Why not polygamy?

It's being called "serial monogamy" or serial marriages to repeatedly divorce and re-marry.

Why do you equate divorce with polygamy? It is NOT the same thing at all. Divorced people go their separate ways and do not share a marital bed anymore with their EX. This is really ridiculous to look at polygamy in the same vein as divorce.

Because Christ did? (well adultery, anyway)

++++++
Randu in Google's Lively

There are some other statistics that need to be remembered here as well:

Among one demographic group in the US, 70% of the children are born outside of marriage. Of that 70%, where there are multiple children in the family, if I remember correctly, (couldnt find the source today) in approximately the same percentage, none of the siblings have the same fathers.

Divorce is not an issue in this demographic, however, the effect is much more destructive on our society, than the effect of divorce.

Yes, col55,

I understand! And experience can help show us that God's way - in this case, one man, one woman in sincere, faithful and mutual self-giving love until death - is best for us. God's way is always the true way for humanity. But we are foolish people, and we invent all sorts of "alternatives". Adam and Eve thought they had found a "better way" too - and the rest is painful and tragic history.

Thomas

"I understand" you write. Do you really understand what Col55 said and meant? Do you have a spouse Thomas? Is your understanding from experience, from text-books on "Catholic Marriage and the Family" or equivalent or from rhetoric dug up, repeated, without meditative reflection but rather sanctimonious comparison with rote statements that are as deep in humility and sensitivity as a piece of slate?

You take a piece of ironic humor and turn it into a sermon as if you were counselling Col55 in a collaborative session and with her consent generalizing to all as a learning moment or pius interlude.

Hello dear Dennis,

If you are seeking, you will find - and I pray for that, for you, for me, and for all.

Thanks again,

Thomas

Hello Marie,

You point out several possible "further questions" that deserve consideration from the point of view of the common good. I am especially concerned for the good of children in ANY arrangement other than one man, one woman in a true marriage. Children deserve protection: they deserve a normal home. They deserve what God intends in a home and family.

There are many "single parent" homes today, in which single parents are heroically trying to raise their children in a difficult situation which may have been no fault of their own. I know God gives grace in such cases, but it is less than ideal, less than God's full intention for us.

But we as a society will have to answer to God for opening the door to allowing children to be adopted into unhealthy home situations. For example, the Church disallows adoption by homosexual couples as in fact doing violence to the children. To allow children into the many variations and possibilities of multi-party "marriages" is even more disturbing.

Below is the relevant teaching on homosexual adoptions:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality. Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life.

As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.(CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS, 2003, CDF, Card. Ratzinger)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thomas

Thomas,

People always have trouble adjusting to situations that are different from the one's in which they were raised. There is absolutely no proof that it becomes impossible for people raised in non-traditional households to adjust to living in a more traditional arrangement when they become adults. This assertion that it does violence to children when they are raised by a homosexual couple can only come from a pornographic fantasy of a homosexual couple's way of living.

If your fear is that polygymous marriages will proliferate and that the overwhelming concern about this has to be that the children raised in these arrangements will be damaged goods, it is probably because it is not a frequent enough situation for anyone to be able to say it does or doesn't. Obviously, in the Middle East polygymous marriages are more common, and I know someone whose grandparents were in such an arrangement who is more like us than many people whose families have been traditional for generations. He is a devoted father and husband, totally monogamous, and respectful of women's achievments and ambitions.

So far as single-parenthood goes, clearly it is more difficult raising a child as a single parent, but this has nothing to do with our marriage laws.

This is great Thomas, in your quoting the catechism at us against gay adoption, you are beginning to make the case for polygamous marriage.

It is more moral to provide a child with male and female parenting than to ommit one sex. Polygamous marriages are also open to the procreation of children, and as Frannie pointed out below, God approves of polygamous relationships, so there is scriptural basis for granting marriages in at least the polygamous situation. The polyandrous situation would be more difficult for which to find a clear scriptural basis. Then there is the whole multi generational polygamous situation described in Genesis. So polygamists can claim that God approved of their situation right from the get go.

By the way, do you really need to start three threads to make your repeated case against homosexual marriage? I think most of us got your opposition a long time ago.

Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com

"It's deja vu all over again". What utter nonsense. Did you read the article from an interview with Ratzinger's Austrailian cousin? She maintains that although she herself like Herr Josef other family members didn't like to visit them because they were too religious. With due respect to his personal goodness, holiness etc, the man is out of touch with contemporary reality.

What really is 'sexual complementarity'? Can one demonstrate that parenthood (not comception but nurturing parenthood) is based exclusively on a 'nut' and 'bolt' reduction of parenthood to sex organ and sexual stereotypes? Of course being a single parent is difficult. Being parents within a same sex union that is permanant and loving is non-traditional, counter-traditional but not in being in absence of nurturing love. With all the respect in the world for caution in couples contemplating, in agency performing of due diligence, in the obvious standing out as different - the judgement that same sex parenthood is per se contrary to the best interests of a child, that it would 'place them in an environment that is not conducive to full human development' is it self a sinful, deceitful lie, whomever is the source. Thomas you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself for the fear mongering tenor of your sanctimonious baiting.

