Friends,

I, like most of you, have watched in a mixture of fascination, sadness and regret that our society, as part of a larger Western cultural movement, has for the most part embraced the homosexual lifestyle and orientation as morally permissible (or, at least, it largely adopts the stance of treating any opposition to homosexual lifestyle or orientation as morally impermissible). I think we can all agree this is not a good thing.

However, I have for sometime harbored many reservations about the position of the Catholic hierarchy in this country regarding the propriety of legalizing gay marriage. To be honest, the Holy Father himself speaks aboutt the need to protect the traditional family through state laws on marriage that are amenable to Christian faith. Still, I have my reservations. I feel justified in at least expressing this as I am not in fact aware of any Church dogma of "the faithful must believe that state/secular laws always reflect the Church's teaching." If that were the case, the United States would really be toast!

To get to my point: practically speaking, I think it's fairly obvious the Church is fighting a losing battle. Perhaps I despair, and I do take heart in the knowledge that with Christ, all things are possible. But as a more general social trend and considering the history of the development of civil rights in this country, I think you've got to be pretty daft to close your eyes to the writing on the wall. Of course, I am not saying that one should give up a good fight merely because all appears lost. But I am wondering if this is a "good fight' at all, given that the seachange that is sweeping the country regarding gay marriage will inevitably, I feel, make a mockery of the Catholic bishops and their moral voice. I fear that the Church will be looked at in the future as an institution which relentlessly insisted on denying people their "civil rights" (because that's what it's framed as by gay marriage supporters) and that this will perhaps fatally compromise the voice of the Catholic hierarchy in this country, already seriously weakened by the sex abuse scandal.

In any case, that is a practical concern and not a strictly theological concern. But I have theological concerns as well. First, I don’t understand the hierarchy’s position that we should fight against legalization of gay marriage because it is morally wrong, but make no similar arguments to laws allowing divorce and contraception (for example). If we are morally obliged to oppose legalization of gay marriage, are we not also morally obliged to lobby for making divorce and contraception illegal? Yes, a gay “marriage” is a farce, but so is, according to Catholic teaching, the idea that two married people can become divorced.

On a broader theological note and as I mentioned earlier, I am unaware that we as Catholics are obliged to pursue goals vis-à-vis state law that match up to our religious beliefs, regardless of whether the basis for arguing for or against laws is constitutional. For example, it could be argued that contraception, divorce, and gay marriage are all constitutionally permissible in this nation. Just for the sake of argument let’s assume that to be true. Are we Catholics, then, obliged to attempt to amend the Constitution so that the Church’s stance on marriage is completely mirrored in our state’s laws? That’s an honest question.

All that aside, I suppose at this point it seems to me that the way to convert souls to Christ is – as it has always been – to boldly and proudly proclaim the Church’s clear and consistent teaching regarding the homosexual lifestyle (and divorce, and contraception). But do we have to ensure that the laws do this for us? Why shouldn’t the Church’s approach be simply trusting in the power of the truth of Christ and say, “Of course, legalizing gay marriage is a terrible idea, but we can’t argue for it to be outlawed because we believe it’s immoral; rather, we should focus on the true conversion of people so that they will want to live according to God’s law, no matter what our federal, state, or local laws allow.” I have a hard time understanding the insistence by the Church hierarchy that we oppose legalization of gay marriage, no matter what. What if we believe that, for better or for worse (well, clearly, for the worse), gay marriage is constitutional and states are free to allow for it as they please? Are we supposed to say, “Well, even though I think it’s arguably a constitutional right, I’m going to oppose it.” Just as a theoretical question, might our faith demand that we, as American Catholics, oppose the “civil rights” (please excuse the term) of other citizens because we find the exercise of those rights morally repugnant?

Thank you for permitting to me to air some of my thoughts on this matter. As a law student, the intersection of our nation’s laws and our obligations as Catholics is interesting to me.

Alexis

I think your comparison is flawed. The Catholic Church does not teach that divorce is immoral only remarriage after divorce. Divorce may be the only solution left to a spouse yoked with an unrepentant abuser for one example. Some contraceptives do have a therapeutic use and could be used under the double effect principle.

But yes, if we can't get abortion de-legalized, which I think a slim majority find repugnant, keeping consenting adults from forming civil unions (which mainstream churches are "blessing" and companies and states are providing benefits for) and most people don't care about is a lost cause.

Fr. Dcn.,

I did anticipate that response re: divorce and perhaps I should have been clearer. I see a clean comparison between divorce recognized by the state and gay marriage recognized by the state in this way: Catholics believe actual divorce - i.e. severing the bonds of marriage, is impossible (simplifying; this is not meant to be an East vs. West divorce debate...), and we also believe that two people of the same sex entering into marriage is impossible. Yet the state has declared, under its law, that two people can marry and divorce and its eyes. And in the same way it can and has in many places been declared under various states' law that two people of the same sex can marry in its eyes. The point is, so what? Are we obliged to make sure the state follows the Church's teaching regarding what is and is not moral even when the Constitution of our nation might declare that in fact these are a citizen's rights?

Like I said, if Catholic bishops could simply argue, "Regardless of what the state says, this is what the Church says. And yes, in a perfect world we'd like the state's laws to better reflect the Church's teaching or even mirror it, but that is not how this nation [and most other Western democracies] were set up, so there's no point arguing that. We can simply declare the Church's teaching, and hope that the "rights" afforded by the state are not utilized by the people not because they cannot be, but because people have willingly chosen to follow the will of God." Or something like that.

Abortion I see as something of a different character in that killing is killing, and its effect is final. I'm not sure we Catholics have to care what the state's extension of the definition of marriage (or its decrees of divorce) say or do.

Alexis

I think a better example is promiscuity.

I think the Church's stance on gay marriage is hypocritical in that it seems to pick and choose which aspects of sin and morality it wants legislated into federal law.

We don't oppose abortion simply because it is sin - there are many, many sins in the world. We oppose it because it is murder - a very specific and grave type of sin.

Some say that gay marriage is an attack on the "institution of (Christian) marriage" as if the Church takes its cues on what marriage should be from the State, which is silly. The Church should be more concerned about divorce and sin within the marriages it has jurisdiction over, and less focused on "marriages" of the State, whatever those may or may not be.

And all of that aside, I don't remember reading about Christ outlawing prostitution. I remember him eating dinner with them. We might do something totally radical and follow Him in matters such as these.

I suspect there is some kind of excellent papal treatise on the relation between rights morals and states' laws and the relationship between them for the Catholic Christian. Probably by Pius X or XII. I'll have to look and see.

Alexis

My biggest issue is that I worry about the Church being forced to administer marriages it doesn't want to administer, which arises because the state approves the Church to do its business in terms of authorising its ministers as marriage celebrants.

It can't be long (if it hasn't already happened) before someone sues a priest for discrimination for not marrying people the state says he should as part of his role of state-licensed marriage celebrant.

My take on this has always been that to avoid these potential issues the Church should simply get out of the business of being an agent of the state and insist that anybody who wants a legally binding marriage should do it in a registry office. Anybody who wants a nuptial mass or scaramental service can approach the Church for a service on another occasion, and the Church's business and the state's business are kept nice and separate.

The state should only recognize civil unions and get out of the marriage business. The sooner the better. If two people of the same gender want to form a civil union and be afforded the same protections under the law as opposite sex couples enjoy, I don't see why they shouldn't.

