I recently listened to a Think interview (10 Jan 2018) where the author of Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics discussed her new book on the history of the sexual revolution in America. In the interview, R Marie Griffith, explained that Protestants and Catholics were both generally opposed to birth control until a Catholic priest took a stand and then Protestants were galvanized to support birth control just because it was opposed by Catholics.
In many ways, the debate in the public square over sexuality and social justice continues to galvanize people. I have observed how same sex marriage has not been an issue people put out of their minds. Instead they take sides and defend their position with very little common decency. There appears to be no middle ground in today’s debate.
If as Marie Griffith has written, that the sexual revolution fractured American Christianity in the 1920’s, than it is amazing that, in contrast, these social changes are unifying American Mormons. Our position on permissible sexual activity limited to heterosexual marriages and chastity before marriage has not changed. In fact, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have strengthened their resolve to defend the position that sexuality is a divinely authorized privilege by which the unborn spirit children of a Heavenly Father are welcomed into this Earthly mortal life. All varieties of sexual deviancy which included adultery, prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse and perversion are unauthorized uses of the physical body and we will be held accountable for our actions in a post-mortem interview with our Father God.
