An Onramp to Nowhere
February 20, 2020
Consider a freeway onramp. One minute you are traveling at city speeds, then you turn onto the onramp and accelerate, eventually reaching sufficient speed to safely merge onto the freeway. The onramp has a purpose: It allows drivers to successfully transition from city speeds to freeway speeds.
But what if there were no freeway to transition to? What if the onramp ended abruptly in a solid concrete wall? You turn onto the onramp and press down on the gas pedal, going faster and faster until *crash*.
This is a fitting analogy to illustrate how ridiculous it is to suggest that same-sex dating (and kissing, etc) should be accepted by religions that consider same-sex sexuality to be morally wrong.
Many speak of dating as if it were an end in itself, as if it were nothing more than a tiny slice of intimacy their religion allows them to indulge in prior to marriage, just a church-sanctioned thrill with no purpose besides that. But they are wrong. Dating is not just an end in itself. It has a purpose, a destination, and that destination is marriage. We date to become comfortable interacting with the opposite sex. We date to learn how to have a relationship with them. We date to discover what kind of people we get along with best, what kind of people we enjoy to be in a relationship with. And most importantly, we date to find the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, the person we will marry.
Dating is the onramp. It is the transition from the city speeds of our everyday relationships (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers) to the freeway speed of a marriage relationship, including the sexual intimacy that entails.
But if same-sex sexuality is wrong (and it is), then same-sex dating has no destination. There is no freeway to transition to. There is just a solid concrete wall. It is an onramp to nowhere. You accelerate and accelerate and accelerate until *crash*.
To a religion that considers same-sex sexuality to be wrong, an unmarried opposite-sex couple and a same-sex couple are fundamentally different and no valid comparison can be made between the two. An opposite-sex couple can marry, and what was once wrong becomes right. But a same-sex marriage doesn’t have the same effect. It has no moral effect at all. What was wrong before continues to be wrong after. An opposite-sex couple has a possible moral future, they have a reason for dating, they have something to transition to. But a same-sex couple has no moral future, no reason for dating, and nothing to transition to. Same-sex dating is an onramp to nowhere. Those who choose to turn onto that onramp and accelerate will inevitably crash into the destructive wall of sin.
topic:
sexual identity