I agree William that, once again, the right wing agenda is being pushed where it feels there is a vulnerability. Thomas must be some sort of guru or designated disturber within a sect. I agree with most of your rationale as to why polygamy is really a non issue where the secure, normal, rational mind is at play. I have to acknowledge that Thomas has identified a vulmerability, an access to fear that feeds the 'tight-ass' approach to any change or liberalization. Liberalization implies looking as the sacredness of the higher principle when looking at consequential issues wherein an otherwise valid sphere of logic or common-sense has hitherto been held sacred. The funndamentalist looks at any exception as 'deviation' and not just potential but inevitable slippery-slope: none is best even when it is bad especially when one could lead to some.

I don't think that pologymy,'by its nature' subjugates women but rather by its tradition and practice. But so what, how is monogomy within the traditionalist Catholic perspective different? I could make the argument that in a society where women demand and expect equality, a polygamous environment could envisage a women with multiple husbands (although I can't imagine any woman opting to have several husbands but it has happened, I bet). (As a terrible aside, can one imagine a woman priest with several husbands running a parish?)

Otherwise I think William's reasons hold water. But Thomas has a point. In our Canadian west there is a polygamous community, "Bountiful" the offshoot of a sect to our south. The authorities have been and are unwilling to enforce the traditional and recently enacted legislation regarding two persons. I have read that the authorities fear the challenge which Thomas poses.

I would add to your statement William, that religion is not the only 'law' which is reasonable (ha), faith is not the only nor is it the prime directive, the only source of taboo. Actually "natural law" while only normative (to the chagrin of the fundamentalists)would seem more compelling than faith or religion. Those preoccuppied with things churchy and those who wish to see everybody and everything churchy have lost sight of the validity and strength of reason and common sense and "normative law" applied to the common good. The first lesson of logic is that all conclusions are not based upon "right or wrong"; some are based upon the necessity of convention for order and justice and the good of all rather than in any inherent or ideal 'good''. Decisions such as driving on the right for example. The next level of common sense good is closer to that 'normative law' that observes and subseguently suggests and then legislates that the best interests of the individuals, children, society in general will be served by limiting legislated unions to two people. And that is that.

Addressing same sex unions/marriages is the response to a challenge that was (is being)demonstrated to be reasonable and just toward which the tradition does not demonstrate sufficient reason to deny. That is the negative perspective but I think that is how society views it by and large and also, by and large that is how progress fights it way into acceptance.

Dennis, your typically thoughtful response makes some excellent points--ones I probably do need to consider further.

You say, "I don't think that pologymy,'by its nature' subjugates women but rather by its tradition and practice. But so what, how is monogomy within the traditionalist Catholic perspective different?"

I'm not sure I understand polygamy very well, having never lived anyplace in which it is practiced--openly, at least. (I think it's possible that there is more "polygamy" than any of us realizes going on around us in non-polygamous communities, insofar as men have more than one woman in their lives, while they are officially married to one of the women.)

Because I'm not sure I understand polygamy well, I put that qualification into my original statement: "insofar as I understand polygamous relationships...." My perspective is very much an outsider's perspective. It comes from talking, as one theologian to others, to theologians who live in LDS areas where polygamy still occurs--and, according to some of these colleagues, is more widespread than many Mormons admit.

I do believe, personally, that polygamy by its nature subjugates women to men, because it is "right" accorded only to men in polygamous societies. The term technically means "many women." If women were permitted to take multiple husbands (and this has rarely been the case, officially), that would be called polyandry.

And you are exactly right that traditional views of marriage can subjugate women to men every bit as much as polygamy does. In fact, I thought about getting into that debate in my first posting, and then decided I'd be straying from my main point if I did so.

And I very much agree with you that religion is not the only basis for approaching these issues. This is partly why I tried to frame my response to Thomas through a theological argument that appeals to reason. I value the appeal to reason in Catholic moral theology. Otherwise, we're left with that dismal fundamentalism that many right-wing Catholics try to promote today, in opposition to the tradition: "the" magisterium says; believe and shut up; case close. That's not doing moral theology, nor is it living the moral life. It's reducing oneself to a robot.

Your conclusion seems absolutely right to me. You say, "Addressing same sex unions/marriages is the response to a challenge that was (is being)demonstrated to be reasonable and just toward which the tradition does not demonstrate sufficient reason to deny."

