Gay marriage now legal: A Catholic response
So, in my last post I described my position regarding gay marriage becoming legal in the entirety of the USA through the Supreme Court ruling that banning it violates the Constitutional rights of gay people. I described that, I believe that this was inevitable and probably a good thing from a practical perspective. However, as a Catholic, I also hold the Catholic Church's position that God will only recognize marriage between a man and a woman, and that it is sinful for anyone to engage in sexual activity outside of that context. Of course this means that the idea of gay marriage cannot exist in Catholic theology. The Catholic Church in the United States, therefore, has to respond to this development in some way. And the only way it can is to reaffirm its beliefs and teachings.
No, the Catholic Church cannot change its position in this case. It is impossible for it to begin marrying homosexual couples. Marriage, as understood by the Catholic Church, is an institution that trancends nations or laws. It is the fulfillment of a fundamental human need, implanted by God when He took the rib from the first man, Adam, and created Eve, his wife. In the book of Genesis, chapter 2, verses 20 through 24, it says:
Thus Adam gave names to all the cattle, and all that flies in the air, and all the wild beasts; and still Adam had no mate of his own kind. So the Lord God made Adam fall into a deep sleep, and, while he slept, took away one of his ribs, and filled its place with flesh. This rib, which he had taken out of Adam, the Lord God formed into a woman; and when he brought her to Adam, Adam said, Here, at last, is bone that comes from mine, flesh that comes from mine; it shall be called Woman, this thing that was taken out of Man. That is why a man is destined to leave father and mother, and cling to his wife instead, so that the two become one flesh.
Now, this of course is very likely to be a metaphorical description, but I'll describe what the lesson here is. We have the first human being, who God, in having created him in His image, has destined a special place in Creation to act as His steward on the Earth. However, at first he was alone--without a mate. God wished that this first human did, so he separated part of His essence from this human and created this mate. As a result, we have the first man and first woman--the first husband and wife. In this action, God has precided over, in essence, the first marriage.
They are now separate, each containing a different aspect of God's image. Ultimately, though, since they originally were one, these two would therefore desire each other. This desire that draws a man and a woman together is what is fulfilled by the marriage. When a man and a woman comes together in this way, they become One, as stated in Mark 10:
God, from the first days of creation, made them man and woman. A man, therefore, will leave his father and mother and will cling to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
So here we know that God has specifically designed the two sexes to complement each other and, in coming together, they create a new unit, espousing the full spirit of God and able to do God's works on Earth.
With this fundamental theological understanding underlying the Catholic understanding of who we are as human beings in relationship to each other, the world, and with God, we therefore cannot form any sort of Catholic understanding of marriage between two men or two women. Indeed, it makes no sense, because marriage implies a coming together of these opposite, but complementary aspects of God, represented in these opposite, but complementary human beings.
So when the Catholic Church talks about and teaches about marriage, it is focused specifically on this spiritual union. It is a supernatural union designed and intended by God from the very beginning--from even before the first sin had corrupted the world.
But here in the United States, and in most other countries of the world, the term "marriage" has also become a legal status. It is a term with a meaning that is also wholly distinct from any religious context. And it is this legal, non-religious marriage, that the United States Supreme Court has ruled on. Its order declares that this secular marriage must include people of the same sex and that they have the right to marry if they so choose.
The problem that arises from this, from the Catholic perspective, is it now (arguably even more than it used to, which I'll get into later) causes what the general public means when it refers to marriage to differ fundamentally from what the Church means when She refers to marriage.
The reason that the Church has been decrying the legalization of "gay marriage" so strongly is because of this particular confusion and discord in terminology and culture it results in. This institution that is understood to be so fundamental that its underpinnings go even so far back as the creation of the first human beings now becomes something that is less understood and appreciated in society.
I understand this and share this concern. However, I believe that this issue is not a new problem to the Church. Rather, I believe that the Church has perhaps missed (or not recognized the significance of) the actual turning point in history that eventually led to the understanding that gay marriage is a human right to be protected by the governments of the world.
That event would be the adoption of marriage as a legal status and something overseen by governments.
