This week the house of commons passed the next stage of a bill permitting marriage for same sex couples. This is a triumph of common sense in a secular state and a disaster for the word marriage. A word that has been consistently used over thousands of years to describe the commitment to a biological partnership that has the diversity to create new life as a single unit, a word that has described the foundational unit for all societies in every time, that word has now been stretched out of shape.
Perhaps we need to invent new words like heteronuptial or homonuptial to describe these radically different realities. Using the same word to describe the two relationships is papering over the cracks of too many fundamental differences; the potential of a heterosexual relationships, the unity of heterosexual relationships, the complementarity of heterosexual relationships are all radically different from same sex relationships. They may be equal in value but they are radically different. Simply labelling them the same way does not remove the diverse nature of the two relationships so much so that other language will have to be created to make that distinction with much confusion as a result.
As a Christian I have little problem with gay relationships and recognise the hierarchy of values in the catholic church especially which places love right at the pinnacle of that hierarchy. St Augustine put it simply "love and do what you will." Many other Christians would disagree with this approach but I am not sure that Jesus would. His approach was one of compassion and encouragement to the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery. The woman who was a sinner and wept at the feet of Jesus was not forgiven because of her moral strength but because "she had loved much."
Same sex couples cannot simply throw a switch and disconnect from the genuine love that holds them together. That love is as much part of God's love as is heterosexual love. Otherwise why would a consistent 11% of the human race, made in God's own image, be born with this orientation? Christians cannot pick and choose to recognise one love and not another, bless one kind of love and evict the other from public life. As a catholic church we have a lot to learn about sexuality. We are male, celibate and caught up in a clerical culture for millennia. We need to be a church that listens in this area and say little, perhaps for a hundred years or more. Listening will make us humble, perhaps even wise in this area and the Gospel may emerge with a greater clarity than ever before when we recall the words "God is love"
But the word +marriage- that is in for a difficult time +dictionary writers will already be scratching their heads and creative types will be dreaming up new, and hopefully better, words for heterosexual contracts.
A series of reflections on spirituality, religious life and work with young people from a Salesian priest and youth worker in Great Britain.
Wow
ReplyDeleteYou have a point alright but Im not sure your boss would agree.
I dont expect Pope Benedict to agree,that is not how the church works: it is the role of the leadershop to hold the centre and resist rapid change. Real growth happens at the edge and the tensions between the edge snd the centre are the growing pains of a mew church.
DeleteInteresting blog, David. A consistent 11% of the population are homosexual? The challenge of statistics. I think 68.74% of the population may disagree with you. Only joking. I like and agree with your point of view. Accepting each person in Christ's name, includes accepting their sexuality and need for intimacy and relationship. Something that has concerned me about the whole debate on marriage, though, has been how the pro-change lobby have linked it with human rights. No-one has an inalienable right to marriage. Everyone has of course to be protected under the law from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation; and have their rights to friendship and relationship protected. This is already addressed in civil partnership legislation. As you point out, marriage has a value that transcends the perceived rights of the couple involved. It is more that a word. You say it is a triumph of common sense in a secular state. If common sense relates to the common good; then this may prove to be damaging to society in the long term.
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