This is a point I've just made in a response to Thomas that may appear at the same time this posting appears. At the same time that churches and thoughtful Christians in many places are finding the arguments for stigmatizing and excluding gay human beings weaker and weaker, they're also finding arguments for affirming and including us (both from reason and from faith) more and more persuasive. And, as you say, this is how forward movement in justice issues often occurs--and it definitely is a movement often propelled by fighting for acceptance.

Interestingly enough, there are some glimmers in recent studies that society may be so far down the road to reassessing gay marriages that at least some scholars are beginning to ask if gay marriages provide an ideal worth studying in heterosexual marriages. This is a point I wanted to make when I mentioned to Thomas that gay marriage--in the ideal sense, since we're obviously talking about ideals for both straight and gay marriage here--contains a commitment to mutuality that I don't see (from my outsider's perspective) in polygamous arrangements.

The studies that are looking at this note that gay partners don't enter their marriages with preconceived notions about the subordination of one gender to another. We can't do so, when we are both of the same gender. We also don't have cookie-cutter patterns to follow in our marriages. This can, at its best, translate into a marriage that contains more mutuality (and more dialogue and give and take) than marriages where one or both partners have in their heads that one gender is to act this way, and the other gender to act that way, and where the failure to talk about preconceived gender notions can end in disaster.

William D. Lindsey

Just a note on polyandry. Some experts have suggested that because of the one child norm in China and the preference there for male children, we will be seeing in the near future either an acceptance of polyandry or a mass exodus of men to other countries.

China's problem extends beyond this generation of only children. In a few years, these only children will marry; their children will have no aunts and uncles and so no cousins. What a "family."

Englishwoman

William~ Thanks. I had entirely overlooked the "polygamy","polyandry" distinction. Not to weasel out of my mistake, I suggest that if legalized, as Thomas seeks to sow fear, the language would have to be simplified to a poly-generic definition.

Seriously though your point about a theological argument that appeals to reason is a good one. I really do doubt though that it will/would have any fruitful effect in discussion with right-wing fundamentalist Catholics. For most it is a "slippery incline" (as opposed to a slippery-slope, eh)- that is, it leaves the door wide open to excalation to the out that : "the magisterium says; believe and shut up".

If one can look at reason, founded on common sense, good will, and demonstrable premises one might be able to establish the discipline of the obvious and thus seek acknowledgement that the "roma locuta est" out has nothing to do with reason and in fact is contra-rational.

I think that it is a similar situation with the woman priest thing. The "roma locuta est" satisfies the rwfc as does the poetic, psycho-sexual stereotypical and stretched biblical/traditional rationalization. However, the more its articulation is forced, even without the reasonable conter-arguments the Church position sounds more and more hollow, constructed and not only bereft of compelling meaning but mean, mysogoynistic and self-serving, not to mention stupid. So keep them talking, I say, and if they are truly of the Spirit it will finally get through my skull, if not it will become more and more obvious that the Spirit is somewhere else.

"Because I/he say so" had strength to the extent that a position, uniform, habit had colour and decoration. That day is fading into oblivian. And the rapturists who rely on it are fooling only themselves.

Hello William,

I will respond to your six "answers", but before I do, my first challenge to you in the context of our current jurisprudence is, "So what"? What difference do your opinions make? Why should your opinion weigh anything at all, over an opinion contrary to yours? WE HAVE ABANDONED ANY FIXED NORMS! What seems "reasonable" is in the mind of the individual, and is completely subjective. Now, our norms depend only only the opinions of those with power. When and if you (with those who share your opinions) have power, then your opinions are significant. Now, what is legal is normal and good, and God help those without power.

Your "answers":
YOU 1. First, there is no widespread appeal, based on a widely perceived need to confirm and support polygamous marriages. This is in contrast to the situation that exists re: gay unions, in which millions of citizens (and church members) are living in such unions without any legal recognition or ecclesial support.

I RESPOND: Since when does justice depend on the number of persons involved? Human rights are to be guaranteed to every individual, are they not?

YOU 2. I know of only one area of the nation--a strictly delimited area--in which polygamy is practiced officially. I am unaware of any movement to extend polygamy to other parts of the nation. I am unaware of people asking anywhere else for recognition of polygamous marriages.

I RESPOND: The break-away Mormons are living with polygamy now, in Utah and in Texas at least. Have you not seen the news recently about the child-brides in polygamous marriages? However, so what? If one group of people, say, 3 women and 2 men, wish to become married, would you object? Why or why not? What about 10 men and 10 women? Or 1 man and 8 women, or 5 men, or any combination.

YOU 3. Key to marriage, it seems to me, is mutuality: mutual love, mutual respect, mutual support. Insofar as I understand polygamous relationships, they lack the mutuality to be found in non-polygamous heterosexual or gay marriages, because they involve the right of one man to take several wives, whereas women are not accorded the same right.

I RESPOND: "It seems to you"? OK, fine, but so what? Of what value is your opinion about the keys to marriage. Suppose the group of 4 women and 7 men have other "keys"?

