It is fortunate that I do not have Wolverine’s claws

For it is a certainty people would provoke me slice and dice them. Particularly if I had his healing factor so I couldn’t be stopped.

The ass-hat who provoked this was Seventh-Day Adventist pastor Burnett Robinson who said in a recent sermon that ““In this matter of submission, I want you to know upfront ladies, that once you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your husband’s.” By which he means it’s moral to rape your wife.

No, no, it’s not.

It’s true that Paul’s letter to the Ephesians says wives should submit to their husbands. But a)it does not therefore follow that she must do anything her husband asks. Even misogynist Southern Baptist preacher John Piper thinks there are limits; unfortunately his dealbreakers are if the husband wants to engage group sex (or roleplaying or bondage, even consensually), not if he’s abusing her. That she has to submit to “for a season” or for one night of physical abuse. Then she can turn to the church and ask for help. Not, apparently civil authorities.

Keep in mind that (as Beth Moore has discussed), Ephesians also sets rules for husbands, who are required to love and cherish their wives. Rape is not loving. Abuse is not loving. Yet for men such as Piper and Robinson, demanding husbands do what’s right isn’t half as important as ensuring the wife never challenge patriarchal authority.

When people such as this present themselves as moral voices, my contempt is limitless.