Marriage and Truth

Rebekah and Tom are get­ting mar­ried this month. Rebekah is petite and blond. Tom is tall, dark, and… (You know the rest!) Both are strong Catholics, and they are look­ing for­ward to form­ing a fam­ily together. All their friends and fam­i­lies will be at the wedding. 

Maybe you have thought at least once about what your own wed­ding will be like and about what type of per­son you will marry.

Pres­i­dent Bush, in his recent State of the Union address, spoke about the need to pro­tect the “sanc­tity of mar­riage”. What did he mean by this term, and why does it need to be protected? 

There are some who want to change and rede­fine the whole mean­ing of mar­riage to include homo­sex­ual rela­tion­ships. In this les­son, we will dis­cuss the essen­tials of mar­riage and the efforts being made by some groups to change the def­i­n­i­tion of marriage.

Mar­riage and com­mon sense

Most of us know what mar­riage is with­out even think­ing about it. But, since some peo­ple are now propos­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent, it is impor­tant that we do not become confused.

Mar­riage is the most impor­tant rela­tion­ship between human beings. It is not just any rela­tion­ship between human beings, but is a spe­cial type of union between a man and a woman. It is the most ful­fill­ing of human rela­tion­ships, and it is the way that we pass on life and val­ues from one gen­er­a­tion to the next.

A gift to each other

Mar­riage is based on the love between a man and a woman. In real mar­ried love a man and a woman give them­selves totally to each other in a way that binds them for life and allows them to give life to new human beings. A sim­ple way to say this is that mar­riage (and sex) is for bond­ing and babies. 

The bride and groom bond in love pre­cisely because each adds some­thing spe­cial and dif­fer­ent to each other. The dif­fer­ence in their per­son­al­i­ties and in their phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics shows how they are a gift to each other. This adding of some­thing beau­ti­ful and dif­fer­ent is called com­ple­men­tar­ity.

One let­ter from a hus­band to his wife per­haps expresses this com­ple­men­tar­ity well.

“I remem­ber those ten­ta­tive early over­tures when nei­ther knew the other’s heart and words merely echoed the hol­low safety of ban­ter. Then the mag­i­cal pro­gres­sion, nei­ther know­ing why, to the stage where …each some­how knew that there had been a dis­cov­ery. What had been dis­cov­ered was the rest of one’s self.” 

This hus­band also expresses his won­der at how their bond has helped them cre­ate and raise another human being who is a fruit and liv­ing expres­sion of their love.

“Each new child a proof of our love for each other. Each new child a share in the mys­tery of creation…Parenthood con­vinced us of the neces­sity of com­ple­ment­ing each other. We each had found some­one, but now we must become some­one who could aug­ment the other.” 

Aren’t homo­sex­ual unions sim­i­lar to marriage?

Can a com­par­i­son be made between mar­riage and homo­sex­ual civil unions, just because they are both types of rela­tion­ships between two peo­ple? Well, most of us real­ize that homo­sex­ual unions are not really mar­riage. The most essen­tial ele­ments of mar­riage are miss­ing: homo­sex­ual unions are not between a man and a woman; they involve a self­ish use of our sex­ual fac­ul­ties; they can­not truly make babies. Say­ing that mar­riage is also a union of homo­sex­u­als misses what real mar­riage is about. 

Love the per­son. Reject the evil.

We can never despise homo­sex­ual per­sons nor dis­crim­i­nate against them. Men and women with homo­sex­ual ten­den­cies must be accepted with respect, com­pas­sion and sen­si­tiv­ity. Not all those who suf­fer from this ten­dency are per­son­ally respon­si­ble for it. But this does not mean that homo­sex­ual acts are right, and should be pro­tected by law. Mak­ing homo­sex­ual unions equiv­a­lent to mar­riage would approve and pro­mote actions that are intrin­si­cally dis­or­dered. It is like say­ing “I think that peo­ple should not lie, but, since liars are peo­ple too, we should have a law that pro­tects lying.”  

A cam­paign against values

A bat­tle has arisen, how­ever, because there are groups who are using the homo­sex­ual issue to attack solid human val­ues. They are hop­ing that peo­ple with com­mon sense about right and wrong, espe­cially Chris­tians, do not defend their val­ues. Allow­ing self­ish val­ues to pre­vail has led to many prob­lems in our soci­ety, includ­ing abor­tion, a huge increase bro­ken fam­i­lies, a greater neglect of chil­dren, and so forth. It has deeply dam­aged and even destroyed some things that are the real foun­da­tions of soci­ety. With­out foun­da­tions, people’s hearts and their lives become more and more bro­ken. Real mar­riage is one of these foun­da­tions with­out which soci­ety begins to crumble.

