurn cites no studies in support of this conclusion, and I'd very much like to see his evidence. Needless to say, most of the studies I'm aware of have found precisely the opposite: the most religiously conservative areas of the country have the highest rates of STDs and teen pregnancy, and abstinence-only sex ed does nothing to reduce these problems. A recent article in the New Yorker by Margaret Talbot, Red Sex, Blue Sex, cites a study by the sociologist Mark Regnerus:

Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical.

...On average, white evangelical Protestants make their "sexual début" — to use the festive term of social-science researchers — shortly after turning sixteen... Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception.

The article goes on to observe that socially conservative, more religious "red" states also have higher teen pregnancy rates, higher rates of STD infection, and higher rates of divorce, the latter probably because of their lower median age of marriage. The abstinence-only programs so popular in those states have done nothing to deter this. In fact, it's made the problem worse by ensuring that teens who do have sex are ill-equipped to protect themselves. The evidence is clear that comprehensive sex ed programs which teach accurate information about contraception have proven superior every time they're put to the test. If we expect teenagers to act like adults, we need to treat them like adults.

But abstinence-only programs exact a higher price than this. Consider their impact in Africa, which is still battling a massive AIDS epidemic. In countries like Uganda, abstinence-only programs championed by Christian pastors like Martin Ssempa, who's a close friend and ally of Rick Warren, have reversed the success of comprehensive sex ed programs, leading to a rise in new HIV infection rates among the rural poor. (Ssempa followed up his success in the abstinence-only campaign by spearheading a political initiative to imprison homosexuals.)

It's unlikely that religious advocates of abstinence-only programs will be deterred by any of these facts. Pleasing their notion of God matters more to them than the lives or well-being of real people, and so in their minds, as long as we're teaching the "right" things, the results are beside the point. This makes it all the more important that we in the reality-based community, who value human welfare more highly than obedience to dogma, do not give up the push to ensure that all people have access to accurate information about sex and contraception.

In last month's post "Down to Earth", I discussed Thomas Jefferson's ideal of rich simplicity, what Buddhism calls the Middle Way. Rather than the vain pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of power or material possessions, the true source of contentment lies in the simple pleasures of life that are available to everyone, regardless of social status.

Some of the comments mentioned Epicurus, a person I should write about more often. Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who taught a system of values that was more like modern secular humanism than any other philosophy of the past (with the possible exception of the Carvakas). Although he believed that the gods existed, he taught that they were material beings who took no interest in human affairs, or in anything besides their own blissful contemplation. He also taught that death was not to be feared, because the person who is dead no longer experiences anything and therefore is not suffering.

Epicureanism put the emphasis on pleasure, not as mindless hedonism but as reasonable indulgence in the good things available in life. Valuing intellectual pleasure more highly than sensual pleasure, it recommends the cultivation of friendship, an ethic of simplicity, and an attitude of tranquility in the face of life's trials. Ironically, "epicure" in popular parlance has come to refer to a connoisseur of food and drink, which Epicurus arguably considered the least important of life's pleasures.

The Epicurean view stands in opposition to the religious idea of imaginary crimes, where certain activities are forbidden not because they cause any harm to human beings, but solely because they're believed to displease God. I consider that, when it comes to attracting people, this is an advantage for atheism: we don't have to teach excessive self-denial, nor demand that people abstain from things they would like to do just because an ancient dogma says not to. Nor do we have to teach, as many religions do, that happiness is frowned upon and that the proper attitude toward life is one of renunciation or constant repentance. We should not promote thoughtless indulgence, but we can teach that people can partake responsibly in the good things of life.

For instance: We do not have to believe, as some religions do, that certain foods are off-limits and may not be consumed no matter what. I respect the opinion of people who abstain from eating meat on ethical grounds, but the arbitrary nature of religious dietary restrictions - demanding that foods be prepared only in certain specific ways, forbidding the mixing of foods that are perfectly allowable individually, or banning the eating of some animals but not others that are equally sentient - is nothing but irrational self-denial. An atheist can be a true gourmet, sampling all the different flavors and cuisines of human culture, and tasting the full palate of sensory experience.

