Zack Eswine:
ABC Family offers an evening television show that my family enjoys entitled, Switched at Birth. A recent episode focused on prom night for teenagers. Parents remove alcohol from the party but actively provide a hotel suite and condoms for their teens (hoping they won’t be used). Drinking alcohol is forbidden. Sex is provided for.
Further on:
Surely something profound is lacking in this cultural discussion. Jesus identified it as love. Love reminds us that how we relate sexually to our neighbors or use drink with them, requires more than legality, more than desire and more than making sure that our unwanted consequences are minimized.
Love asks deeper questions than, “can I buy you a drink,” or “who can drive” or “do you want me” or “are we safe from having children?” Parents do not have to be afraid to suggest this fact, but we are. Kids needn’t think it boring or over the top to consider it, but they do. And yet, like the law, our cultural norms uphold only the minimum behavior requirement of cabs and condoms as our way of relating well to each other and this isn’t helping. Rage is legal. But this does not mean that rage is advisable. Telling one’s girlfriend that she’s fat isn’t against the law but that doesn’t make it good and noble to do. Because a person hands over his keys and wears a condom that night does not mean that he will hospitably and humbly relate to people, and yet we will pat him on the back for acting safely and responsibly.
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