When did love stop becoming a choice?

(Man, I don't do this blog thing very well. I'm better at having something to say, rather than having to say something. But here goes another try.)

I read this quote by Stanley Hauerwas--

"When couples come to ministers to talk about their marriage ceremonies, ministers think it's interesting to ask if they love one another. What a stupid question! How would they know? A Christian marriage isn't about whether you're in love. Christian marriage is giving you the practice of fidelity over a lifetime in which you can look back upon the marriage and call it love. It is a hard discipline over many years."

It reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of dialogue from the movie, First Knight. King Arthur has witnessed Guinevere kissing Lancelot goodbye. Lancelot has decided to leave Camelot for the good of the king and Camelot. Having confessed her love for Lancelot and affirmed her love for Arthur, the conversation goes as follows:

Arthur: When a woman loves two men, she must choose between them.

Guinevere: I choose you!

Arthur: Your will chooses me; your heart chooses him.

Guinevere: Then you have the best of it. My will is stronger than my heart. Do you think that I put so high a price on my feelings? Feelings live for a moment and the moment passes. My will holds me steady to my course through life.

Back to Hauerwas:

The difficulty, therefore, is that Christians, when they approach this issue [homosexual marriage], no longer know what marriage is. For centuries, Christians married people who didn't know one another until the marriage ceremony, and we knew they were going to have sex that night. They didn't know one another. Where does all this love stuff come from? They could have sex because they were married.

Now, when marriage becomes a mutually enhancing arrangement until something goes wrong, then it makes no sense at all to oppose homosexual marriages. If marriage is a calling that makes promises of lifelong monogamous fidelity in which children are welcomed, then we've got a problem. But we can't even get to a discussion there, because Christians no longer practice Christian marriage.

You can read the entire article at this site, http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/010202/faith3.html

How can we think that we can demonstrate the kingdom of God to our world, when we have deified romantic love and sacrificed our marriages and families on its altar?