Why the battle against gay “marriage” was lost over 50 years ago
Last week the Maryland State Senate passed legislation that would legalize gay “marriage”; shortly after the vote, I received an email from my state senator defending her vote in support of the legislation. Her email read in part:
This year I have signed on as a co-sponsor of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act and last night I voted in favor of this bill. This decision did not come lightly, but this is why I support the legislation: As parents, the thing we hope most for our children is that they are healthy and happy. And when our children are grown, as mine are, we hope that if they choose to share their lives with another, that they choose someone who will love them, share the ups and downs with them, protect them and care for them when we are no longer here.
These are the hopes and dreams I have for my children. These are the hopes and dreams all parents have for their children. I believe as a representative of all Maryland citizens, I cannot deny another parent the same hopes and dreams that I have for my children. And that is why I voted for this legislation.
The civil institution of marriage bestows on couples rights, benefits and responsibilities. These rights and responsibilities financially, morally and socially protect each person in the union. Those are the protections that my married children have and those are the protections I want for all who choose to share their adult lives with another.
Notice my senator’s definition of marriage: sharing life with “someone who will love them, share the ups and downs with them, protect them and care for them when we are no longer here.” Notice also what is NOT included: the “one flesh” of man and woman, and the possibility of having or raising children. By her definition, marriage boils down to living together and caring for each other. By this standard, a man could be “married” to a woman, a man, his sister, or five different people at the same time. As many commentators have already noted, this obliterates marriage as every culture has defined it since the beginning of man’s history.
Unfortunately, my state senator is not unique in her redefining of marriage; in fact, her outlook is all too common today. The fight against gay “marriage” is, in many ways, much more difficult than the fight against legalized abortion. With abortion, you have a very clear grave act: the killing of an innocent child. Even if people deny it outwardly, everyone instinctively knows that this is wrong. This is why even radical pro-abortionists claim that abortion should be “rare” – they know it is a failure on some level.
But with gay “marriage” we have a more fundamental problem. Most people – including most Christians – define marriage in a very similar fashion to my state senator, even if they explicitly limit it only to a man and a woman. They see marriage as an institution in which two people support and love each other – and that’s it. The importance of male-female sexual union in marriage – both its unitive and procreative aspects – is largely ignored or denied by people today, even by Christians. And why is this fundamental component of marriage denied today?
Contraception.
The advent of modern contraceptive methods has completely redefined marriage in the hearts and minds of most people today. The procreative aspect of sexuality – being open to children – is seen as something superfluous to a good marriage. The unitive aspect of sexuality – a man and a woman becoming “one flesh” – is also minimized, as sexual pleasure is exalted as the only good in the sexual act. But the Church has always taught that a marriage requires that a couple have this proper understanding, at least implicitly, of sexual intercourse for the union to be valid.
By accepting the divorce between marriage and authentic human sexuality more than 50 years ago, we have laid the foundations for today’s gay “marriage” push. For if procreation and male/female sexual union is irrelevant to marriage, why shouldn’t homosexuals be allowed to marry?
A final note: I realize that my title is provocative – some would argue that the battle against gay “marriage” is not yet lost. But I am not talking about the battle in legislatures and courts – I am talking about the battle for hearts and minds. And there, our conception of what marriage is already accepts the validity of “marriage” between a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
The fight was actually lost earlier with the normalization of divorce, as G. K. Chesterton pointed out. If divorce is no longer a one flesh union and is just a social contract, two things happen: (1) Ephesians 5 states that our understanding of marriage and the Church are tied. If marriage becomes secular, so does our relationship with the Church and Catholicism falters. (2) the theology of Humanae Vitae becomes nonsense. After all, marriage is secular. Everything you state follows.
This is thought-provoking, and, I believe, true. Time and time again I encounter people whose definition of marriage is some permutation of the one your senator gives.
Interesting, overly simplistic, but interesting. This presumes that the so-called contraceptive culture developed in a vacuum and that this tendency was not already developing before hand.
Simple explanations for complex problems might serve Occam, but not the challenges of a post-modern world.
