In our September-October newsletter we wrote about a talk on sex given by Elyse Fitzpatrick, a popular Christian author, speaker, and sex counselor.1 Out of the more than 1300 visits per day to our website, plus our digital and physical mailing lists, very few people said that Fitzpatrick was impersonating Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to President John F. Kennedy (JFK) (1962). If this is true, it was a sinful choice on her part for two reasons.
First, her sexy invitation led many like us to relate her words to the more recent Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton affair, rather than the Monroe/Kennedy affair, since there was a brief physical contact between Lewinsky and Clinton during or just after the singing of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to Clinton. 2 A number of months later, after a birthday party for a member of the staff, Clinton and Lewinsky had an intimate sexual encounter, followed by others, which became highly publicized.3
Second, why would a popular, known-to-be-godly woman, in a sexy, singsongy manner, impersonate anything out of sex-symbol Marilyn Monroe’s mouth, knowing that she had an adulterous affair with JFK?4 And why would Fitzpatrick advise women that “There needs to be times in which you sing to your husbands, ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ and it’s okay”? What is rather telling is Fitzpatrick impersonating Marilyn Monroe, advising other women to do likewise, and publicly exposing her personal sexual intimacy with her husband!
Sexual Intimacy in Marriage
Even if Fitzpatrick was imitating Monroe from 56 years ago rather than Lewinsky, our conclusion remains. Listen to Fitzpatrick’s total sex talk5 and her sinful recommendation of a “really lovely book” about which she says, “This book Sexual Intimacy in Marriage6 would be a very good book for you if you need information about this stuff” (bold added). As we mentioned in the article, we obtained the book and found what Fitzpatrick refers to as “this stuff.” This book refers to sex 500 times, orgasm 189 times, the two sex acts of sodomy 53 times, masturbation 26 times, vibrators 11 times, and sex toys 3 times. The Christian authors support these sexual practices for believers as long as there is mutual consent between the husband and wife!
They also refer to the Song of Solomon 48 times in their effort to biblically justify the practice of sodomy in marital sex. Such an interpretation by implication does not come from an understanding of the context of the whole Bible, particularly creation, but rather imposes the influence of the 20th century sexual revolution onto the text. Without the whole counsel of God, one can find all sorts of ideas totally unrelated to what God would ever say.
We conclude that Fitzpatrick’s sex counseling and personal sex life include this repeated teaching in the book: or, why would she recommend it so highly with no caveats? In addition, we reveal that towards the end of her sex talk, Fitzpatrick says, “If my [adult] daughter was sitting in here and I talked about ‘Happy birthday, Mr. President,’ she would be throwing up.”
Listen to Fitzpatrick’s sex talk and her comment about how her adult daughter would respond (throw up), read what she calls the “lovely book,” Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, which she most highly recommends, and you will find evidence to confirm our conclusion, even without a seeming-to-us-and-others Clinton/Lewinsky allusion.
Conclusion
Within the last twenty years a dramatic change occurred regarding what people think the Bible teaches about sodomy. There are now numerous Christians who believe that either one or both sexual acts of sodomy are biblically permissible as long as they are agreed upon within the marriage of one man and one woman. We explain in our book The Sodomy of Christians: The Biblical View7 how America and the church moved in this sinful direction and how prevalent the acceptance and practice of sodomy are, both in the world and in the church. These sexual activities are being accepted and promoted not only by various Christian pastors and authors, but by leaders in the biblical counseling movement.
Endnotes
1 “Elyse Fitzpatrick: Sex Counselor,” PsychoHeresy Awareness Letter, Vol. 26, No. 5, September-October, 2018.
2 Sally Bedell Smith. For Love of Politics: Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years. Random House Publishing Group, 2007, Kindle Edition, Locations 5141-5144.
3 “The Starr Report,” The Washington Post,” Sunday, September 13, 1998; Page A32, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/timeline.htm?noredirect=on.
4 “People Explains: All About Marilyn Monroe’s Alleged Affairs with JFK and Brother Bobby,” https://people.com/politics/marilyn-monroe-affair-john-f-kennedy-robert-f-kennedy.
5 Elyse Fitzpatrick, “Not in the Mood Sexual Problems,” IBCD Resource Library, https://ibcd.org/not-in-the-mood-sexual-problems-in-marriage/.
6 William Cutrer and Sandra Glahn. Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1998, 2001, 2007. Amazon.com has sample pages that can be read at no cost: https://www.amazon.com.
7 Martin and Deidre Bobgan. The Sodomy of Christians: The Biblical View. Santa Barbara, CA: EastGate Publishers, 2017, www.amazon.com.
(PsychoHeresy Awareness Letter, November-December 2018, Vol. 26, No.6)