Christian fundamentalism is no stranger to controversy. Through the perpetuating of outdated, dangerous beliefs and a stout rejection of the movement of modern society, fundamentalist Christian sects routinely find themselves the ire of observant civilization. They don’t help their own cause either, for modern society, on the whole, has essentially rejected the idea of virginity and sex as a consumable commodity, child marriage, obscenely large families, Biblical literalism, and pastors whose Biblical fury more resembles Jim Jones than someone who actually understands the 2,000 year old scriptures they regurgitate.
To put it simply, in this writer’s opinion, fundamentalist ideologies are batshit. This view is regularly reaffirmed, especially when beliefs like this one find their way into the public consciousness:
We’ve touched base on the Quiverfull movement before, most notably during the Great Duggar Fiasco of 2015. Asinine ideas and ventures are their calling card, with some of them carrying horrific ramifications on the psychosocial development of children. While the stunted psychosocial growth in Josh Duggar’s case manifested in the molestation of his younger sisters, for some others, it manifests as one of the most mentally brutal patriarchal viewpoints that exist in contemporary society.
The meme above perfectly explains these logically deficient views. In the fundamentalist movements, young girls are essentially property, their fathers their owners. This is called chattel slavery. These fathers go to great lengths to protect the purity of their daughters, for it’s the purity that is valuable. It is the father’s job to guard that purity against “thieves” who may take their daughter’s purity before her future husband. Moreover, it’s the father’s responsibility to not only protect his daughter’s purity, but to “provide” it to the “boys who seek” it, “in due season.” This is called human trafficking.
In short, it’s the father’s responsibility to protect the hymen between his daughter’s legs until such time as “the right man” comes along and is given rights to said hymen by the young girl’s father. Basically, daughters exist as a consumable commodity, to be owned by her future husband but kept in trust by her father.
The website who posted this monstrosity, “Let Them Marry” (formerly known as “True Love Doesn’t Wait (It Marries)”), adds another sick dimension to an already vile movement known for elaborate, creepy “purity balls.” On top of having the aforementioned view on chastity, “Let Them Marry” also promotes child marriage.
Vaughn Ohlman, the face of the “Let Them Marry” franchise, believes Christian boys and girls are not marrying early enough because Christian fathers are being too picky about who will be the lucky winner in their episode of “Who Wants My Daughter’s Virginity?” Ohlman promotes child marriage on scriptural grounds, a blatantly coercive (and commonly used) tactic for the justification for child abuse. While child marriage isn’t a myth in America, most seem to be secretive about it, or at least not as explicit as Ohlman on the “Let Them Marry” website.
“We believe that not only should most people marry, they should marry in their youth. The Bible speaks of the “wife of thy youth” (Prov. 5:18; Is. 54:6; Mal. 2:14-15) and “children of the youth” (Ps. 127:4). Scripture also speaks of not letting children pass the flower of their age (1 Cor. 7:36). The purposes of marriage are blessings and responsibilities that affect the whole of one’s life. Leaving the physically mature young man struggling with fornication and leaving the physically mature young woman wallowing in fruitless, barren celibacy — these are both unscriptural and ungodly actions.
We believe it incumbent upon the church, the family, and even the young people themselves to strive to promote young, fruitful marriages. To break the chains of false, unbiblical doctrine that has forbidden and delayed marriage, and instead rejoice in a Christ honoring witness of, literally, thousands of marriages, and even more thousands of godly seed.”
So, let me get this straight. It is the responsibility of the church, the family, and the young people within to strive for the establishment of child marriage, for purposes of having families? Ohlman and his ilk firmly believe that young boys and girls — presumably between the ages of 10 and 14, considering those are the most common years in which puberty starts — not only should be engaging in the marriage sacrament, but also starting families for which they cannot provide, because teenage boys have a hard time resisting pornography and teenage girls are fertile?
This whole belief system is horrifying, especially when you compound it with the fundamentalist views regarding paternal responsibility and the chastity of their daughters. In effect, Ohlman and others who subscribe to the “Let Them Marry” ideology, not only support and promote child marriage, but basically promote those child marriages being orchestrated by the fathers of the young girls within the sect.
I’m pretty sure we have laws against this crap.
Even though Ohlman’s views are just horrible, they make sense on a primitive, biological level. The onset of pubescence is the time when males and females of the human species first have the ability to procreate. Those urges aren’t “tests from God,” they are strong biological impulses that at times are given into, sometimes with life-altering results.
MTV realized this and made a fortune.
But, society isn’t built on primitive biological impulses. If it were, we’d be killing each other for food, status, and sex without even a hint potential jurisprudence. Part of the human experience is the transcending of homo sapiens into a more complex, advanced society, one that is disciplined to forgo the primitive for the rational. This is why we have laws. Specifically, this is why we have laws that criminalize human trafficking (of which forced marriage is considered a form), an offense deemed a human rights violation by the United Nations.
But many who support these fundamentalist movements — and all the polygamy, child marriage, virginity as a commodity, patriarchy, and whatever else that may come with it — do so on First Amendment grounds, which is a reasonable defense considering the First Amendment lays bare that Americans enjoy religious freedom. It gets a little complicated to determine a religious practice illegal, but it’s not like that determination has never been made before.
In 1878, the Waite Court ruled in Reynolds v. United States that religious duty was not a suitable defense to criminal indictment. In that case, George Reynolds, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, had challenged his bigamy conviction on First Amendment grounds. Even though he claimed religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court did not share his view, as the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which criminalized plural marriages, did not violate the Free Exercise clause. The Waite Court ruled unanimously that the law superseded religious beliefs… as it should.
But here we are, 138 years later, allowing the continued existence of a fundamentalist, patriarchal movement that denigrates young girls and uses them as a commodity. There are no legal challenges of these groups. There are no arrests for trafficking, coercion, or civil rights violations. We allow them to infect others, make money off their abuses, and even manipulate public policy to reflect their specific brand of crazy. These fundamentalists are never convicted in a court of law, just in the court of public opinion, but when it comes to violations of the law, the court of public opinion is completely impotent in enforcing justice.
The First Amendment is not an absolute. There are instances when the First Amendment does not apply. It’s way past time to start holding fundamentalist Christians accountable for the crimes they commit and attempt to justify with religious practice. The Waite Court did it in 1878. It’s not unreasonable for modern courts to do the same.
Featured image via Pixabay, available under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
(HT Raw Story)