YOU 4. By its nature, polygamy subordinates women to men. Societies in which it is tolerated and supported quite frequently enshrine other forms of female subordination of women to men in law and culture.

I RESPOND: My hypothetical did not specify the relative numbers of each gender, nor their relationships. Suppose a group of bisexual man and bisexual women choose to "marry" as a group. Do you approve? Can you define a reasonable law for marriage? What makes your "reasonings" any more valid than some other and contrary reasonings?

YOU 5. Gay unions seek not subordination of one partner to another, but a mutuality in which both partners are equally respected, and respect each other equally.

I RESPOND: Really? Every homosexual union is this way? Forgive me, but I don't believe such an idealistic description. And again, suppose a group of men and/or women, of whatever "orientations," wanting to marry, claims such an idealistic relationship. Do you then approve their "marriage"?

Thomas

Since you are enjoying the proposal of legalized multiple-partner marriages, you might also enjoy a fictionalized glimpse into such a possibility--

Proposition 31
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Proposition 31 is a 1968 novel written by Robert Rimmer that tells the story of two middle-class, suburban California couples who turn to a polyamorous relationship to deal with their multiple infidelities as an alternative to divorce. The novel is written as a case study by a psychologist supporting a fictional "Proposition 31" that would amend the California Constitution to permit polyamory relationships in the guise of state-sanctioned group marriage.

Thank you for your response, Thomas.

I believe you and I are seeing the enterprise of theological conversation through blogs very differently. What you characterize as a stating of opposing opinions, with no recourse to norms, I see as an attempt to reach theological clarity by thinking through issues such as polygamy today, as we note the variety of moral norms that come into play (and often conflict) in any moral analysis.

If all we're doing is swapping opinions and trying to out-shout each other's opinion, it's not worth it.

Because you seem to be hearing me as stating opinions rather than doing theology, I respectfully submit that you've missed some important points throughout our conversations re: sexual morality. In my view, millions of the faithful are not rejecting Catholic sexual teaching today because we've just up and decided we have a different opinion than the one handed to us by Rome.

Our own graced experience, reflected on in the light of faith, prayer, and reason, points us to different conclusions than Rome is telling us to reach.

This is true with the teaching about artificial contraception. It's also true with the teaching about homosexuality. It's true in general with how millions of thinking, praying, worshiping, believing Catholics receive (or don't receive, is more accurate) the biologistic natural law teachings about sexual morality in general.

Re: the place of gay human beings--our lives and experiences and marriages--in the church, what I have tried to note is that, no matter how often you try to impose on us a natural law interpretation that dismisses our lives, experiences, and marriages as sinful, this is not how we are experiencing our own lives and relationships. We experience our sexuality as a gift from the hand of God--a precious gift that gives us joy and brings joy to others. Every bit as much as is the case with a heterosexual orientation. And we experience our committed relationships in the same way.

I would ask you to think about this: do you really believe that many churches today, many leaders of churches, many faithful in churches, many theologians, are re-thinking the place of gay human beings and our experiences simply because people are clamoring to have new opinions heard? I would submit that this re-thinking is going on because the theological arguments many people are advancing on behalf of that re-thinking are increasingly persuasive.

I won't rehash those arguments, nor will I rehash the clear weaknesses of the traditional position. I will only ask that you think about the fact that millions of gay believers have come to the conclusion that who we are is who God wills us to be, and that God blesses our attempt to form stable and life-giving relationships, as the result of a long process of prayer and reflection.

In my experience, people who take God and the church seriously don't wake up one day and say, "Oh, so much for the teachings of the church and its moral norms." Quite the contrary: we labor over decisions in which our choices seem to run contrary to what we are taught. We pray. We anguish, in many cases. We consult theologians and spiritual guides. We read, we pray.

We discern, as every Christian faced with difficult moral decisions does. And when we do so, we--many of us--come to the conclusion that central norms in church teaching override the moral norms that are characterizing our lives and our relationships as sinful. I'm speaking of norms such as the norms implied in Micah's statement that what God asks of us is to do justice, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with God.

This is why, Thomas, I've been trying over and over again to point out to you that these trick questions framed as either-or dichotomies are false dichotomies. The opposite of rejecting church teaching on an issue is not necessarily to enter a normless moral universe, or to slide down a slippery slope to relativism. It may well be to arrive at a carefully thought out and carefully prayed through discernment involving a profound commitment to central moral norms that one would rather die than betray.

There is a sound reason, I submit to you, Thomas, that many churches are re-thinking their approach to homosexuality--one that goes way beyond political pressure or making moral decisions on the basis of numbers. That reason has much to do with the attempt to love tenderly, do justice, and walk humbly with God--and to keep those ideals central to the practice of Christian life.