Actually the downward sprial to the present state of affairs of moral relativism ( which sees nothing wrong with divorce, same sex unions, etc.) began with Martin Luther which began what I call the ” great divorce.” Once you separate youself from Peter you have lost the foundation for all morality. No, I don’t think the war is lost but it will take a miracle of grace to put it all back together.
I would suggest that the senator’s belief that marriage is a civil institution is a common problem that should not be overlooked. If it is only a civil institution, there is no reason that civil authorities cannot define it however they see fit. Unless marriage and its norms are accepted as something designed by God and not open to our whims, marriage will always be in jeopardy.
You are absolutely right. The justification of contraception implies that you have a right to sexual pleasure aside from procreation — as long as you love and care for your partner. Heterosexuals in “relationships” can fulfill this requirement, as well as gay people and polygamists.
Church real (not theoretical) authority to speak on marriage was essentially lost 42 years ago with the issuing of Humanae Vitae. The Archbishop of Baltimore recently gave a quick history of its fate, mentioning that “more than 90 percent of Catholics disagree with that teaching.” Bishops defending it as decades pass and their lobbyists are not in any position to carry much weight in any debates involving marriage, whether Catholics or others are engaged. http://www.catholicreview.org/subpages/storyworldnew-new.aspx?action=4477
We’re thinking alike, as I wrote a similar piece here: http://catholicexchange.com/2011/02/21/148676/
RI is facing the same battle, but despite a nominally Catholic majority, it doesn’t look like most really get it. Oremus!
The mission of the Church is to bring souls to Christ. Until all the priests and bishops start teaching the fullness of His Truth (from the pulpit) regarding the marital act, the Church will continue to be ineffective in this mission. The message must be clear. Married couples cannot achieve a state of grace while involved with the use of contraceptives. Pray for the strength of our clergy.
“More souls go to Hell because of the sins of the flesh than for any other reason.” Our Lady of Fatima
All insightful people know this world is on a downward spiral……….Satan is doing his thing, and people alone are no match for him!!!!!!!!!!Even “good people” are “confused nowadays….pray…….often!!!!!!!!
Michael
Whatever the reason, you should do everything in your power to make sure that your senator’s political career is finished.
This is a great post. Good analysis.
Legal gay marriage or not, two men walking down the aisle will look ridiculous. Even many liberals, deep down will know it and laugh to themselves.
Do not worry.
This is Harmageddon. Those who are supposed to turn away from the Church, will do so. The rest will not.
It is just one of many simple ways to separate those who are worthy, from the rest.
It is a good thing that people are taking clear stands on all issues, so Judgement can progress.
Do not worry.
ikilope your post makes no sense. How is it relevant that the “so called” contraceptive culture didn’t develop “in a vacuum?”
The post is spot on. And the devolution resulting from the very real contraceptive culture is not over. Gay “marriage” will not be the end of it.
And to Jack B, church authority was certainly not “lost” with the issuing of Humana Vitae. History has shown just the opposite. Her authority may have been rejected as a result of that encyclical by the confused, but it certainly was not lost.
I think Sammons is right on the money except for the timing. The turning point was the Lambeth Conference in 1930, in which the Anglican Church voted against nineteen centuries of unanimous Christian tradition in permitting contraception in some cases.
And after the Anglican Church adopted Lambeth, many other denominations followed their “liberalization”. If a group has no center with authority to define the truth, errors will come to dominated their thinking. Sad!
Lord Jesus, have mercy on your people.
TeaPot562
Good analysis. Not too long after the pill came 1973 where the supremes decided 4 to 3 that the primary purpose of sex was pleasure, and not procreation. The groundwork for that false premise was in place.
Stop thinking politically, start thinking spiritually. This is what needs to be done by more Catholics. Not a fight against flesh and blood for political changes but a fight against devils for hearts and minds to change. The war is already won on the Cross by Christ, yet if we do not think and act like Him we will not win the battle for every soul, we will be held accountable for many lost souls.
Tossing out questions (please correct, object, etc.): If I am not mistaken, condoms seem to have been invented in the 18th c. Why a century or so delay in ‘impact’? (How technological a factor, in the invention of latex?)
If I am not mistaken (and whenever one wishes to date the Eastern-Western Schism, and however characterize it), divorce was to a certain extent ‘normalized’ in (at least some of) the eastern portion of the Undivided Church in the 6th c. Why some 1300 or so years delay in ‘impact’?