I think that the Church needs to get out of the marriage business, as many others have stated. This way Traditional Christian marriage within the Church can be protected.

If Priests are technically working for the states in regards to secular marriage licenses, I can already see our Churches being taken to court for "discrimination" if/when so-called gay marriage is legalized.

For us as Apostolic Christians the blessing of the Church is all that matters. After the sacrement of Crowning the couple then can go down to the courthouse and enter in the "marriage" contract and get the tax break.

It's probably illegal to say this anymore where I am, but the problem goes well beyond doctrine or anything like that. The thing is, marriage, like family, is a natural institution. Redefining it has really far-reaching ramifications. A court here in Ontario decided not too long ago that a particular child has three parents. The ordinary assumption of the bonds of natural parenthood as being absolute is over. Once the state gets into redefining nature, things get messy. This isn't about protecting the rights of the Church or religious people. That's already over too. The point is, you can't think straight if you turn the truth on it's head, and our whole culture is jumping into it. Before long, they'll legally redefine 2 + 2 as 7 and send you off for re-education if you disagree.

Good questions and serious dialog. I recall my shock and of everyone I knew when abortion became a "constititutional right." The Church was caught flat-footed; it was such a shock and a relative surprise, as there were any clearly implied or explicit Constitutional grounds for the Supreme Court decision.
The homosexual marriage "right" is a replay but sort of like in slow motion, the Church is disappointed but not surprised by the campaign to legitimize sodomy and make it "respectable." It is progressing to the point of being protected and those who teach that it is wrong are ostracised. The Church knows this and it trying to educate its flock.

Keep looking at the progression...what will be next? Actually polygamy is more justified than sanctioned sodomy. Many of the instititional influences already quietly approve "consentual" incest and pedophilia (of course they don't call it that).

Down the road, imagine the child custody fights where children from a traditional marriage (or union) are now subject to the father or mother who is in a homosexual union; the courts won't be able to favor a straight parent. And it has been verified that homosexual males have relatively short term relationships so the courts will become clogged more than they are now.

These are more civil issues than church issues, but there will be similar ramifications which will affect the Church. Just last month the Administration made a public policy which practically is forcing Church institutions to offer abortions and birth control with its health insurance. Conscience clauses are disappearing for Church and medical workers; the same will be true for all social workers.

If things continue down this slippery slope the within a couple decades you will have to pay a tax to have a child; further down the road even natural conception could be banned and replaced with "healthy and non-defective" test tube babies.

Does this sound crazy? It sure does, but then the event that we are experiencing now are crazy. As scripture says, a prophet is never appreciated in his home town...or country.

A final point...having homosexual tendencies is not sinful as long as one is celibate.

Nope.

I don't think same-sex marriage is metaphysically possible.

I read the most extraordinary assertion that the martyrs Sts. Sergius and Bacchus were same-sex lovers.

Aren't they the same saints a UGC church in Rome is dedicated to?

Sielos,

That's hogwash. The same people who propagate that are the ones going on about our Lord and St. Mary Magdalene being lovers and the Gospel of Judas.

Paul B said: "Just last month the Administration made a public policy which practically is forcing Church institutions to offer abortions and birth control with its health insurance. Conscience clauses are disappearing for Church and medical workers; the same will be true for all social workers."

I see that as a separate issue, really, but it is nevertheless very, very disturbing. I'm definitely with the bishops on this one.

Alexis

Well, I was hoping someone would show me the error of my ways...

Fr. Dcn. Lance is the only one who's taken issue with my approach (and I thank you for that, Fr. Dcn.).

Alexis

Throughout human history, there has never been a society anywhere that defined marriage as the union of two persons of the same sex. Even societies in which homosexuality was either accepted or tolerated, did not do this. In Western society, the roots of our approach to marriage come from the Greeks, the Romans and the Jews, all three of which combine with the Christian kergyma to form the Christian sacramental view of marriage.

All three--Greek, Romans and Jews--looked upon marriage as a contractual relationship entered into for the purpose of begetting children and passing on property. As such, a large corpus of civil and religious law alike developed to cover matters such as dowries, bride price, legal jurisdiction over wives and children, inheritance, disinheritance, illegitimacy and adultery.

Since the state has an abiding interest in the stability of the family and the raising of children who will provide the next generation of citizens and taxpayers, it also has an abiding interest in marriage, which is why no society has ever recognized same sex marriage: it's about the children, numb nuts. A traditional nuclear family--mother, father and biological offspring--has proven empirically to be the best model for raising well adjusted children and passing on wealth from one generation to the next. It has proven so superior that even the Jews, who were originally polygamous, had transitioned to monogamy even before coming under the influence of the Greeks and Romans.

The only reason we accept same-sex marriages today is the state abrogating its responsibility for ensuring the replenishment of the population. In our fetish about personal autonomy, we have forgotten that we are not isolated individuals, but part of a society. That's why marriage has ceased to be about commitment, progeny and property, and has morphed into something to do with love and personal fulfillment. And we wonder why divorce rates are so high.

Marriage under the best of circumstances is difficult--as difficult as monasticism, in its own way--and the state has a vested interest in sustaining and subsidizing marriage, which is why married couples get a variety of financial, legal and social benefits. Creating alternatives to marriage merely reduces the desirability of marriage by providing less onerous ways to form conjugal relationships without any of the formal legal obligations and responsibilities. So the formation of civil unions, let alone recognition of same sex marriages, is merely a form of social suicide. But don't take my word for it, just wait half a century or so, and we'll talk.

Now, we must distinguish here between the Christian concept of sacramental marriage, and the civil-legal conception of marriage. The two are entirely separate and always have been, despite the Church having been coopted into acting as designated magistrates of the state in the execution of marriage licenses ("By the power vested in my by the State of ___, I now pronounce you man and wife"). As John Meyendorff wrote in Marriage--an Orthodox Perspective, and reiterated by Archbishop Joseph (Raya) in Crowning: The Christian Marriage, the sacrament of marriage has no earthly purpose--it is not, as marriage was, in the Old Testament, a means of achieving vicarious immortality through progeny (because the doors of immortality are already open to us), nor is it a means of transferring property, but rather, it is simply a Typos of the relationship between Christ and the Church. It has no other purpose (though the Western Church puts a different spin on this, as its theology of marriage is significantly different than ours), which is why the Church admits of but one sacramental marriage in a lifetime.

Part of the sacramental symbolism of marriage is the complementarity of the parties: just as Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride, so there must be a man to be the bridegroom, and a woman to be the bride. Through their complementarity, the masculine and feminine attributes of the divine nature which were divided in the sexes are reunited under the grace of sacramental marriage: the two flesh become one. In the Eastern view, procreation is not a "purpose" of marriage, but rather it is a seal of the fulfillment of the Mystery, as the husband and wife act together as co-creators with God to bring new life into the world.

This is, of course, not possible in same-sex marriages, and this, apart from the condemnation of sodomy, fornication and adultery found in both Testaments of the Bible, is the reason why Christians believe that sex is only truly sanctified within the bounds of sacramental marriage.

However, there is no need for sacramental marriage to have anything at all to do with civil marriage, and for almost a thousand years it did not. In the Roman Empire, only citizens could marry under Roman law. Non-citizens, including slaves, could not marry. Moreover, Roman civil ceremonies (and those in most of Rome's client states) required a libation sacrifice to the gods, which, of course, was quite verboten to Christians and Jews alike. Being a religio licita under the Empire, the Jews were free to follow their own customs (however bizarre they seemed), but Christianity was an illicit cult, so by default, the early Christians could not be legally married in the Empire.