In light of that reorientation, it begins to seem more and more cruel, more and more unChristian, for some Christians to continue to try to target gay human beings to make political gain. Just as we have had to rethink our teaching (and practices) about persecuting Jews, burning witches and heretics, carrying on "holy" wars, blessing slavery, subjugating women to men, we are now having to rethink our teaching and practices re: gay human beings.

There will soon come a time--it's already dawning--when those churches that continue to foster cruelty towards gay and lesbian persons will look very unChristian to the majority of clear-thinking people of good will.

William D. Lindsey

William,

I think there is some reason for concern because of how judges interpret law rather than because of how people are not able to accept homosexuality. Decisions often present technicalities that are then exploited as precedent by people with other perspectives. I think that accepting the argument that there is an absolute right for an individual to marry whomever he or she chooses will lead to having it be legally necessary to allow individuals to enter into polygymous marriages also. My concern about that would be similar to yours in that women's status in societies that practice polygymy is typically subordinate. One does not hear about one man being kept on call by a group of women professionals, for example, but instead one sees these women restricted to concerning themselves with cooking and cleaning.

Thomas seems to be equating the polygymous household with arrangments in which a man engages in sexual activity with more than one woman at a time. While I have no knowledge of what goes on sexually in a polygymous household, I tend to think that it does not work out that way. I think those who are polygymous for religious reasons are in fact more like those who are most outspoken against sexuality and homosexuality. I think when it comes to children, polygymous households are all about begetting them and see those arrangements and activities that do not lead to procreation as being sinful just like the Catholic Church does. I believe it is the case in the Middle East that even though a man may have several wives, the Muslim religion has a number of things to say about who, when, where, and how he may engage in sex with them.

Marie, I think you make an excellent point when you say, "I think those who are polygymous for religious reasons are in fact more like those who are most outspoken against...homosexuality." I also agree with you when you note that religiously based polygamy often goes hand in hand with a be-fruitful-and-multiply theology.

In my view, this reinforces my point that polygamy is often (insofar as I understand it from the outside) connected to the subordination of women. The religious groups in which I am aware of polygamy being practiced today tend (in my outsider's perspective) to subordinate women to men precisely because they view women as divinely called to child-bearing.

It is hard for me not to see this religious-social practice as demeaning to women. It seems to link a woman's purpose in life, her destiny, to biology--and to a narrow view of biology construed as destiny.

Where I think we differ is in assuming that permitting gay marriage will open the door to legal acceptance of polygamous marriage, on the basis that there is "an absolute right for an individual to marry whomever he or she chooses." Personally, this is now how I interpret the recent legal rulings permitting gay marriage.

I don't hear those rulings stressing that everyone has an absolute right to marry anyone (or anything) a person chooses. I hear them stressing that we live in a society in which millions of individuals are now already living in committed same-sex unions that are every bit as much marriages as are sanctioned heterosexual marriages.

But because we do not permit these unions to be called (and actually to be) marriages, these unions have no legal sanction, no social support, none of the rights and privileges pertaining to marriage. Moreover, the legal rulings seem to me to state, this results in a situation of radical injustice for those living in such marital unions--with no sound reason for this injustice.

As I said in my first posting to Thomas, I'm not aware of a similar strong societal appeal to recognize polygamous marriages, nor am I aware that polygamous marriages are as ubiquitous in our society as are committed same-sex unions. For that reason, I just don't see legal acceptance of gay marriage opening the door to an acceptance of polygamous marriages.

I do sometimes wonder, however, whether our legal system and government hasn't long ago given tacit consent to polygamous marriages in areas of the country in which religious groups promote that societal arrangement. From what colleagues in the field of religious studies have told me, in some areas where religious groups have a history of polygamy, it is far more widespread and out in the open--for those who have eyes to see--than many of us realize. And the state and federal government know that and do nothing to curb it.

I have asked myself whether this would be the case if religious groups practiced polyandry rather than polygamy. Somehow, I don't think so. Frankly, I believe that our society is rather unperturbed by social and religious arrangements that subordinate women to men--and that view women as ordained to bear children.

William D. Lindsey

William, I think it is wrong to look on childbearing and rearing as lower in status than other human activities. In fact, I think it is a highly important activity that unfortunately draws mixed reactions from people.

The issue of polygymous arrangements being inequitable arise because the wives are in contention with one another instead of in partnership with their spouse, not because their particular focus in life is childbearing and rearing. As an aside, I can only imagine that this would be a hundred times worse in a polyandrous arrangement, given that men tend by nature to compete with one another.

My opinion is that legal issues about polygymy likely would arise even if there were no gay marriage issue, because it is cruel to break up polygymous families that immigrate to the US, for one thing. From a religious point of view, consider, also, that in the view of God, presumably, anyone who has married, divorced, and remarried, is in a polygymous or polyandrous arrangement, given that divorce is only permitted because of human hardness of heart and that it is not part of God's plan.