In talking to, e.g., ‘cradle Catholics’ born in the 1920s about, e.g., their parents’ generation, I sometimes get the impression that the attitude of some parish priests to their not-always-boisterously-healthy married women parishioners with many children as to when the next might be expected displayed what might well be deemed pastoral lacunae. How much a part did thoughts concerning ‘women’s equality’ a century and more ago play in the background to attitudes to ‘family planning’?
@Hieronymus:
Exactly my thoughts! People in such positions of power have to have, as a minimum, a clear understanding of basics – and that includes what the purpose of marriage is. She should lose her position.
The sooner the better…
This silly senator chose to defend her action by making an ‘interdenominational’ statement to defend her position. This shows that she is aware of the scandal that she is causing and the damage that her vote is casing/ is going to cause.
The tragedy of all this madness is that people who choose to offend the Church, be it through their stance on abortion or euthanasia, or the removal of crucifixes from public buildings, or the banning of religious ceremonies in public places KNOW that they are doing wrong – this is always inferred by the ‘reason’/excuse that they give to try to validate their position.
The day of reckoning will come…
Giving up on a situation is what makes the DEVIL happy. Saying that it is their choice to live a life that mocks GOD is absolutely correct. However if you really love your children then you would want to do everything in your power to save them from grave sin against the creator. Remember “every jot and tittle will be repaid”. I suggest that you read Rom 1:27 and then 1Cor 6:9 after that 1Tim 1:9-10. If you believe in the word of God then you are responsibile for what you teach your children.
Besides homosexual deviance being accepted, abortion is also a product of the contraception mentality. Many are working on banning abortion, but will we, can we succeed while our government funds and spreads contraceptives (here and around the world?) It is naive to think we can really, fully succeed, without dealing with and fighting contraception, because the fight is not just a political one, but a spiritual one at heart. The spirit of our people is sick, fetid, and will not be able to rise to the task of defending life and marriage until that spirit is restored to life. A spirit that shuns children, with their bubbling life and hearty exuberant existance, shuns light and air, and will suffocate itself in its own squalid mire.
I would suggest that the senator’s belief that marriage is a civil institution is a common problem that should not be overlooked. If it is only a civil institution, there is no reason that civil authorities cannot define it however they see fit. Unless marriage and its norms are accepted as something designed by God and not open to our whims, marriage will always be in jeopardy.
Comment by Dave — February 28, 2011 @ 12:21 pm
But marriage, even in non religious societies has been recogninzed as akin to the Christian vision. That is because the definition of marriage can be found in the nature of human beings with just reflection or, if you wish, in the Natural Law.
To say marriage is religious or secular is a cop out. We lose the battle then.
I am old enough(!) to remember the publication of Humanae Vitae. As a new convert I felt obliged to support it and would have acted in accordance with its demands, but might not have been suffieciently convinced to convince anyone else that it was right. Some time later I used natural remedies and realised that it was far better to use what our bodies have given us (an indication of when we are most likely to conceive if we know what to look for) than to subject ourselves to decades of taking drugs so powerful that they supress one of the basic functions of the body (what harm are we doing to ourselves?).
I now support the encyclical wholeheartedly: the advent of contraception has led to the divorce of sexual acts from procreation and that has given rise to sexual gratification being an end in itself. If you do not believe that the purpose of sexual acts is procreation you fall back on it being pleasure (and that can be alone, with a spouse, or with anyone) which in turn develops into self-gratification, given time. The fruits of contraception (“a broken society”) have not proved good and by their fruits we are told to know them.
I now believe wholeheartedly that the Encyclical was right; I would even describe it as prophetic. At the time some of us might have thought we were on the threshold of a new freedom with regard to human sexuality; that freedom has proved an illusion as we have seen how it has worked out over the last 40 years. Pope Paul VI anticipated then what we know only now.
Homosexual practice is not only wrong in the tradition of the Church: it runs counter to the tradtion of the Old Testament, too. If you look at the story of Abraham the blessing he is to receive is that of having descendents and this is obviously what is intended as it is repeated. The homosexual act, being inherently sterile, does not fit with this earliest of blessings on mankind and so cannot be good.