Unfortunately, this line of reasoning has done more harm than good.  It is also woefully defective.  On the one hand, there is the issue of sex outside of the bond of marriage.  On the other, there is the issue of the appropriate way to have sex if, per chance, one should do so outside of the bond of marriage.

Now, many religious groups think that (a) Non-marital sex is wrong and (b) Gay sex is wrong.  Yet, they also think that if a person does (a), it does not thereby follow that it is all right for her or him to do (b).  If parents should say to their children, “We do not want you have sex outside of marriage, but if you are going to have sex please do not let it be gay sex”, no one in her or his right mind would take to this utterance to be tantamount to a permission to have sex just so long as it is not gay sex. 

Of course not: The claim is that (a) is bad and (b) is worse than (a).  From the supposition that (b) is worse than (a) it does not follow that (a) is just fine to do.  Many Christian groups believe that (b) is worse than (a).  They do not believe that (a) is fine because (b) is even worse.

Here is a better example.  “Please do not steal anything.  But if you should ever find yourself doing that, please do not kill anyone.”  Here, too, what we most surely do not have is a recommendation to steal. 

Every decent set of parents have instructed their children with a set of moral priorities.  Do not do either X or Y, but understand that Y is much worse.  Or, to go in the other direction, you may do Q or Z, but understand that Z is much better. 

To his credit, Senator Barack Obama has grasped this truth.  He counsels the use of condoms.  Again, to his credit, Obama seems to be able to move conservative Christians beyond the nonsense that AIDS is a punishment from God.  And Pastor Richard Warren of Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) deserves some serious praise for being bold enough to invite Obama to speak at the conference concerning AIDS held at the Saddleback Church. 

If only gay men could contract the disease—and through sexual interaction at that, then the charge that AIDS is a punishment from God might have some initial plausibility.  But it became quickly obvious that all sort of people can contract AIDS—straight people and utterly innocent people such as children.  Thus, calling AIDS a punishment from God makes God look awfully cruel.  Unfortunately, Christian conservatives have been too busy issuing condemnations to see this point.

Now, to be sure, conservative Christians are right that abstinence constitutes a considerable impediment to the spread of AIDS.  But here, too, there is maneuvering room.  On the one hand, there is complete abstinence; on the other, there is the idea of a committed relationship.  As an impediment to the spread of AIDS, committed relationships are relatively effective.  What has contributed mightily to the spread of AIDS is not so much the absence of abstinence but the practice of sexual hook-ups. 

By definition, a hook-up is intended as a one-night stand.  If anything more serious should come of the moment that is often considered an undesirable outcome by one of the parties. 

To be sure, sex in a committed relationship is yet a long ways from sex in a marital relationship.  Still, sex in a committed relationship is quite some distance from a hook-up; and it is hook-up sex that quite readily facilitates the spread of AIDS.

Christian conservatives are so busy focusing upon the good of marital sex that they ignore differences where they exist.  For all sorts of reasons, it can be argued that sex in a committed relationship is more wholesome than hook-up sex.  There is a giving and an exchange of giving that occurs in a committed relationship that has no equal in the case of hook-up sex, where knowing each other’s name is considered quite a feat. 

One need not deny that marital sex is the best sex in order to recognize that there are degrees of bad sex. And it is simply false that all non-marital sex contributes equally to the spread of the AIDS virus.

More to the point, the agenda of conservatives Christians should not be an impediment to their seeing real differences where they exist. 

There is the sin of arrogance; and it seems to me that, in pushing their agenda, Christian conservatives themselves have turned out to be true masters of this sin.  The odds are that they could do more to stop AIDS by acknowledging the differences in sexual commitment to which I have drawn attention than by ignoring them.

For if conservative Christians acknowledged these differences, then there is a wealth of wholesome counseling which they give young people that is richer and more instructive than merely abstinence is the way. 

As is so often the case, we are better able to see one form of excellence by looking at and fully appreciation a lesser form of excellence.  Without mentioning marriage as such, getting a young person to appreciate the depth and power of a committed relationship is comparatively easy. 

I began this blog-entry with the observation that if one could save lives by bending the rules without further harming anyone, then one should do so.  The issue is not whether chastity is a virtue or not.  Let us assume that it is.  Rather, the issue is how to get folks to appreciate that it is a virtue; and the answer to that is not simply to repeat over and over again that chastity is a virtue.  If marriage is seen as the only alternative to hook-ups, then Christian conservatives have tough road to hoe.  Unfortunately, it is conservative Christians themselves who have more or less created this false dilemma. 

Talk about commitment and emotions and moral development serves ever so well the end of conservative Christians.  It is also mightily serves the wholesomeness of the psychological development of young people.  This may not be the hard stand that conservative Christians would prefer to take.  But I ask which do they value more: Saving lives without causing further harm or being inexorable in their view of matters?

Chastity is not the vantage point from which many can appreciate the richness of marital sex.  One might help them to better see both the value of chastity and the value of marital sex by helping young people to appreciate something that they can grasp, namely richness of commitment.  In so doing, AIDS is dealt a severe blow.  God is glorified.  Lives are saved.  Sounds like a winning combination to me.