But the Church still administered the sacrament of marriage for members of the Church, creating its own rules and regulations regarding who could marry whom, and the conditions creating impediments to marriage. Tertullian in the third century pointed this out, castigating the Romans that Christians treat their women better than those women the Romans call wives. Because the Church was only concerned with sacramental aspects of marriage, one could be sacramentally married in the eyes of the Church, but not legally married in the eyes of the state. And because it was focused solely on the sacramental elements of marriage, the Church did not concern itself with divorce, widowhood, remarriage, child custody and other legal and social matters; these were left to the state, even after the Empire became Christian.

Seeing marriage as a sacrament that transcended death, the Church (especially in the East) actively discouraged remarriage, not only in the case of divorcees, but also for widows and widowers. Nonetheless, and following the advice of St. Paul that it is better to marry than to burn, St. Basil the Great allowed that those who had been widowed, as well as those who had divorced for no fault of their own, might be allowed to remarry as a concession to human weakness, though third marriages were frowned upon and fourth marriages prohibited ("This is a swinish life").

But the Church did not, at first, perform "second marriages"--people who wished to remarry had to do so in a civil ceremony (much easier after Constantine); the Church concerned itself with the reintegration of those who had remarried into the Body of Christ, through a regimen of fasting and prayer--and abstention from communion (three years for a second marriage, five years for a third). Thus, the Church through oikonomia maintained the integrity of sacramental marriage while allowing "second chances" to those who needed them.

It was not until the end of the 9th century that Emperor Leo VI (The Wise) abolished civil marriage in the Roman Empire (which still nominally included the West) and made the Church responsible for all aspects of marriage, sacramental, legal and social. It was at this time that the Church devised the "rite of remarriage", a non-sacramental, highly penitential ceremony for those who wished to remarry; as was true earlier, those who remarried had to abstain from communion for a designated time. The Church also defined the just causes for divorce, and devised rules for the care of widows, divorcees and children of broken marriages. And, of course, the Church was now acting as a legal agent of the state, since only Church marriages were legal.

As long as all states were nominally Christian, this system worked well. The state upheld the Christian conception of marriage, and the Church in turn administered marriage for the state. Problems began arising with the French Revolution and the development of the secular nation-state, in which the government's conception of marriage might not be congruent with that of the Church. In some countries, the state took back total control of marriage, so that couples wishing to marry must do so first in a civil ceremony before having their union consecrated by a Church wedding. In other countries, mainly Protestant, the established national church was in fact an arm of the government, so there was no conflict.

Now, of course, that has changed, and the Church not only finds the state holding different opinions from the Church, it finds the state actively hostile to the beliefs of the Church.

The only solution, as I have proposed elsewhere (and where others have followed), is for the Church to simply get out of the business of executing marriage licenses. It must stop acting as a magistrate of the state, and concern itself, once again, with the purely sacramental aspects of marriage. Of course, Church marriages would lack the automatic legal standing that now goes with them, but that is a small price to pay for the autonomy the Church would regain--for the state can hardly tell the Church what to do about what is a purely religious matter with no legal implications.

So, on the one hand, the Church can bear full witness to its theology of marriage without worrying about incurring the wrath of the state; and those who wish to marry according to the canons of the Church may do so. In fact, they now have some interesting options, for they may marry sacramentally and not marry legally, which can have some substantial economic advantages in many situations. Of course, if they want all the legal protections and obligations offered by the state, then they may also contract a civil marriage as well--but there is nothing that forces them to do so.

In any case, once disencumbered from the burden of acting as civil magistrate, the Church can dismiss the entire matter of same sex marriage as something not of direct concern to itself, but is entirely free to preach Christian sexual morality--including the sanctity of sacramental marriage--without the infringement of state regulation.

I don't think my wife would be pleased with this solution.

I think the real problem is that the Church has traditionally couched her teachings in autocratic language that essentially says, "this is the truth--this is what you must believe," rather than saying something like, "this is what we believe, and we believe it with joy because it is what we received from Christ." The latter approach is inherently appealing, while the former is inherently repugnant. People whose belief is based largely on coercion will change their belief all too readily when given an excuse to do so.



In this case, though, I think the bishops' position is grounded on the premise that a majority of Americans are still oppose the idea of "gay marriage," but if we fail to take a vigorous stand against it now, that majority will soon lose the courage to continue the fight. (Just as most Americans opposed legalized abortion before Roe vs. Wade.)



We are called to be "the light of the world," which means that it is our job to enlighten others which, if we are successful, will ultimately lead to the changing of laws.



The real problem here is that we are dealing with an issue that can and will lead to the Church being persecuted. Yes, they could come up with a solution wherein Church weddings have no legal standing, but the fact is that people associate weddings with "church," and you can be sure that at some point there will be gays wanting to sue over their "right" to be married in the Catholic Church!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

All the better. The blood of martyrs and all that stuff--not that ours will be a very painful martyrdom. But somebody has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and it might as well be us.



They should go ahead. It would make my day. The law can be twisted in many ways, but it's very difficult to invert it completely.

Ironically, by accepting the premise that Church should have a say in the matters of State, one will end up creating a relationship that will allow for the State to later dictate the norms of the Church.

Like I said, separating Church and State is for the benefit of the Church.

If you want to create a relationship between the two where one can pull the other, I don't want to hear complaints when the other eventually pulls back.

What I see all to often is the reverse intent: attempts to change the laws against popular sentiment, in order to lead to eventual enlightenment through enforcement. A prospect I find dubious and opposed to the example of Christ.

I think most of us agreed that the Church should simply get out of the business of being a bookkeeper for the state here, and the reasons are pretty compelling. As I see it, there is only one argument that I have heard against the idea that the Church should stop acting as an envoy of the state in doing marriage paperwork that has merit.

It is that there are lots of young (and not so young too) people who are nominally (basically non-practicing except for MAYBE going to Church on Christmas and Easter)Catholic or nominally Orthodox won't get sacramental marriages because they won't want to go to the expense of two services, one without paperwork.

I raised this with one priest I know when we discussing this issue and he said "well, from years of counselling couples, the majority of weddings I do aren't really sacramental. They just view me as a civil celebrant with a nice building". Thoughts?

As Eastern Christians, we share a theology of marriage which sees God as uniting the couple as one flesh. This is in opposition to Western marriage, in which the couple are the ordinary ministers of the sacrament who, in effect, marry each other before a priest (or deacon) who acts as witness on behalf of the Church. Because in our rites the presbyter is the ordinary minister of the sacrament, who unites the couple through the descent and action of the Holy Spirit, it is somewhat sacrilegious to unite in marriage people whose attachment to the Church is merely nominal. Such people would be better served by resorting to a civil ceremony than by pretending to agree with something they either reject or do not understand.

This case was made very compellingly by the Armenian theologian Vigen Guroian, in his essay "Let No Man Join Together: An Orthodox Christian View of a Beseiged Sacrament", Touchstone, Jan/Feb 2011. Like me, he advocates getting the Church out of the marriage licensing business. I have given my reasons here, but I also wrote about it for First Things in July 2010.