Yesterday, I posted a response to Frannie under the news feed item regarding the ruling that gay Californians could marry. My point there was that from my personal perspective, marriage (legal or Sacramental) is all about ensuring that people live up to commitments they make while they are under the effects of being in love (I mean the begetting of children, specifically), and until or unless there is some reason for holding the individuals who would enter into marriage to their commitment, there is little reason to include them under marriage laws. In fact, it would be my opinion that any couple that would qualify for a "no fault" divorce, should not be marrying, but could possibly join in some other kind of legal arrangment that would be identified as a household.

As you may have gathered from my other posts, I advocate that there should be a wider recognition of households beyond the married couple one. It seems a little strange to me that the criteria for determining the distribution of benefits within our society would hinge upon whether the members of the household engage in sexual activity with one another instead of hinging on the household's needs.

You write, "I don't hear those rulings stressing that everyone has an absolute right to marry anyone (or anything) a person chooses. I hear them stressing that we live in a society in which millions of individuals are now already living in committed same-sex unions that are every bit as much marriages as are sanctioned heterosexual marriages." What would be your reason for involving either the government or Churches into a marriage-like committed relationship?

In the nineteenth century here in New York women were not allowed to keep any money they made by working. Their salaries belonged to their husbands. If they were to inherit property, they could not sell it or give it away, because they could not make contracts. In this they were lumped with idiots and children. And of course they could not vote.

So what? Many women had kind generous husbands. Most had adequate providers.
After all, women were not as well educated as men and did not have the experience of the business world as men had. Even the bible supported the situation, for the two had become one flesh and that one was male, the one the law recognized.

And there was no groundswell of calls for change. Most women could not imagine a different way of living. Most men would not have it. Then why rock the boat?
Why change?

Justice. Justice. Justice. Can you see that?

Frannie, I tend to think that you are wrong on the point of most women not being able to imagine a different way of living and of most men not allowing it. I believe that with industrialization came education and with education came higher expectations for women both from women and from their fathers.

What do you think led to changing the law about whose money the woman's earnings were? This may have been the way things were in New York at one point, but out in the wild west, women and men had and have equal claim to the household's assests no matter the origin. By contrast, I am told that in Iran, by custom at least, women control the household's finances and the man turns over his pay to the wife, even though she is not to go out and about without a male family member as escort.

I don't see how being married is in itself an issue of justice. I think you are making the point that some households are encountering economic injustice and arguing that marriage is the solution. I disagree with your solution.

Industrialization brought exploitation of women and children in the factories and the mines. It was not until 60 or more years later that the legal system was altered to protect them.

I am quietly banging my head against my desk. The point I was trying to make is that there were two sets of laws: one for women and one for men. And as a consequence women were multiply disadvantaged. The modern corollary is that we have two sets of laws: one for straights and one for gays and as a consequence the gays are multiply disadvantaged. That's INjustice. When my head stops throbbing, I'll try to figure out why you can't see that.

Frannie, when I was first married, I thought that my husband should have bought me a Mother's Day card, because in my mind his not doing so implied that he thought I would not be a good mother if I were to become one. I see people claiming that there is injustice in not being allowed to marry as being similar to my claiming that not getting a Mother's Day card, even though I was not a mother, made a negative statement. It didn't. It is simply a fact that Mother's Day cards are for people who are mothers and people who are not mothers have no reason to get one. Similarly, it is simply a fact that no gay couple will ever naturally have children that are genetically related to both of them. Therefore, I don't think it is appropriate that their unions fall under our marriage laws.

In your example, the two sets of expectations, one for women and one for men, were due to the division of labor that had become customary, because it allowed for the best chance of survival for people in an agrarian society. It wasn't unjust until economic changes made it inappropriate and apparently arbitrary. What you seem to me to be arguing is that except for our laws, the homosexual couple is the same as the heterosexual couple. Is that because the heterosexual couple now has the option of being infertile and the homosexual couple can use technology to have children genetically related to both of them?

I feel terrible because I feel I'm being dragged into tangential albeit clever arguments. "it is simply a fact that no gay couple will ever naturally have children that are genetically related to both of them. Therefore, I don't think it is appropriate that their unions fall under our marriage laws." Shall we disenfranchise straight couples who can never naturally have children that are genetically related to both of them? Shall we disenfranchise couples whose children are adopted? Would we say that Mary and Joseph were not married becauseJesus was not genetically related to both of them? All of this is attractive obfuscation.
The question is a legal one, a constitutional one.
Are all our citizens entitled to equal protection of laws or not? I once heard
a preacher note that birds of a kind settled on the same branch. "When," he asked,"have you ever seen a blackbird and a dove sitting side by side in a tree?" An evocative image, but not, as he claimed, an argument for keeping interracial marriage illegal. It doesn't matter where birds perch or who has children. We either equal or we're not.