We do not have to believe, as many religions do, that alcohol and other intoxicants are sinful or forbidden. Again, there are people who abstain from these substances for valid reasons. But a mature and rational adult is certainly capable of making responsible use of them, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. The quest to alter one's consciousness for pleasure or ritual is as old as humanity, and in moderation, is a source of harmless relaxation and enjoyment.

We do not have to believe, as nearly all religions do, that sex is a mysterious and dangerous thing that must be practiced according to strictly prescribed rules. Everyone is familiar with the arbitrary and irrational restrictions that religious belief places on sexual expression: that sex should never be simply for the sake of pleasure; that you should only have sex with one person over the course of a lifetime; that women should not exercise sexual autonomy; or that sex is always immoral unless a member of the clergy gives consent. None of these rules are grounded in reason; they spring from ignorance, superstition and fear. Sex has real power to form (or shatter) emotional bonds, and if practiced irresponsibly, to lead to the spread of disease or unintended pregnancy. But sexual expression is enriched by diversity just like every other area of human culture, and an atheist knows that there is more than one way to have a healthy sex life.

Inspired by a good post on Spanish Inquisitor, as well as a similarly good post by Greta Christina (the atheistic stars have aligned!), I had some thoughts about the role of mysticism in religion, especially as it relates to sex.

Freethinkers should be working to disseminate accurate information about sex, of course - information on how to choose a sexual partner, how to use birth control effectively, how to get an abortion if need be, how to be respectful and responsible toward one's partners, and how to recognize and fend off those who aren't. The evidence amply supports the proposition that comprehensive sex education is far more effective than other methods at reducing STD transmissions, unwanted pregnancies, divorce, spousal abuse and unhappiness in general.

But more fundamentally, we need to confront the belief system that lies at the heart of these and many other sexual ills. Rather than just disseminating facts, we need to change attitudes - specifically, the attitude that sex is a dangerous, mysterious thing that should be kept a secret and not talked about. This is an ignorant and fearful mysticism, and it needs to be dispelled.

Sex is a basic biological function that is part of every human life. Why should we treat it any differently than eating or sleeping? There is no rational reason to view it as any different, fundamentally, than any other area of human behavior. Yet a reasonless mysticism still holds sway in this area far too often - one which proclaims that these are forbidden areas, that mere knowledge of sexual information is somehow intrinsically harmful. We can see this in religious conservatives' outraged reaction to schools and library books that teach accurate information about sex; TV and movie censors that treat sex as automatically indecent; in lawmakers who criminalize businesses that sell items used for sexual pleasure by consenting adults; and in absurdly punitive and cruel laws that stigmatize consensual sexual contact by legal minors, in some cases forcing them to register as sex offenders for life and otherwise treating them the same way as genuine predators.

The crusaders in this anti-sex lynch mob are right in only one way: When we treat sex as dangerous and destructive, we make it dangerous and destructive. A New York Times article about the dangers posed to children by online pornography makes this point clear with two contrasting examples:

One woman, for example, told me that she became hysterical when her eight-year-old stumbled onto a pornographic photo. She told me that she literally dove for the computer, crashing over a chair, yanking out the power cord and then rushing her daughter outside.

versus:

I walked over, saw what was going on, and closed the window. "Yeah, I know," I told him. "Some people like pictures of naked people. The Internet is full of all kinds of things." And life went on.

Can there be any doubt that, if any harm is done to the child in the first example, it will be done by her mother's hysterical overreaction, rather than by the photo itself? As the article notes, these pictures have no inherent emotional significance for young children. If the parent doesn't react abnormally, a child likely will not even think twice about it. On the other hand, that woman's daughter, by seeing her mother act as if the computer had suddenly turned into toxic waste, has been sent a powerful message that there is something forbidden and dangerous about such images. That message, rather than one of calm and maturity, is the one that's likely to lead to psychological problems and an unhealthy view of sexuality down the line.

In many areas, but especially in sex, this irrational attitude of fearmongering and enforced ignorance has infected society's discourse. Atheists and freethinkers, whose minds are not blinded by dogma, can act as the antidote. We need to de-mystify subjects like sex - that is to say, we need to take the mysticism out of them and treat them with the maturity and reason they deserve.