You must have contact with different Eastern Catholics and Orthodox than me, because in my experience the knowledge of the majority of Orthodox and EC youth about the deeper aspects of their faith is appalling (it's better in the less "liberal" jurisdictions such as ROCOR but still often not great). They might know how many bows to do before an icon and what to eat at different times of year, but ask them to explain what the incarnation is and you'll be in trouble. Let alone who the minister of the sacrament is in marriage. This would make the majority of their marriages "sacrilegious" by your argument,so better if we did not do them. I'm not willing to go that far; I think that the sacrament can give strength that appears in unexpected ways, and it be a shame if people did not get married in churches because of cost on top of going to a civil celebrant. That is the only aspect of removing the "marriage business" from the church that concerns me.

Stuart,

Have you studied the evolution of Marriage in non-Byzantine Traditions? I found your post quite informative, but I wonder if the same applies to the non-Imperial (Lesser Eastern) Churches, especially as far out as India.

One problem I foresee with civil and religious marriages being separated - could the state accuse one of being a polygamist if one marries in a religious ceremony then separates and marries another, etc? For example, in cases of religious conversion one spouse doesn't wish to convert, causing tension, separation, etc - could the State then decide for me if I am bound to pay alimony, etc to the estranged ex-spouse?

Another example - the church age minimum for marriage today is 16 for boys, 14 for girls; the State prohibits marriage for anyone under 18 without parental consent - could the church be accused of conspiring child abuse?

One more thought - what could the State do if I decided to marry someone civilly, male/female for financial reasons, but sacramentally to another?

Michael,

Those are interesting questions, and something that future courts may have to work out. I don't see any of those issues as insurmountable problems, however.

Stuart,

I might quibble with your characterization of marriage in the West and East over the centuries and a few other minor points, but by and large I think we seem to agree on what the Church's stance should be vis-a-vis state gay marriage in this country.

Now, my real gripe is that the Catholic hierarchy of this country continually impresses upon the faithful the idea that we absolutely must work against the legalization of gay marriage. But as I said, that is not a doctrine of the Church (i.e., that we must oppose legalization of gay marriage or its recognition as a right). The Church's teaching is that only two heterosexual people can marry, and that sex should only take place within the sacred confines of a marriage (something quite different).

As I said, I think this runs the risk of confusing a believer like me, who holds to the aforementioned view that the Church and state should just go their separate ways regarding marriage and that we need to stop fighting what in my mind seems like a pointless battle which will inevitably come back to bite the Church in its behind - and at a point when we'll desperately need whatever moral authority we can muster to stave off the depravity continuously infecting our society.

Alexis

I think the hierarchy should work against gay marriage, not for any overriding theological reason, but simply because gay marriage is bad for society as a whole. No society has ever recognized homosexual relationships as marriage, and for very good reasons, as I pointed out. Anything which undermines traditional marriage, in fact, is bad for society, which is why I am opposed to all alternatives, including "civil unions", as well as things which make it easy to terminate marriages, such as no fault divorce laws, and policies that explicitly or implicitly subsidize extramarital sex, such as welfare programs that give money to unwed mothers in proportion to how many bastard children they have. If I could, I would make it impossible for illegitimate children to inherit, and work to recreate the stigma of bastardy, because people don't respond to rational arguments, they respond only to economic and social suasion.

What about the harm that would be done to all these bastard children? They certainly are not guilty of the sins of their parents. I agree with you about that harm that has been done to society by various factors that erode traditional marriage, but I have no interest in stigmatizing children for the sins of their parents; neither do I think it just to limit inheritance to children born to parents who are married. I do not believe in punishing chilren for the sins of their parents.

What about the harm that is already being done to them by being raised in broken families? There's pain no matter which way you go, but the problem with the way we are going now is there is no ending. My way, it stops.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Stuart, but I assume you support small government and a free market? How does the state telling people who they are allowed to give their money to fit into this?

Well, first of all, what you're proposing won't happen, so, in a sense, it doesn't matter. However, I do appreciate your response, because it demonstrates that you're concern lies primarily from a desire to end the harm being done to individual children and to society by so many children being born outside of marriage.

I still see your position as fundamentally unjust. It is simply wrong to stigmatize a child for the sins of the parents.

There is a reason why the term "bastard" is so offensive--people realize the injustice suffered by so many for millenia simply because those given the label were the ones who happened to have been born out of wedlock. If we're going to assign second-class status to those born out of wedlock by forbidding them to inherit their parents' property and placing a severe social stigma on them due to behavior in which they had no choice whatsoever, then why wouldn't we take the same or even harsher actions towards the children of parents who have committed sins as serious or more serious than that of having a child out of wedlock? What should we do to the legitimate children of adulterers? What about the children of businessmen who are known by the community to be unethical? Are adultery and dishonest business practices not harmful to individuals and to society as a whole? Why not coerce those people into doing the right thing by punishing their children?

I don't think that two "ceremonies" would be necessary for a Christian to be married, assuming that the Church stops being a registering agency for the state.

When one applies for a marriage license, all that would be necessary would be to have the paperwork signed there before a witness--even a notary public in some states. Two years ago I was at a marriage in California where one does not even have to be a native to be a public officiant. In that state, any person can obtain a temporary license to officiate, even for one day and one marriage, and simply file the paperwork within 72 hours with the county in which the marriage took place. The whole ceremony took about three minutes in an outdoor pavilion. I attended another ceremony in Pennsylvania and the three parts of the ceremony were essentially the old Western rite minus a nuptual blessing: instruction, exchange of vows, and exchange of rings (an option).

It seems to me that it should be easy to satisfy the state's requriements and afterwards have a sacramental marriage. That would separate the requirements of the state and insulate the Church from being forced to perform a sacrament for those who wish to legalize other forms of union: civil, same-sex, polygamous, or whatever.

All the Church would have to do is to ask to see the proof that the legal requirements were met.

I also have known clergy who have officiated marriage ceremonies for older people who didn't want to lose their pensions by an official state-recorded marriage and who wanted to be "right in the sight of God." They've had to do this privately so that their right to officiate for others wouldn't be taken away.

I think Stuart is right in taking the stance that the Church should get out of the marriage officiating business vis-a-vis the state.

Bob

Many of you probably know this but in various countries, like Mexico and Germany, a civil marriage has to take place. Only after that are people allowed to have a religious wedding - if they want to.

And it was like that back in the accursed Soviet Union as well. The state erected lavish, vulgar, glitzy, kitschy & gaudy "wedding palaces" to encourage the couples to prefer civil weddings attractive, rather than religious ceremonies.

If, however, you were obstinate enough also to have a religious wedding, you might lose your chance at a university education; or you might be passed over for a promotion at work, or you might never get that larger appartment you need, or the telephone installed...they had subtle as well as not-so-subtle ways of making your life miserable if you professed faith in any significant, public way.

Is that where we're headed?

Yes and no. Obviously a child bears no guilt for his father's sins, but he may very likely bear the scars, and the scars may screw him up good and permanently.

It strikes me as not unjust to discriminate against a bastard in some cases. Such a one I would hold unsuitable as a potential spouse to one of my children, for instance. A person who has no model of Christian marriage will have difficulty in the execution of his own. At that, a person from such unfortunate circumstances for which he bears no guilt, may well be disqualified justly from certain states of life.


* * *

For clarity, it is not so much bastards under discussion on this thread anyway, as natural illegitimate children. Bastards are the issue of a couple unable to be wed, that is, people married to others, or closely related, etc. Ordinary natural illegitimate children, such as those born to unwed mothers of unwed fathers, are not strictly bastards. They are merely illegitimate and are legitimized by the subsequent marriage of their parents.