No right or wrong?

Some peo­ple say that there is no absolute right and wrong. They say that right and wrong is dif­fer­ent for each per­son, depend­ing on one’s feel­ings, cul­ture, or genetic makeup. This is called rel­a­tivism, because for these peo­ple there are no absolutes; every­thing is rel­a­tive to the way one feels.

Peo­ple of sound thought have always opposed rel­a­tivism because it leads to the abuse of human dig­nity (slav­ery, polit­i­cal oppres­sion, abor­tion, etc.). If every­one is allowed to do what­ever they want, even if it is wrong, even­tu­ally the wrong will dam­age every­one. If you have ever seen a bully that no dares to oppose, you will under­stand what this means. The Pope warns us that a cul­ture that does not respect the truth will become cruel. The Church tells us strongly about the dan­gers of rel­a­tivism today. We need to develop an abil­ity to rec­og­nize rel­a­tivism, and stand up for objec­tive right and wrong in our own lives and in soci­ety around us. 

The pro­posal to approve homo­sex­ual mar­riage is one exam­ple of rel­a­tivism that will dam­age our society. 

“When the saints go march­ing in” …to the closet?

The major­ity of peo­ple actu­ally dis­ap­prove of homo­sex­ual mar­riages. Sur­vey after sur­vey has shown this.

How­ever, there are some pow­er­ful peo­ple who say that Chris­tians should not impose their val­ues on other peo­ple. This sounds rea­son­able, yet these same peo­ple are work­ing very hard so that their val­ues and choices (abor­tion, homo­sex­ual mar­riage, etc.) are pro­tected by law. This is very impor­tant to real­ize. These activists real­ize that, even in a democ­racy, somebody’s val­ues are going to prevail. 

The Church is often in a strange posi­tion today, as one of the few orga­ni­za­tions that are not afraid to say the obvi­ous: some things are gravely wrong for every human being and mak­ing them legal will tell peo­ple those things are right. Although this may be sim­ple, com­mon sense, it is an unpop­u­lar truth, and so it takes courage to stand up against the loud, pop­u­lar voices. This is one rea­son why many peo­ple see the Church as a mir­a­cle today, and are attracted to her. 

Courage to stand up

Many Catholics have been con­vinced of the truth and beauty of Chris­t­ian val­ues, and have done great things in this coun­try to help the good of all. But there have also been many Catholics, even some in impor­tant posi­tions, who have been ashamed of what they stand for. They have hid­den or gone against their val­ues in pol­i­tics, in the high­est courts of our land, in enter­tain­ment, in the news media, in busi­ness, and in all other fields. Instead of help­ing to build soci­ety with good val­ues they have caved in to other ideas. 

Politi­cians have the right to decide on their own about mat­ters that do not have to do with basic moral­ity. But the Church reminds Catholic politi­cians clearly “no Catholic can sup­port poli­cies which com­pro­mise or under­mine fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal values.” 

Moral val­ues make soci­ety bet­ter. In large part these val­ues often rely on Chris­tians who will defend them coura­geously, not just in pol­i­tics, but each per­son in the part they play in soci­ety, as a stu­dent, teacher, fam­ily mem­ber, neigh­bor, parish­ioner, cit­i­zen, etc. Each per­son is chal­lenged to live and act in a way that upholds and defends basic moral val­ues. This is “the way in which Chris­tians offer their con­crete con­tri­bu­tion so that, through polit­i­cal life, soci­ety will become more just and more con­sis­tent with the dig­nity of the human person.” 

Vocab­u­lary

Sanc­tity - Invi­o­la­bil­ity or sacred­ness, oblig­a­tion, right.

Homo­sex­ual - Ten­dency to direct sex­ual desire towards some­one of the same sex.

Civil union - A legal rela­tion­ship allow­ing same-​​sex cou­ples to obtain the rights, respon­si­bil­i­ties and ben­e­fits of marriage.

