So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:27-28).
Biblical marriage has been the bedrock of civilization for six thousand years. The gift of God to mankind, marriage provides emotional intimacy for the husband and wife and a stable environment for children. Together they can experience spiritual and physical intimacy.
Feminist Professor Bethany Letiecq (George Mason University) must have missed this when she recently stated that marriage was a byproduct of white supremacy. She wrote in the Journal of Marriage and Family "Marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy."
"Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family," she wrote. "But it is also a hidden or unacknowledged structural mechanism of White heteropatriarchal family supremacy that is essential to the reproduction and maintenance of family inequality in the United States."
In the article, Letiecq said she drew upon "critical feminist and intersectional frameworks to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages White heteropatriarchal nuclear families (WHNFs) and marginalizes others as a function of family structure and relationship status."
She argues,
"Since colonization, marriage fundamentalism has been instantiated through laws, policies, and practices to unduly advantage WHNFs (white heteropatriarchal nuclear families) while simultaneously marginalizing Black, Indigenous, immigrant, mother-headed, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) families, among others."
Now, Letiecq specializes in women & gender studies and anti-racism research. She is currently shacking up with a fellow and raising her children in that environment. Her pronouns are she/her (in case you were wondering).
Letiecq is calling for family scientists to "further interrogate how marriage fundamentalism reproduces family inequality in American family life and to work toward its dismantling." Far-left academics are ramping up their attacks on the family, the most important institution in society.
My Commentary
Letiecq is proof that no matter how many crazy ideas the left comes up with, there is always room for one more madness.
In order to recover the beauty and the exultation of biblical marriage, we need to speak honestly and bluntly of the ugliness of its counterfeits. For Bethany Letiecq, wrong is the new right. Bulldozing one of the twin institutions of divine creation is good when done in the spirit of anti-racism and feminism, two of the left’s favorite idols.
Although the evidence of the tremendous benefits of strong, intact families is unassailable, Letiecq simply waves it away. She ignores the extreme harm that has come to people as a result of family breakdown in their communities.
The deconstruction of marriage is not a mere matter of TV programs with men kissing. Its real target is the total deconstruction of the family. Gay marriage, shacking up, and polyamory are only stops on a tour that includes rising divorce rates, falling childbirth rates and the abandonment of responsibility by twenty and even thirty-somethings.
There are two ways to destroy a thing. You can run it at while swinging a hammer with both hands or you can attack its foundation until it crumbles and no longer means anything. Or, you can simply say it’s “racist.”
White privilege is the hottest racist idea since cross burnings and white hoods. Its message that an entire race is tainted by virtue of its skin color is promoted not only by the leftist media, but by the frantic arm waving of broken college professors railing against God’s wisdom.
To Letiecq, the accomplishments of any individual white person are due, not to his or her efforts, risk taking or, but to race, skin color, and a national infrastructure of white supremacism. One wonders how long we have until the Sabbath Day is deemed racist, the other divine institution from Eden. The same bigoted conspiracy theories that stigmatize marriage as a racial conspiracy, condemn the Law of God itself as an imposition of divine privilege (Romans 8:7).
Marriage is honorable, good, and moral, so it must be bad (Isaiah 5:20; Hebrews 13:4), Letiecq concludes.
The deconstruction of marriage is only a subset of the deconstruction of gender from a state of being to a state of mind. This new attack on marriage by anti-racism arises from the same place that gave us feminism. Letiecq’s worldview is – pardon the term – a marriage of both ideologies.
The best disinfectant for the white privilege bigotry, like for so many other bad ideas, is sunlight. Truth.
And the truth is, marriage is a blessing. It is challenging at times, but can be one of the most rewarding things in your life. Like the Sabbath day, it is a gift from God for human flourishing.
And the enemies of it, are the enemies of God.
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“Let thy fountain be blessed: And rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe” (Proverbs 5:19).