One likes one's pejorative terms in order.

It didn't harm William the Conqueror, not in the least. And after 1066, nobody but nobody called him William the Bastard again.

This has always been one of the fundamental duties and obligations of government. Back when government in this country was vestigial at best, and interfered in people's live to a very negligible degree, the states still maintained laws of inheritance because the state has a vested interest in the orderly disposition of property and the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. It has always been so in Western civilization--the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, all had laws and customs (common law) governing marriage, inheritance, adoption, divorce, division of property and so forth. Marriage is not about a man and a woman. From the Church's perspective, its a sacramental union, an affirmation of Christ relationship to the Church; for the state, it's a matter of self-preservation. The state needs people to have solid households, to raise children to be productive citizens, to provide workers for the fields and the factories, and (above all) soldiers for the armies, without which the state shall perish. A lot has changed over the millennia, but demography is still destiny, and the need to raise children to perpetuate the state has not changed one iota.

I thought we were pretty much there already actually.

Really?

Most people learn abusive habits from their parents, who may appear to be a "model Christian marriage" on the outside.

That is a very naive outlook you have.

Such a distinction only existed in the Civil Code of mid-19th century Louisiana - nowhere else; not even, as I recollect, in the Napoleonic Code on which Louisiana based its statutes. And it existed solely to provide a foundation on which to play out the further distinction of adulterous bastards and incestuous bastards. All other illegitimate children whose parents failed to marry subsequent to their birth, despite being 'able' to do so, were still bastards - just not of either of those two categories.



And what might you do were your child to feel differently on that count? (having perhaps a somewhat less exaggerated sense than his/her father of the import of a paternal surname to choosing a future spouse versus looking at the individual's personal qualities)

Many years,

Neil

I thought it was an established fact that Latins like to define things. Canon law, in that case, has distinguished between categories of illegitimacy for a very long time. I'm not sure the word "bastard" was ever used canonically, but the distinction is there. The point is not important. I was only meaning to dial down the terms a little in the interests of civility.







It's not about a paternal surname. It's about the fact that whole families more than broken ones tend to produce healthy children. It is largely on the basis of this obvious and well-established fact that the Church opposes divorce and fornication in the first place.

If my child felt differently is not material to the point. For similar reasons, I would not encourage any of my children to choose a non-Catholic spouse. They might still. But to answer you directly, what I might do would depend entirely on the particulars of the situation.

This seems a particularly useless argument and not unlike the one that goes "same-sex couplings should be permitted to adopt children because some natural parents beat their children"; as if no conclusion can ever be reached from obvious facts since there is always a worse situation existing hidden somewhere.

Of course children of whole Christian marriages are not free of bad influences. So what?

If your daughter brought home the son of sadistic serial murderer, would you want to examine his character before you concluded on his suitability for marriage, or would you jump to the conclusion that the sins of the father rub off on the son often enough that you'd really just prefer she pick a different suitor?

So now we're going from children born out of wedlock to children of serial murderers. Yeah, that's apples to apples.

I think we're straying from "gay marriage." Let's get back on track.

Bob Moderator

We're not straying at all, because gay marriage is but a symptom, not the disease itself.

Have you no faith in the power of the Gospel to transform people's lives-even those who were born to parents not married to each other?

Would you care to elaborate on which particular states of life from which you would "justly" disqualify certain people? I ask because it seems to me that the direction in which you are going is to disqualify them from Christian marriage-an idea I find to be repugnant. As a matter of fact, I find the idea of disqualifying them from any state of life on the basis of their parents sins to be repugnant and entirely counter to the Christian faith.

As to your first paragraph, of course children may bear scars as a result of the sins of their parents. However, there is a difference between consequences that naturally follow as a result of the sins of one's parents and consequences imposed upon a child by law. The former are tragically inevitable, the latter are not.

I am not in a position to bar people from anything. I don't say an illegitimate is unable to contract marriage, or even should be. I say that offspring of broken homes taken as a group will have more failed marriages than will the children of solid Christian families. This is an obvious fact with statistics and anecdotes aplenty to back it.

Evidently some Christian people succeed marvelously in marriages to pagans, and illegitimates. Still I would not recommend either but rather would counsel against both. Why take the risk?

That is all. Nothing legal.

On the other hand, "defects of birth" have been enough in certain times and places to bar a man from ordination, or from certain clerical positions. I assume the rationale is similar.

As for the power of the Gospel to transform lives, I have considerable faith. some such transformations are stunning. At the same time, we must admit that most people do not transform much of anything but instead live out the script their parents handed to them.

It is apples to apples. Just as you first pointed out that children get bad habits from their apparently Christian parents, we all get our base assumptions from our family of origin. Very few people ever examine their base assumptions, let alone ever try or succeed to change them. Thus, in choosing a spouse, one would surely do well to consider the source of their intended's base, and the likelihood of wide differences.

Well put. But sometimes we can't even penetrate that until after the ceremony and the years begin to wear away the veneer of pretence we use in the courting process.

Bob

Which would seem even more to recommend the wisdom of choosing a spouse not solely on the subjective impression one has of their character but also on the objective reality of their family situation, religious practice, etc.

A young lady does well to choose a husband not only who she fancies a hard worker, but who actually has a job, and whose father has shown him, since before he can remember, that a man supports his family. And when the veneer has worn and time has done it's work, what man but a fool is surprised that his good lady wife has turned out a fair bit like her mother?

So does free will or grace not play any role in who a person is. People are just forever trapped in the circumstances there parents give them? I didn't realize empirical philosophy held so much sway on a byzantine Christian message board.

If people are forever doomed to hold the values their families given, it means that for most people the thought of being ostracised from their families for being different trumps their desire for independent thought, so they fit in It doesn't really have anything to do with whether free will exists, just that it is not always easy to exercise. I do find Stuart's solution to the problem of limiting the variety of social circumstances that people can become trapped in is not really a solution at all to this problem, however.

It's not philosophy. It's human experience.

Have you, or have you not been surprised to hear yourself say to your own children the same stupid things your father said to you?

Has your wife, or has she not ever lamented "I'm turning into my mother"?

Does not fatherlessness plague generation after generation of urban black Americans, to horrifying consequences?

People *can* change. They just typically *don't*. I'm shocked that this point needs arguing. For every one person you know who has made a significant change in his life, you know at least one hundred who haven't.

That sounds like a calculating protective father talking, not a Christian speaking about his brothers or sisters in Christ.

Family of origin is radically important and you are right to give it hard scrutiny, but there are even greater factors that determine character. Most everybody has been exposed to disfunction in their development, what you will have to determine is any potential suitor's response to it, which is what truly reveals the qualities you are looking for.

The discussion is interesting but has veered slightly off topic (not that I didn't sign up for that by simply being a member of a forum). So that's fine.

But back to my original comment/question/impression. Many Catholic bishops in this country (I only really know of Roman bishops doing this, but I'm sure some Eastern Catholic bishops in this nation do so as well) seem to be basically telling the faithful that "if you support/are not opposed to gay marriage by the state, you're sinning."

As we've discussed in this thread, I am very uncomfortable with this message - again, not because of anything to do with Catholic teaching regarding marriage or homosexuality, but because it's a prudential concern being foisted on people as if it's a theological truth of the faith...

Alexis

Well, to give tacit support to sinful behavior is itself sinful. And to support allowing the state to legitimize sinful behavior cannot be anything other than sinful. That aside, allowing the state to legitimize same-sex marriage, civil unions, and any other alternative to conventional marriage, will have devastating consequences for society at a practical level (as in fact it has already).

