February 05, 2004
The Right to Homosexual Marriage?
I’ve considered this for about 24 hours now. First, a definition:
Right n.
- That which is just, morally good, legal, proper, or fitting.
- Something that is due to a person or governmental body by law, tradition, or nature.
- Something, especially humane treatment, claimed to be due to animals by moral principle.
- A just or legal claim or title.
I emphasized the part that’s important (and deleted the unrelated definitions for brevity). A right is something due to a person by law, tradition, or nature. So the Judges in Massachusetts have decided that those living the gay lifestyle have a “right” to marriage. Is this true? If so, that would indicate that everyone has a right marriage. How would we then handle the case of a man who no one would marry? If he has a right to marriage, then it’s up to a government body to enforce that right, correct? The judges are mistaking “right” for “privilege.”
Homosexual people have the ability to marry now, just as anyone else does: by selecting a partner of the opposite sex. Marriage entails an arrangement between two people of different sexes for the purposes of creating a family. The family is the basis of our societal system; even if you call a homosexual legal arrangement “marriage,” it is not so. You can say the sky is red if you like, but the reality remains the same.
In the end, the issue stems from the American belief that we should be able to do whatever makes us feel good. The reverse of this is that we shouldn’t stop anyone else from doing what makes them feel good as long as it doesn’t hurt others. The problem: we don’t really understand what makes us happy. The Ten Commandments aren’t ten rules designed to prevent us from finding joy and happiness, rather they guide us toward true happiness. The Beatitudes along with the Commandments teach us how to be holy, which leads to peace and joy. When the Church teaches the dangers of a society embracing homosexuality, it is the Holy Spirit teaching the wisdom of God through her. God desires that we all attain holiness that we may live with Him in heaven. So when a judge rules that we must allow homosexual marriage, I cringe. We are like the Jews of the Old Testament, given much and complaining loudly that we know best. The only difference is that we have the added gift of the Holy Spirit (it seems the Jews performed much better than we are). From the Catechism (1605):
Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
God bless,
Jay
We’ve written two other articles on this subject:
Posted by Jay at February 5, 2004 02:00 PM | TrackBack
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