The Church is probably somewhat complicit in this happening. I am not a historian, but I do know that marriage, as a legally binding contract in the Christian world, goes at least as far back as when the King of a nation was appointed by the Church. This interweaving of Church and State created a muddlement of what is something that is governed by God and something that is governed by man. By turning marriage into a legal status, it shifted the responsibility of defining what marriage is to the heads of State, rather than God. This, then, removes the spiritual underpinnings of what a marriage is. Once the Church was broken away from the governing of nations, this legal institution of marriage was carried with it, and stripped of its spiritual underpinnings--becoming yet another secular contract between two people. It was only inevitable that the notion of who can enter in such a contract would change over time.
So the claim that the US Supreme Court has redefined marriage is true. However, the marriage definition that has changed has for centuries been outside the control and jurisdiction of the Church. Perhaps she never noticed it, or perhaps she didn't care quite so much, but the Church and secular Law never was referring to the same thing when they refer to marriage. They may have been outwardly similar. They may have looked the same. But the fundamental--the [i]spiritual[/i]--aspect which defines marriage in the Church was never present within a marriage by the State.
The legalization of gay marriage in this country, I believe, finally and in no uncertain terms drove this difference home. The problem we have, now, is that we have two things called marriage, two things that are drastically different, but are also fundamental issues of morality and human identity. The Church needs to address this if she wants to effectively continue its mission of catechesis in the secular world. The good news is that marriage in the Church can still exist as marriage by Law. She just now has to do a better job at teaching the difference, and the significance of it.
This, by the way, is why in my previous post I layed out what I believe would have been a better legal framework for managing the family unit. It described something that was flexible enough to cover what we have now, and what I believe it will evolve into the future, but also while avoiding much of the trigger issues that come up when people want to exercise their freedoms. It also allows the Church to do what it always has done and in a way that is not in conflict with the State.
[b]The Church must reassert what marriage is and what it means.[/b] But because of the shared terminology between two very different institutions, I believe that the Church is now forced into a position where she must change up its language. Simply saying "marriage" will inevitably cause confusion in this country. (I like the term "Holy Matrimony", myself.) The Church, therefore, should perhaps use more specific language in her common parlance, and avoid using the word "marriage" altogether. She should take care to never conflate secular marriage and Holy Matrimony.
The Church also should give up its legal authority to declare two people married under the State. I believe that this ability is somewhat in conflict with the concept of separation of Church and State as it is, and I also believe it is contributory to the problem of people equating Holy Matrimony with a marriage by a Justice of the Peace. If a Catholic couple would like to get married in this country, they should have a ceremony at Church with a priest to officiate it under God, but also be required to go to the local government to be declared married under Federal law. This is already done in some parts of Europe, and I believe it would be most appropriate.
I also think this would be important from the perspective of self defence against, I believe, the inevitable lawsuits we will see brought upon the Church in an effort to force them to marry gay couples, now that it is declared a human right by the Courts. Since the Church is acting with legal authority, there could be argued that the Church, acting as an agent of the State, is legally obligated to marry them. This argument would invoke the confusion of terms that I described above. The Church, in granting legal marriage status to couples, is implying that they are the same, and this creates a gray area where it is up to the courts and the strength of the arguments by both parties which right--to marry or of free religious expression--trumps the other.
If the Church absolves itself of the ability to declare two people legally married, then the ceremony becomes a purely religious exercise, and it eliminates this ambiguity. Any attempt to force a church to perform a religious service that has no legal authority, if it contradicts its religious beliefs, would be very clearly seen as an encroachment upon the Church's right to free religious expression by the government and could never happen.
Overall, I believe that while this is a setback for the Church in her mission to evangelize and catechize, it was somethign that was bound to happen. I think that ultimately it is making her job a little harder, but is not making it impossible or encroaching on her rights and ability to do it. The secular world has doubled down on its position and has further separated itself from the Christian understanding. The Church, in response, must do what it really has always done, more strongly and clearly declare her message of the Gospel and God's will for humanity. With love, understanding, and respect. Never condemning, but never faltering, either. In essence, I think that this should be a catalyst for the Church to do better in her mission than she has done in the past.