Frannie, you have been as cogent as you could be. I appreciate your efforts. This whole idea of motherhood though, is really ingrained in people's minds in justifying the dignity of women. I've seen it all the time in my own case. As soon as people find out I have a child, they forget all about the gay part. They treat me no differently than they do any other heterosexual female. The difference is really striking.

I also understand that having a child more closely connects me to the straight world, while at the same time distances me from the more stridently defined gay world. The reality is a whole lot of gay people have children. That doesn't make them ontologically attracted to the opposite sex. If anything it sort of proves it isn't about the sex acts per se, it's about who you are attracted to and develop deep loving relationships with.

So in one sense I can see where Marie is coming from, but like you point out, in the final analysis we're either equal or we're not. Having children should not make people more equal. The sad thing is, it does.

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com

Frannie, I don't think I'm making obscure arguments about marriage. I think it's as plain as day that the reason the government hands out marriage licenses is so that people will know where their responsibilities for offspring begin and end.

I do argue that there is no reason for people who absolutely certainly will not have children to get legally married. That is not to say that I would object to a religious institution allowing them to join together in holy matrimony or for a religious institution to develop a blessing ritual for their union. However, I would also definitely object to compelling a religious institution to perform weddings or blessings.

Furthermore, I am completely in favor of legally broadening the definition of what constitutes a household so that some households do not benefit more than others simply because some of the members of the household getting more benefits are presumed to engage in sex with one another legally. This is where the inequality rests, not in the marrying, but in the forming of the household.

I think we have different perceptions of what constitutes equality, fairness, and justice. You seem to think that it is necessary to make everything identical, while I think it is more fair and just to provide what is appropriate and that doing so will generate equality.

Marie,

You say, "I do argue that there is no reason for people who absolutely certainly will not have children to get legally married. That is not to say that I would object to a religious institution allowing them to join together in holy matrimony or for a religious institution to develop a blessing ritual for their union. However, I would also definitely object to compelling a religious institution to perform weddings or blessings."

But that's precisely the point. Not only has civil law permitted heterosexual couples who cannot procreate to marry from time immemorial, so have the churches. Without raising any questions or batting an eyelash. And there's never been any question in either church or state of calling those marriages "unions"--that is, giving them a second-class status as marriages.

Discrimination is a situation in which we treat people who otherwise appear to be equal differently on the basis of differences that ought not to matter.

If both church and state have long married heterosexual couples who cannot procreate, then the only possible difference that we are noting in our refusal to accord the same rights to gay couples is the gender of the spouses. To justify excluding gay couples from marriage (either civil or religious, or both), we obviously have to develop some other argument besides the argument that marriage should be reserved to couples who can procreate. Either that, or change longstanding custom in church and state and stop marrying couples beyond childbearing age or couples who know prior to marriage that procreation is an impossibility . . . .

I don't know of any tests given to heterosexual couples by either civil or church authorities prior to their marrying, to see if they are capable of bearing children. I don't know of any oaths couples have to take to promise to bear children, do you?

There must be something else that we are recognizing and doing, when we legally marry a couple, than protecting and fostering procreative ability. What is that something else? And does it warrant excluding a whole category of people from the right to marry, simply because of their gender?

William D. Lindsey

William, you wrote: "If both church and state have long married heterosexual couples who cannot procreate, then the only possible difference that we are noting in our refusal to accord the same rights to gay couples is the gender of the spouses."

Yes, I would think that is obvious. Genders make the difference. Marriage is for men with women. As in Adam with Eve, from the beginning. This right order is implanted in the heart of man in the natural law, and make clear in revelation as taught by the Church. Is there some question about this?

There may well be disagreement - as there is disagreement with and disobedience of every moral law - but I don't see how you can question what the moral law is on this issue.

Thomas

just as one needs to be careful when using the bible as a 'proof text,' one needs to be careful using nature as the rule of thumb for behavior in human beings. Homosexual behavior in the animal world has been well documented. Also, there are other aspects of the 'natural world' we do not want to emulate, either. For example, the black widow spider kills the male spider after mating, siblings will choose each other as mates, dominant males killing their male progeny to ensure his dominance of the group....

It seems to me that natural law and moral law are subtly but essentially different despite their intimate relationship. While abstract principles hold the occurances in each are normative rather than absolute. The 'intrinsic evil act', like the 'intrinsic good act' is neither moral nor immoral until it is an act in substance, a deed mitigated by the comprehension of the actor. Similarly, the so-called 'natural law' expression is not law, but rather normative. Acting outside, or beyond the norm is not 'breaking a law' (unless it has been edicted then it is a crime) but acting outside the norm. The tolerance of 'acting outside the norm' has to be considered in light of- a)equivalent or overriding principles and b)social/legal convention (both of which while sacred in their own way are mutable). The tolerance of acting outside the norm, itself then expands the norm, e.g.,marriage is a union of one man with one woman for procreation to marriage is a permanant loving relationship between two consenting adults.