Your logic is faulty because it can also be applied to laws regarding abortion. If supporting laws that allow abortion is sinful, why not laws that support sodomy, fornication and adultery?

Stuart,

I agree with everything you say here. However, I see a problem with your previously-stated thesis that the solution is for the Church to simply get out of the business of executing marriage licenses and concern itself strictly with the "purely sacramental" aspects of marriage.

The problem I see is twofold: first of all, the ones agreeing with you in this thread that the Church should "get out of the business" seem to be using it as a reason not to oppose legislation allowing gay marriage. The other aspect is the fact that simply changing the law in this regard will do little to change the well-ingrained popular notion of a "church wedding:" the fact is, many people somehow perceive a church wedding as producing a stronger bond--or something like that--even if they have little use for "church" otherwise.

Moreover, given the fact that religiosity is regarded as a feminine quality, we should not be surprised that there will be a higher proportion of gay men than straight men desiring "church weddings."

In other words, yes, the Church will soon be out of the business of executing marriage licenses, but that fact will do little to mitigate the impact of what lies ahead.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

The Church has to get out of the marriage business to preserve its own integrity and the integrity of the sacrament and theology of marriage. It does not follow, though, that the Church must therefore remain neutral with regard to the civil recognition of same-sex marriage, or the normalization of homosexual behavior. Even when the Church was an illicit superstitio under the Roman Empire, it did not cease to censure those aspects of Roman mores and Roman civil law that it saw as inherently immoral. With the Church close to being viewed as an illicit superstitio once more, why should we not emulate the Fathers?

As to the misuse of the sacrament as a kind of legitimizing "seal" of marriage for those who otherwise do not hold any faith, well, there are plenty of "ecclesial communities" willing to prostitute themselves, but that is no reason for any truly Apostolic Church to do so. We, instead, must be even more steadfast, even to the point of denying that sacrament to those of our nominal members who are otherwise unprepared to undertake the obligations and responsibilities that go with it--for their sake, as well as for that of the Church. And at the same time, the Church must begin once more to preach the true theology of human sexuality and marriage--from the pulpit and the ambo, as well as from the classrooms for both children and adults.

As for the future of same-sex marriage, I see it as a passing fad, for a couple of reasons. First, most homosexuals are just not that interested in it. It was not part of the gay agenda until quite recently, and early gay pioneers (e.g., Harvey Milk) decried marriage as a bourgeois affectation that sexually liberated gay men could do without. The only reasons it rose to the top of the agenda were (a) the desire to gain access to the "goodies" of marriage, including health insurance and pensions, in light of the AIDS epidemic; and (mainly among the leadership of the movement), the desire to use marriage as a way of normalizing (mainstreaming) homosexuality. Tolerance in the sense of live and let live was not enough--it was necessary to put homosexuality on an even footing with heterosexuality, or even to give it privileged status. Hence the recourse to arguments based on fairness, civil rights, and, of course, "love"--as though, for most of its history, "love" was ever seen as sufficient in itself to justify marriage.

I think the stats in Canada bear this out.

It looks like Fr. Thomas Hopko (OCA) discussed this topic at a recent conference in Chicago:

http://ancientfaith.com/specials/orthodox_christian_synergys_annual_symposium_2011

AJ

Interesting article in the NYT today. Clearly the writer is on the other side of the moral debate, but his solution is similar to what some of us have been positing:

http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/true-equality-for-all-americans/?hp

Alexis

The author of this blog, Andrew Rosenthal is suffering from faulty logic, in my opinion.
Marriage does enjoy equal rights for all within the law. What he proposes is to change the limits that the law has legitimately set on whom one can and cannot marry.

For instance:

A single woman can marry a single man. This right is not denied to someone based on their sexual orientation. Whether a person with SSA would "want" to marry someone of the opposite sex is entirely another matter that depends nothing at all on the law.

There is no discrimination because the law of one man one woman is applied equally to all people irregardless of race, color, or creed.
But if you notice, in his article Mr. Rosenthal says that "all couples should be able to marry under the law". But he puts his own limitations in saying this.

In saying couples, he apparently believes that plural marriages are out, yet he has no compelling reason to keep this prohibition.
I assume that he also wants to keep the age restrictions in place as well.

However, if he wants to allow a marriage of any convenience between man/man or woman/woman, then logically, it follows that any plural arrangement is also allowable under the law. Therefore, one man multiple wives should be legalized and recognized. One woman multiple husbands should be recognized. Multiple men multiple women should also be recognized.

Yet, they are not pushing for such a sweeping reform of marriage laws. They only seem to want what is convenient for them.

Poor Mormons. Kicked to the curb again, apparently.

I think the faulty logic is yours.

According to your logic, segregated water fountains are completely equal within the law. Whites may drink from water fountains, and blacks may drink from water fountains.

What you do not take into account is the question of whether the State may place restrictions on which water fountains people drink from.

Similarly, what is at question here is not whether males and females have the right to marry, but whether adult citizens have the right to marry other consenting adult citizens.

The restriction you have placed on the discussion is equally out of place.

Plural marriage is indeed equally under this moral umbrella as well. Why 3 or more consenting adults can't be "married" is beyond me. My Church disagrees with it and won't tolerate it, but that is a separate issue from whether the State should or should not. Marriage as a "contractual" relationship presided over by the State may make plural marriage difficult, as related to property, taxing, etc.

But I see no reason why the State should be making moral determinations in this regard.

Your logic is faulty, too. Gay marriage boils down to a redefinition of the word marriage. For the analogy to hold, the state would have to redefine water fountain as something unrecognizable as such, and then allow some people to drink from it (assuming you could drink from it).

As I have noted, repeatedly--and which has repeatedly been ignored--is the inconvenient historical fact that there is not, and never has been, a civilization in the history of man in which the term marriage--in a social, legal, and religious sense--ever included unions of two people of the same sex.

Even in plural marriages, a new wife does not marry all the current wives, just the husband. Each of them is united to him, and to him alone--not to the other women to whom he is married.

As to why we do not recognize plural marriage, the answer is simple: Western society has recognized that such marriages are not consistent with the purposes and values it has associated with marriage, including (but not limited to) the manner in which plural marriage (a) degrades the status of women; and (b) creates artificial shortages of women (because only the most successful men can attract or afford multiple wives), leading to large numbers of young men with no prospects for starting families of their own (which is socially destabilizing).

In defense of my logic, I think that's why they call it *gay* marriage, the qualifier in front of the noun concedes that both are needed for the new meaning. Nobody is suggesting that marriage is commonly understood to include couples of the same sex. I'd almost accuse you of attacking a strawman here.

I ignore the history of such unions in this context because they don't hold water (pun not intended) in terms of what the State should or should not permit it's citizens to pursue, if one assumes (as I do) that the role of the State is to safeguard individual liberty. Once you afford a social engineering role to the State, then your suggestions bear consideration. Many people do exactly this and your argument would find wide acceptance with them, just not with me.

That mostly speaks to the points on plural marriage. There are women who find it uplifting (as bizarre as that is). Is it the role of the State to deny them? Who's liberty are they compromising?

Again, it depends on what you believe the role of the State to be.

The reason I am loathe to afford it such powers is because I know one day it will turn them against me (or, God forbid, my children or their children) as new martyrs. If that means gays can be "married" by the State, then so be it.

