Daniel ThwaitesIN NEW York members of the faith-community came out to protest advertisements of a mass nude wedding to be held on the hedonistic Northern Coast of Jamaica. So just in case you were thinking of getting married with the sun toasting your buttocks, our own hoteliers have just the right deal for you. I have images of severe flab, and sagging reminders of better days. The ceremony had better be planned carefully, though according to recent reports the Americans should not be too dangerous when on the loose.
Everyone noticed the study published recently in these hallowed pages showing that the average male member of the American species is about the size of a Nokia phone without the antenna, while the average male member of the Brazilian variety is of Nokia phone-size inclusive of antenna. Surely that study was a barely concealed advertisement for Nokia and Brazil, and as yet there are no reports of protests.
In which event the Jamaica Tourist Board and our nudist hoteliers should invite the researchers to study Jamaica. Our tourism certainly wouldn't suffer by the comparison, and the increased droves of singles that might come to the island would be easier to bear than the thought of middle-aged, middle-Americans getting hitched wearing nothing but a crew-cut and a wedding ring.
Admittedly, the whole spectacle sounds mighty unappetising for us in the warm weather, but there is some lonely accountant in Norfolk, Virginia who can think of nothing better than to corner some poor female and plan nude nuptials.
Perhaps I'm thoroughly old fashioned, but I can't help thinking that the women asked by their mates to submit to a nude wedding ought to object. My very rudimentary understanding of these matters suggests that men are more enthusiastic for that kind of pornographic extravaganza. But who knows nowadays? Apparently the bookings are coming in thick and fast. Mad cow disease has obviously made more progress through the United States than is being reported in the press.
The thought of nude weddings genuinely upsets very many people who have deeply held views about the sacredness of the marriage vows. This is understandable. Additionally, I think it splendid that Jamaicans in New York should have felt inclined to protest the nude marriages.
It displays genuine care and attention to the happenings back home, and in particular, to the moral uprightness and health of their homeland.
Because of the intervention a genuine debate has begun. In it we come up against one of the most formidable, damaging bits of ideology yet produced: the notion that our value judgements are purely private, personal matters. That is not true. All the same there is genuine widespread confusion about these matters because people have feelings and thoughts that go in two opposite directions. On the one hand, they are rightly anxious to guard their political right to make their own decisions for their lives, even to make their own mistakes. Hence the thought that if people want to get married in the nude, though, all things considered, it probably isn't such a good idea, let them go ahead. It is, I think, a positive feature of our liberal inheritance that most of us think and feel this way.
On the other hand, nobody is a moral relativist at home, and people are correctly unwilling to say of their deeply held value judgements that they are merely their individual choices and there is nothing more to them than that. How many persons would seriously maintain that an assembly-line style nudist wedding, performed by a pastor who doesn't know you (and doesn't want to know you), is equally valuable as when the bride puts on her white frock and walks elegantly down the aisle on the arm of her father? Only someone so anxious to prove a point that they have thrown common sense away.
Unfortunately, many people are confused into thinking that political liberalism the thought that there should be a protected private sphere over which the individual exercises unique control over his own life is dependent on moral relativism the unpersuasive view that whatever you do is your business and nobody else's. That is not so. We may want to preserve all our judgements about how the nudist frolic debases the social institution of marriage, without going so far as to want the authorities to disallow it or punish those who, in error, think that a good way of setting out on life's journey together. Look, they will be punished enough by the smirks on their children's faces when they demand to see the wedding pictures.
Now to another matter recently highlighted by the Church. Not too long ago the Roman Catholic Bishops of the region unwisely came out with a statement against capital punishment. This is after centuries of holding precisely the opposite position and defending it eloquently and with paramount reasoning. It was even not unknown for Popes themselves to condemn people, sometimes criminals, to death.
An amusing instance of the use and abuse of that power happened during the papacy of Stephen VII who lasted only from 896 to 897 annus domini. You can guess why someone strangled him before too long.
Stephen was very upset with his predecessor, Pope Formosus, for his choice of Holy Roman Emperor. Hence he dug up Formosus' corpse after 11 months of interment, dressed it in full pontifical garb, placed it on the papal throne in the Lateran and commenced a trial. The incident is now called "The Cadaveric Synod"! Needless to say, Formosus was found to be very guilty. So he was convicted, his appointments invalidated, his blessing-fingers hacked off, his body stripped and thrown into the Tiber.
In our current system, we only apply capital punishment to premeditated murderers convicted beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury, and even then only after numerous appeals and independent oversight of the process that determined guilt. What is more, we only put the living on trial, so they have the full capacity to defend themselves.
The Bishops are certainly entitled to change their minds on the matter of capital punishment and bow at the altar of political correctness, but it doesn't do much for internal clarity and consistency.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