Dis­crim­i­nate - To hold a prej­u­diced out­look, action, or treat­ment towards someone

Rel­a­tivism - A view that eth­i­cal truths depend on the indi­vid­u­als and groups hold­ing them

Complementarity-​​ the state of fill­ing up or com­plet­ing; sup­ply­ing mutual needs or off­set­ting mutual lacks   

Bible Blurbs

• ” God cre­ated man in his own image, in the image of God he cre­ated him; male and female he cre­ated them . God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruit­ful and mul­ti­ply’.”  Gen­e­sis 1:27-28
• “Hus­bands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed him­self over for her to sanc­tify her…” Eph­esians 5: 25
• “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh.” Gen­e­sis 2:24
• “But at the begin­ning of cre­ation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this rea­son a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. There­fore what God has joined together, let man not sep­a­rate.” Mark 10:6-9

Saints and Heroes

Blessed Peter To Rot (1912-​​1945) was a hus­band and father of three chil­dren in Papua New Guinea at the out­break of World War II. As a cat­e­chist he worked to teach and defend the Catholic faith, espe­cially in 1942 when the Japan­ese invaded New Guinea and detained all of the mis­sion­ar­ies who had been work­ing before. In 1945 all reli­gious activ­ity was pro­hib­ited, but Peter con­tin­ued to ful­fill his duties. He opposed the legal­iza­tion of polygamy, which the Japan­ese were demand­ing, and thus was sent to prison. After sev­eral months in a prison and a con­cen­tra­tion camp, he was mur­dered by two mil­i­tary guards who hated the Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II said of him, “When the author­i­ties legal­ized and encour­aged polygamy, Blessed Peter knew it to be against Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples and firmly denounced this practice…he told peo­ple that he was ready to die for the faith and for his people.”

Discus­sion Questions

1. What things do you think about when you imag­ine the per­fect mar­riage? Do you know any good exam­ples of mar­ried peo­ple? What catches your atten­tion about these couples? 

2. What does it mean to love unselfishly? What are some exam­ples of prac­tic­ing this love in daily life, within or out­side of marriage?   

3. Rel­a­tivism is some­thing that can show up in many areas, not just the mar­riage debate. What are some other issues that peo­ple have got­ten used to say­ing, “what you think is fine for you, and what I think is fine for me.”? Who gets to decide which view­point is right, and which is wrong? How can we know?  

4. How can Catholic politi­cians build moral val­ues in soci­ety through their own pro­fes­sion? How about doc­tors? Lawyers? Pro­fes­sors? Businessmen?  

Res­o­lu­tion Ideas

• Write let­ters or emails to state and national con­gress­men sup­port­ing the mar­riage amendment.
• Write let­ters to Pres­i­dent encour­ag­ing him to appoint judges that will stand for fam­ily values.
• Send a card or a let­ter from the class to the bishop and priests thank­ing them for all they do to sup­port families.
• Orga­nize a Mar­riage Appre­ci­a­tion Day.
• Make and hand out door-​​to-​​door pam­phlets about mar­riage and this present debate, along with con­crete sug­ges­tions for peo­ple to voice their opinion.
• Write a let­ter to a news­pa­per edi­tor, tak­ing a pos­i­tive stance towards marriage.
• Invite a speaker to give a talk at school about mar­riage, per­haps a cou­ple who can speak of their expe­ri­ence of fidelity and commitment.
• Call up a talk radio sta­tion to openly say some­thing for fam­ily and marriage.

Fur­ther Formation 

“Along these lines, fam­i­lies should grow in aware­ness of being “pro­tag­o­nists” of what is known as “fam­ily pol­i­tics” and assume respon­si­bil­ity for trans­form­ing soci­ety; oth­er­wise fam­i­lies will be the first vic­tims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indif­fer­ence.” (Pope John Paul II  Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio; The Role of the Chris­t­ian Fam­ily in the Mod­ern World)

“There are absolutely no grounds for con­sid­er­ing homo­sex­ual unions to be in any way sim­i­lar or even remotely anal­o­gous to God’s plan for mar­riage and family. 

• Mar­riage is holy, while homo­sex­ual acts go against the nat­ural moral law.
•  Homo­sex­ual acts “close the sex­ual act to the gift of life. 
• They do not pro­ceed from a gen­uine affec­tive and sex­ual complementarity.
• Under no cir­cum­stances can they be approved.

This judg­ment of Scrip­ture does not of course per­mit us to con­clude that all those who suf­fer from this anom­aly are per­son­ally respon­si­ble for it, but it does attest to the fact that homo­sex­ual acts are intrin­si­cally dis­or­dered.” (Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith, Con­sid­er­a­tions regard­ing pro­pos­als to give legal recog­ni­tion to unions between homo­sex­ual per­sons, no. 4)

Resources

Fer­di­nand Hol­bock, Mar­ried Saints and Blesseds through the Cen­turies. Ignatius Press, 2002.

Argu­ment in sup­port of gay mar­riage by Human Rights Campaign-

http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=Center&CONTENTID=14392&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

Argu­ment against gay mar­riage by the Fam­ily Research Council

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=AR04C02&f=PD01L1

Defense of Mar­riage Act  http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtpol/doma.html