Last Friday, the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in America (Ireland did the same a month ago). Everyone has been applauding this and many people on Facebook have taken to updating their profile photos in a wash of rainbow colours to show their support.
What is significant about this, one may ask, for the choice to engage in a relationship other than a conventional heterosexual one is a personal choice and does not impact my life. Or does it?
I am all for inclusiveness and I am against discrimination, but I can't help wondering how this new shade of grey will impact family life and whether it will indeed make the world a better place or will those of us who espouse traditional views of marriage and family life be discriminated against? I already see it happening when people trash and reject Catholic teaching* and convention.
That aside, I fail to see how there can be same-sex marriage. No matter how you splice it, marriage is the union between man and woman who complement each other in their sexuality, and who commit to a lifelong journey of fidelity. In the act of love, they will find not just pleasure but a transcendent and unitive experience which also holds the miracle of procreative promise. Man and man, or woman and woman just do not fit together the way man and woman are engineered to do so. Neither is the procreative power inherent in same-sex coupling. That we have to qualify marriage with the adjectival 'same-sex', tells me no matter how many countries legalize same-sex marriage, it is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
I do not disapprove of loving relationships between people of the same sex, or of the different sex, for that matter, but I worry for the future of family life when heterosexual couples reject the stability of raising children within the commitment of marriage, and conversely same-sex couples want the possibility of formal recognition for their committed relationships.
Perhaps the LGBT community can teach men and women something about the commitment of marriage, seeing as they have fought hard to accord same-sex relationships the recognition that committed heterosexual couples currently enjoy in marriage, a privilege often misused and disrespected.
Perhaps we humans need to redefine our concepts of love and commitment placing less premium on lust and a self-centred fulfilment, and more on fidelity and sexual purity. Sexual intercourse is not just an extremely pleasurable, recreational way to get off, but it is a very powerful way to affirm the marital covenant that tells the other I am yours forever and ever and let's be possible co-creators with God to bring forth new life and be caring parents in our forever love. Every time we engage in sex, this is what we are saying to the other, man to woman, woman to man.
When it comes to children, I still believe that children need parents, a father and a mother in a stable and loving relationship to thrive and mature. I am not saying gay or single parents are incapable of bringing up healthy, happy and well adjusted children, but a woman cannot be a father in the same way a man cannot be a mother and one of each brings a dimension to family dynamics that is unique and irreplaceable. Surrogates are simply not the same, hard as same sex or single parents may seek to supplement their parenting responsibilities.
We now live in a world where life in the womb can be so thoughtlessly destroyed or can so clinically begin in a petri dish, or it can come to term in the womb of another woman. Then there are fertility methods that treat embryos like commodities that can be frozen at will, implanted in multiples in a geriatric womb (this is so wrong on so many levels), or destroyed when no longer desirable.
All these possibilities have reduced and nullified the sense of the sacred where conception is an act of God. Worse, we ignore how we are designed and insist on using our bodies in new ways just because we can; and we commit murder without batting an eyelid.
The inalienable right of children to have one biological father and mother to raise them up has been tarred by medical possibilities and all manner of blended and informal family structures that have opened the door to more sexual abuse, abandonment and greater psychological challenges.
Already figuring out one's identity and place in the world is hard, what more if I am the product of a sperm or egg donor, or I spent nine months in the womb of someone who wants me while my so-called parents don't just because I am born with a disability?
Who gets me when relationships go south and I am still a frozen embryo in storage? What if my father wants me but my mother wants me destroyed? Since when have I become a commodity to be bartered and fought over like a bone between two dogs? I am a child who has the same rights as an adult even though I may be a blob right now, barely visible to the naked eye.
I suppose I have a sense of disquiet for when we insist on rewriting and legalizing definitions to words and concepts, it does not take much to keep pushing the envelope and very soon, the shade of grey may transform from more black to white. Or we might become Pharasaic in relying purely on the law, forgetting the spirit of the law, and begin discriminating against the wisdom of Catholic tradition to the great detriment of the human race. Call me biased but I am a fan of Catholic teaching and tradition for I see God's guiding hand and spirit at work; and it makes perfect sense.
Let us work to keep the lines of communication open, and to allow love, God's self-sacrificing and unconditional love, guide us all.