Alexis,
I get a lot of correspondence from the USCCB (U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops) and I have never seen anything that confirms your impression. Agreed, that working FOR one-sex marriage is contrary to Christian and Judaic teaching, it makes perfect sense to a Christian conscience that anything opposed to male/female marriage is objectionable. Why shouldn't it be?

Apathy (not caring about the political maneuvering with regard to marriage) has never been singled out as a sin with regard to this subject. That being said, you know what Christ said about "lukewarmness."

To JDC, if the government permits marriage to whoever "turns you on" or fills a vacuum, then one should absolutely be allowed to "marry" a pet dog, cat, other pet or even a computer. The central question is "what is marriage?" The traditional view is a man and woman; doesn't the burden of upset require a strong justification? Even a marriage license application for marriage between a man and woman sets restrictions, i.e. blood relationship, age, and (at least when I got married) a blood test.

You must mean somebody else. I haven't been posting on this thread.

Nope. Adjectives modify nouns, they do not negate their meaning. When they do, the result is an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp or episcopal oversight. Gay marriage is an oxymoron, because marriage by definition (at least, the definition of the last 5000 years or so) means the union of a man and a woman. A cannot equal B when B is not A.



That's not the role of the state, that's the role of the citizenry. The state's vested interest in marriage transcends individual liberty rights--else why have statutes against adult incest, or polygamy, or polyamory, etc.? Marriage is a social good, the maintenance of which is in the long term interests of society, hence the state has traditionally supported--indeed, privileged--traditional marriage over other familial arrangements.



That of the rest of society. The Founders were not radical individualists. Neither is Christianity a faith founded on radical individualism, hence it's hard to justify your position either from a constitutional or a theological perspective.

JPP, on your first post on page five you make the "separate but equal" argument about drinking fountains, white ones and black ones. Two posts later, you're arguing that "gay marriage" isn't understood by anyone to be ordinary "marriage".

These are opposite arguments. That is, you appear to be arguing against yourself.

Additionally, as a point of fact, you're mistaken. No state is issuing "marriage certificates" to the usual couples, and "gay marriage certificates" to the same-sex ones. Where laws have been changed, no distinction exists between the one sort of arrangement and the other.

Using your example, I was trying to explain that all people can all drink out of the same water fountains. All people can marry someone of the opposite sex. There is no discrimination of this right.


I think the case can be made in which all would agree that the State has a legitimate right to place restrictions on marriage (i.e. consanguinuity and age).

No one is arguing that the state cannot make restrictions that are applied justly to all.

So, with that premise, that there are certain limitations, placed by the state, on the right to marry, it becomes a question of whether or not the state's limitation on prohibiting same sex marriage (like age and blood relative) is legitimate.

I say yes. Obviously, proponents of SSM say no.



Does that clear up my position? I don't see how I am out of place.

jjp obviously considers marriage to be a purely private matter between the individuals involved, the state's only role being to witness and adjudicate the contractual aspects of the union. However, that is a major misreading of marriage, which has always been a societal , not an individual matter; societies regulate many aspects of marriage, including both the definition of marriage, and who can and cannot enter into marriage, because marriage is central to the perpetuation of the state and the society the state oversees.

Similarly, the Church has always seen marriage as an ecclesial, not an individual action. Like all the sacraments, the Church and not the individual is at the heart of marriage, which is why marriage used to (and always still should) occur in the context of the Eucharistic liturgy before the entire community of the faithful. That same ecclesial dimension allows the Church to determine who can and cannot be married within the boundaries of the sacrament.

I wholeheartedly agree. However, the problem I have seen with proponents of SSM is that they see no problem with this redefinition because I am told that they feel that culture is evolving, and so our terms should too.
Personally, I believe that as the language devolves, so does the culture.
So how does one offer an apologetic to someone who has no issue with re-defining words.


You make an excellent point. However, people who support SSM are non-plussed by this fact. From what I hear, they tell me that "we don't live in the dark ages anymore. People get married because they love each other".

Yes, they have a point that we do get married now because of love. You even pointed out that this reason is rather new. Historically, love was not the primary reason why people got married.

Now, the dark ages part is just a rhetorical ploy, in my opinion, but many people actually think that modernity is somehow better, that we are somehow more liberated/free.

I just shake my head when I hear this, especially considering the divorce rate, illegitimacy rate (a very un-PC term), abortion rate, and all of the other societal problems that have come from the breakup of the family.

Same sex marriage didn't cause these problems. The devaluation of traditional marriage and free love did.

Perhaps that is what happens when a society has unprecedented wealth as we do (from a historical perspective). I think that divorce, shacking up, and SSM wouldn't even be on the radar if we were forced to spend the majority of our time in just providing the basic necessities for survival.

I agree with your assessment.

However, to the person who supports SSM, in my opinion, their logic leads them
to the conclusion that any arrangement should be legally recognized because:

1) the definition of marriage can be re-defined based on subjective standards
2) love is the main reason to marry, and one should not judge another's preference.

I do not agree with these reasons, but these are the reasons given.

I really don't know how to respond to those, because they seem like ridiculous reasons to me.

The proponents of gay marriage look towards the Supreme Court's awful Lawrence v. Texas decision, which over turned sodomy laws by saying that sex was an area where each human being had to be free to find his own happiness. Justice Scalia's scathing dissent called this the "O, Sweet Mystery of Life" argument, and predicted it would lead not only to calls for gay marriage, but also the legalization of polygamy, incest and a host of other "alternative life styles".

Though you are correct in your assessment of how gay marriage proponents think, I believe you miss their fundamental error, which is marriage is a purely personal, not societal matter. But, in fact, marriage only emerged to regulate sexual relations because of their societal impact, and as the state emerged, it also had a vested interest in regulating marriage because the state is a self-perpetuating organism that needs stable families capable of bearing and raising sufficient numbers of new citizens capable of carrying the state forward into the next generation. That's why legal and social definitions of marriage, monogamous or polygamous, always involve the union of a man and a woman--because only a man and a woman can have and raise children, and because monogamy has proven to be the model of familial establishment that best suits this societal objective.

Well stated, Stuart!

Now we're mincing words rather than discussing the substance of the issue, which is whether or not the State should be the one who determines these things. Modified or redefined, in my opinion it is outside the purview of the State to arbitrate.



But the vehicle through which the citizenry does this is the State, you have to explain the distinction to me.



This presupposes that anything can transcend individual liberty rights when it comes to the role of the State, a position I reject.



Because we have given the State authority to define who can be "married" (or, what the word "married" means, if you will). Polygamy is no more destructive to society than civil divorce or single parenthood, there is no rational basis to target one and not the other.



I see your ideal and raise you a Kim Kardashian.



My position might be muddled, so I will attempt to clarify it. The federal government should have no involvement with the institution of marriage. If gay people want to say they are married, that is their prerogative. I can call myself a giraffe if I want to. However, the federal government *is* involved, and because it is, it is, in a sense, depriving gay people the right to call themselves giraffes by acting as an arbiter of the institution. It may be an oxymoron, but that does not justify the State's involvement.

You could say that I am arguing for "civil unions", and that's fine, call them unicorns for all I care. Two consenting adults who desire the same federal recognition for their relationship that a married couple possesses is absolutely justified by the Constitution, and by a theological perspective.

The Church involving itself in these civil issues, however, is not.

I think it appears that way to you because you are taking the analogy out of its context.



