When selecting a mate, Christian men have no right to consider how women have treated their bodies or bank accounts. If they have repented, all of that is erased. Same back at the women.

Recently, there have been a lot of objections in the evangelical blogosphere over a highly offensive article headlined “Men prefer debt free virgins without tattoos.” I agree with these criticisms of this poorly written and highly misogynistic diatribe.

When selecting a mate, Christian men have no right to consider how women have treated their bodies or bank accounts in the past. If they have repented, all of that is erased, along with the consequences. Jesus accepts these women just as they are, and potential suitors should, too.

I think it’s time for a conversation about another elephant in the room: this idea that women prefer physically fit men with good jobs and no criminal record. It’s incredibly sexist and matriarchal to insist that women have a natural preference for men who have invested time and energy into stewarding their bodies, have shown the capability of earning a living and supporting a family, and have not gone to jail for attempting to grow 452 marijuana plants in their mother’s basement.

I know more than a few men who spent their twenties languishing in their parents’ homes, subsisting on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, playing Xbox, watching pornography, and smoking controlled substances. If one of these men turns his life around, accepts Jesus, and starts fresh, young women have no right to overlook him as a potential mate just because he is 280 pounds, has almost no marketable skills at 30 years old, and cannot vote, serve on a jury, or own a firearm. He is created in the image of God, and accepted by Jesus! Any women who would overlook every other noble quality he possesses for basic financial security and a clean background check (not to mention browsing history) isn’t a woman he should want.

Men like this have often long since repented of their listless and slothful ways. If the lingering consequences of their pasts didn’t stop Christ from living and dying for them, then it shouldn’t stop a Christian woman from loving them, either. Period.

It is disturbingly shallow when women look for men who have spent years demonstrating the skills necessary to be a reliable husband and father, can offer them and their children a safe place to live, can pay for health insurance and food, and who have taken care of their bodies enough to have a life expectancy over 45.

Do you see that doughy 28-year-old who dropped out of community college a decade ago, whose reading forays petered out at Ayn Rand and “Starship Troopers,” and who cried all the way home from the county jail after his dad posted bail following last year’s grow-room incident? Christian ladies, if this man now confesses Jesus, he should be no lower on your list of potential husbands than the handsome architecture graduate with a well-used gym membership who just showed up at church. If he is, the problem is with you and the legalism that lives in your heart.

God accepts everyone who repents of past sins. Therefore, if a man squanders his young adult years on pizza, porn, and “Call of Duty” quickscoping matches, a woman has no right to take these behaviors or their lasting consequences into account when evaluating him as a potential mate. He has a clean slate with God, and that means he should have a clean slate on the dating market, too.

Grace means that the man who has shown years of sound work ethic, perseverance, financial wisdom, and spiritual maturity should be no better off in others’ estimation of attractiveness or husband-potential than the man who just gave his life to Christ after pouring his twenties down a black hole of intoxicated, masturbatory indolence.

In building His kingdom, God isn’t looking for hunky men with bachelor’s degrees, burgeoning nest eggs, or negative drug tests. He accepts the broken and scarred men with pasts! They, too, are beautiful.

The obvious and logical conclusion is that women should accept marriage proposals from these men, as well. Indeed, they have no right to prefer any other type of man. In Christ, as the Bible says, we are all new creations. The old has gone. The new has come!

See you at the altar, ladies!

The author is a regular Federalist contributor anonymized here to protect his employer’s sensibilities.