* A great article on what the Church teaches: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column/what-the-catholic-church-does-and-does-not-teach-about-same-sex-marriage-3248/
What is significant about this, one may ask, for the choice to engage in a relationship other than a conventional heterosexual one is a personal choice and does not impact my life. Or does it?
I am all for inclusiveness and I am against discrimination, but I can't help wondering how this new shade of grey will impact family life and whether it will indeed make the world a better place or will those of us who espouse traditional views of marriage and family life be discriminated against? I already see it happening when people trash and reject Catholic teaching* and convention.
That aside, I fail to see how there can be same-sex marriage. No matter how you splice it, marriage is the union between man and woman who complement each other in their sexuality, and who commit to a lifelong journey of fidelity. In the act of love, they will find not just pleasure but a transcendent and unitive experience which also holds the miracle of procreative promise. Man and man, or woman and woman just do not fit together the way man and woman are engineered to do so. Neither is the procreative power inherent in same-sex coupling. That we have to qualify marriage with the adjectival 'same-sex', tells me no matter how many countries legalize same-sex marriage, it is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
I do not disapprove of loving relationships between people of the same sex, or of the different sex, for that matter, but I worry for the future of family life when heterosexual couples reject the stability of raising children within the commitment of marriage, and conversely same-sex couples want the possibility of formal recognition for their committed relationships.
Perhaps the LGBT community can teach men and women something about the commitment of marriage, seeing as they have fought hard to accord same-sex relationships the recognition that committed heterosexual couples currently enjoy in marriage, a privilege often misused and disrespected.
Perhaps we humans need to redefine our concepts of love and commitment placing less premium on lust and a self-centred fulfilment, and more on fidelity and sexual purity. Sexual intercourse is not just an extremely pleasurable, recreational way to get off, but it is a very powerful way to affirm the marital covenant that tells the other I am yours forever and ever and let's be possible co-creators with God to bring forth new life and be caring parents in our forever love. Every time we engage in sex, this is what we are saying to the other, man to woman, woman to man.
When it comes to children, I still believe that children need parents, a father and a mother in a stable and loving relationship to thrive and mature. I am not saying gay or single parents are incapable of bringing up healthy, happy and well adjusted children, but a woman cannot be a father in the same way a man cannot be a mother and one of each brings a dimension to family dynamics that is unique and irreplaceable. Surrogates are simply not the same, hard as same sex or single parents may seek to supplement their parenting responsibilities.
We now live in a world where life in the womb can be so thoughtlessly destroyed or can so clinically begin in a petri dish, or it can come to term in the womb of another woman. Then there are fertility methods that treat embryos like commodities that can be frozen at will, implanted in multiples in a geriatric womb (this is so wrong on so many levels), or destroyed when no longer desirable.
All these possibilities have reduced and nullified the sense of the sacred where conception is an act of God. Worse, we ignore how we are designed and insist on using our bodies in new ways just because we can; and we commit murder without batting an eyelid.
The inalienable right of children to have one biological father and mother to raise them up has been tarred by medical possibilities and all manner of blended and informal family structures that have opened the door to more sexual abuse, abandonment and greater psychological challenges.
Already figuring out one's identity and place in the world is hard, what more if I am the product of a sperm or egg donor, or I spent nine months in the womb of someone who wants me while my so-called parents don't just because I am born with a disability?
Who gets me when relationships go south and I am still a frozen embryo in storage? What if my father wants me but my mother wants me destroyed? Since when have I become a commodity to be bartered and fought over like a bone between two dogs? I am a child who has the same rights as an adult even though I may be a blob right now, barely visible to the naked eye.
I suppose I have a sense of disquiet for when we insist on rewriting and legalizing definitions to words and concepts, it does not take much to keep pushing the envelope and very soon, the shade of grey may transform from more black to white. Or we might become Pharasaic in relying purely on the law, forgetting the spirit of the law, and begin discriminating against the wisdom of Catholic tradition to the great detriment of the human race. Call me biased but I am a fan of Catholic teaching and tradition for I see God's guiding hand and spirit at work; and it makes perfect sense.
Let us work to keep the lines of communication open, and to allow love, God's self-sacrificing and unconditional love, guide us all.
 |
| I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:13 |
* A great article on what the Church teaches: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column/what-the-catholic-church-does-and-does-not-teach-about-same-sex-marriage-3248/
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