It seems silly for the State to be doing any of this, doesn't it?

That sums it up.



The vehicle through which our society does this is the State. By giving this power to the State, you are ceding it authority that you will one day want to take back when society decides you are in the way of its perpetuation. And you won't be able to take it back.



Amen, I hope it stays this way.

You'll note that I view the role of the Church and that of the State quite differently.

People always say that, but the truth is, unless words have meaning, there is no substance to any argument.



Then you don't understand either marriage or the interests of the state. At some point, you're going to find it hard to reconcile your radical individualism with your Christianity, since the two are not compatible.



QED



Then you are either naive, or disingenuous, or haven't been paying attention. There is massive evidence that high rates of divorce, single parenthood and polygamy all result in high rates of social instability. We know that children of divorced parents, or children raised by one parent alone (usually the mother), hae much higher rates of social pathologies than children raised by their biological parents in intact traditional families. All those social pathologies have societal costs, which, at the end of the day, wind up costing money, both directly and indirectly. Therein lies the state's vested interest--and society's.

On the social costs of polygamy, much of what you see in the Muslim world today can be laid to the practice. When a small number of men can monopolize a high percentage of the women, the result is a large pool of young men who cannot marry at all or form lasting intimate relationships with women, let alone start families. Large numbers of single young men is always a recipe for trouble. The problem China has because of its one child policy and sex-selective abortion (a ratio of male-to-female live births of 1.26-to-1), you get in the Arab world because of polygamy. Then there is the whole matter of what polygamy does to the dignity and status of women, but, hey, you say some women dig it, and therefore we have no right to interfere with their karma. Dude!



Abusus non tollit usus. And outliers do not invalidate the norms.



Libertarianism sounds good until you pass out of puberty. Alas, some people never do.



But you also misunderstand both the role of the Church in society, and the Church's understanding of the role of the state.

I can't see what context possibly has to do with it. It's illogical. It doesn't get logical because you put it into context.





Even if it is, it's quite beside the point. The point is that you're basing your arguments on suppositions that are false.

Have a look. Running on false assumptions and faulty logic isn't going to get you to useful conclusions.

I would take this line of thought more seriously if you weren't also using "same-sex marriage" throughout the thread as well. We both know what we mean, and if you want to purge paradoxical phrases from my posts, your own should set the example.



Honestly, the recognition of contractual relationships between people of varying gender is running out of steam as a topic that I am find interest in, but I think I'd like to create a new thread about this idea so as to not completely derail this one, because I'd love to hear why you think this. But let's agree to save that for a new thread.



I think you misread the sentence. I said it's "no more destructive than...". Of course they are damaging, what I continue to question is the basis by which one is outside of the law, and others are not.

The "karma" and "dude" references I think imply that you believe I'm coming at it from a free-love point of view. I was more thinking of the unjust persecution of consensual polygamist Mormons (not to be confused with the non-consensual "compound" variety).



I agree, which is why I don't feel threatened by people of the same sex having the same contractual relationship that a husband and wife do in the eyes of the State. That would have nothing to do with the sacrament of marriage as the Church understands it (which is the outlier, not the norm, sadly).



I would have thought you were more enlightened than run-of-the-mill conservatives. Despite sprinkling "limited government" crumbs around here and there, you're a Statist at heart - so long as it does what you want it to do. Once it decides to do something else, well then it has to be limited, by which time of course it's too late. Never ceases to amaze me.



I think I'll take that up in the same new thread, it does interest me.

The Founding Fathers were statists, too--otherwise they would not have formed a state. And that's as far as I'll take this discussion, which is now going in circles.

You're really going to make me quote the dictionary here aren't you.

"the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty"

It's only going in circles because I keep asking you to reconcile your belief that


with



It's one or the other. I don't blame you for not wanting to reconcile your disdain with the management skills of the US Government vs your elevated view of the role of the State, but let's be clear about the impasse here.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

Here is a scholarly work, titled, "What is Marriage".

jjp,

The role of any State, as defined by its Constitution and laws, is to strike a balance between the rights of individuals and the rights of the governed society as a whole, helping to delineate where one ends and the other begins. The health of any society depends on that balance: if it is upset in favor of one or the other, you end up with either tyranny or anarchy.

Now, it is worthwhile to point out that anarchy is not necessarily a bad thing: in a utopian world in which every citizen respected every other citizen's rights, there would be little need for either governments or laws, and an extraordinary governing board could always be convened should the need arise. However, you would have to admit that in such a world, almost any form of government would work well, for the same reason.

This is why I find your statement both troubling and perplexing:

If you reject allowing the State to have *any* authority over "individual liberty rights," you are essentially rejecting its right to exist.


First of all, I would qualify your statement by specifying no-fault divorce and elective single parenthood, since these are the real issues. Society has decided--for the moment--that these are not evil, and that polygamy is. Even though they are mistaken, this is the milieu in which we are working, and to pretend otherwise is naive.

The point I would like to make, however, is that every time a society puts itself at odds with truth by declaring something to be good when it is evil or evil when it is good, it goes a little further in upsetting its own balance and brings itself that much closer to its own ruin. In other words, right now we have two evils that we are already calling good, and are on the verge of doing the same for a third. Are you suggesting that we can safely continue this trend, just because we have already (mistakenly) bought into the notion that some of these evils aren't evil?


You're not clarifying anything here, merely restating what we already knew to be your position. (We would be interested to know why you hold this position, but you haven't told us yet.)


There are people who call themselves Elks, Eagles and Moose, and nobody has any problem with that because they are not looking to take advantage of their status as "animals" to circumvent laws that were made for humans, or get special legal protection because of their "species." That's the difference!


When a majority of Americans agrees to this, then yes, laws can be changed under the Constitution to accommodate that belief--that's the American way. However, that says nothing about whether or not such laws would be good for American society as a whole.

The Church has always been concerned about the good of society as a whole, and when matters affecting the common good are at stake, it is always appropriate for her members, as citizens, to speak out. Her members look to their bishops for guidance, then work together with other like-minded citizens to make their voice heard by lawmakers.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/gay-penguin-reunion_n_1093298.html?ref=gay-voices

This is tangentially related, and perhaps I am just seeing too much into it, but I think that when one looks at the premises behind this story, we can see where the culture is headed in terms of gay marriage.

As one commentator (I don't remember who) pointed out recently, the statistics show a very close correlation between age and opinion on gay marriage (and gay issues in general). Currently, the cutoff is around age 50, with the number opposed becoming fewer and fewer among the younger respondents.

While it is true that gay marriage is in one sense a non-issue, since few gays are really all that interested in getting married, the fact remains that the recognition of gay marriage as a legally protected right will accomplish several things, among which are:

• Confirming in people's minds the absurdity of the entire institution of marriage
• Advancing the marginalization of any person or group who regards homosexuality as anything less than perfectly normal
• Bringing us one step closer to the time when affirming the sinfulness of homosexual behavior will be a criminal offense

Let's face it, we're in for a rough ride.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Ephphanius, Excellent and balanced approach to this topic! The US has legitimate reasons for not wanting to extend marriage to so many different parties- one of theme is due to the legalities in inheritance. IF you think the probate courts are bogged down now! There are so many other reasons why the civil government wants to promote and more traditional family it lends it self to domestic tranquility and the General Welfare of the US.

Scotty,

Thanks for the kind words. However, I was a little confused by one thing you stated:

Perhaps you meant they "should want to promote ..."


Peace,
Deacon Richard