THE STEEL DEAL: The Sanctity of Sex

YBOR CITY, FLA - A southwest Florida church issued a challenge for its married members: Hanky panky every day. Relevant Church head pastor Paul Wirth issued the 30-day sex challenge to take on high divorce rates.

"And that's no different for people who attend church," Wirth said Sunday. "Sometimes life gets in the way. Our jobs get in the way." The challenge doesn't extend to unwed congregants, however. Link

There's a great old movie called 'Cold Turkey', starring an ensemble cast of great character actors and comics, directed by Norman Lear - in fact, it was one of his first great successes. It's about a little midwest town that quits smoking on a dare from a tobacco company. In it, there's a preacher played by Dick Van Dyke. He thinks replacing cigarettes with sex is the best way to quit. Throughout the movie there a re-occurring shot of him marching home to get a little and towards the end, the novelty of such attention has long lost its enjoyment factor for his wife and the camera slpit screens the two - half of the preacher purposefully striding homeward and the other of the wife seeing him approach, giving up whatever it was she was doing and resolutely flopping on the bed. It's a very funny movie. You should rent it.

I think Pastor Wirth is living in a fantasy world that extends far outside his belief system. It's very seldom sex that splits couples - unless its sex outside their marriage - like in an extramarital affair. No, the number one reason for marital discord is money, followed by the contempt of familiarity. Money is an easy thing to deal with - you either make more or reduce your spending. But keeping the energy and spark in a relationship is damned hard work. Especially so in this day and age with so many outside factors trying to pull people away from each other. And it's no longer fashionable to have a long term stable relationship. We are under constant assault from all directions to eschew marriage. Married people don't spend like singles. They have to watch their budget in order to raise kids. Singles are prone to maxxing out their credit cards, buying homes they don't need and generally spend far more than marrieds.

You hear a lot about the secular war on marriage, and there IS something there, but the real war is being waged by corporations that want those dollars that single people spend. Lawyers want the money earned from divorce proceedings. Banks want the separate accounts and credit cards. All the way down the line, every business, with the exception of religion benefits by destroying marriage as we know it.

I applaud Pastor Wirth's intent - but he has selected the wrong target.Spread the word!