This is not to dismiss natural law but to acknowledge that it is deeply enculturated as well as intellectual and observational. We need, I think, to reflect on our tradition of 'natural law', endure the intellectual discipline of distinction from religion, respect it for what it is, listen, observe, relearn and update. It would be a shame to utterly dis the concept because moralists have applied (cultural)religious taboos (rightly or wrongly) and unwarranted absolutes to what is really an evolving intellectual and community exercise thus making a mockery of intelligence and a tyrant of religion,a noose of tradition and truly, government a tool of churchs.

Thomas, it is interesting that you accept my conclusion that the choice of the church to marry non-procreative heterosexual churches does raise questions about the reason for its refusal to marry same-sex couples.

Unfortunately, in my view, the answers you suggest to deal with those questions are simply not convincing.

I see no warrant all for reading the Adam and Eve story as a story about God's plans for marriage "from the beginning." It seems very dangerous to me to take what is clearly an attempt of the sacred writers to answer questions about how we got here, about God's creative activity in fashioning the world, and turn it into a story about something else altogether, about the moral imperative for marriage to involve two sexes.

It's dangerous to use this story in that way because, if we take the story literally, as your interpretation is asking us to do (and if we skew it in the direction of moral instructions about marriage, as you propose), we encounter the monumental problem of explaining how two people could produce children whose continuance of the race did not involve incest. Better, I think, to recognize that this story isn't about God's plans for marriage at all, but a mythic account of how the world came into being.

Here's how I read your use of scripture and of natural law in what you have posted: you take what seems apparent to you--the "natural" complementarity of men and women--and you turn it into a divinely approved mandate for all of creation, embedded in scripture and in natural law. In my view, this attempt to read our cultural prejudices into scripture and our interpretation of natural law is dangerous. It has happened often throughout church history, always with unhappy consequences.

In this case, the danger is the danger of taking what seems natural--to us--and turning it into a kind of idol to which all other values are to be subordinated. To make the Jewish and Christian scriptures all about the natural complementarity of men and women is, I would propose, to distort what they are really about--and in the process, to absolutize something that should not be absolutized. This preoccupation with male and female complementarity (and with male domination and female subordination) is really rather new to the Christian tradition, and a departure from the tradition. For an extended argument to this effect, if you wish, please consult an essay I placed on my blog recently at http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/08/male-female-complementarity-and-bogus.html.

You ask if there is some question about what constitutes the "right order...implanted in the heart of man in the natural law." There certainly does appear to be such a question in the minds of many believers, who have rejected the conclusions of the magisterium about sexual ethics insofar as they are based on a biologistic interpretation of natural law. Nature yields the conclusions the magisterium tells us to reach about sexuality only if we approach its rich, diverse patterns with preconceived notions about what is natural, and about the "law" implanted in nature. If one looks at nature impartially, observing carefully what it tells us about questions of gender and sexuality, I'm afraid one will not arrive at the conclusions the church wants us to reach, about what is natural sexual behavior and about the unchangeable purpose of sexuality.

William D. Lindsey

I think that when divorce laws were stricter, infertility by itself was sufficient grounds for divorce, which seems to me to imply that while the government was not in the business of predetermining the fertility of people intending to marry, it assumed that their marrying was connected with an intent to produce offspring.

Furthermore, in Church thinking, which determined civil thinking on this matter, there was always room for a miracle in the case of couple supposedly beyond its childbearing years. However, even in the Church, if it were found that one of the individuals in a marriage had lacked the organs required to procreate when he or she entered into the marriage, wouldn't that be considered an invalid marriage?

I think the point that marriage was for procreation went unspoken because people really did not have the option of not procreating if they were married and thus engaging in sexual activity with some regularity. I think it is unreasonable to assert that because it was unspoken, it was not the reason for it.

If the purpose of marriage licensing is not to keep track of procreation and parental responsibilities, then you are left with the only purpose being the oversight of personal relationships by government and religious institutions, which I think is not only unnecessary, but also very undesirable.

And so part two: if I understand correctly your argument about marriage in various postings to Frannie and me, it rests on the belief that marriage is not a piece of paper. If I hear you right, you’re saying that marriage is the choice two spouses make to live together faithfully, and it does not need the official sanction of church or state to be marriage.

There’s truth in that contention, of course. At the core of the Catholic understanding of marriage is the principle that two people marry each other. The priest is there as the official representative of the church to an act that the two spouses perform for and with each other as they vow to live together faithfully.

However, it seems important to me to note the following. You have the right to forgo the official ceremony, the legal sanctions, the church blessing, and so on. You have that right because you have the right to marry in the first place.

Gay people do not have such a right. Which means, gay people are automatically shut out of abundant benefits (social, legal, ecclesial) that accrue to marriage.

It’s one thing to forgo a right you have, to decide not to take advantage of this right in your own life (though I believe you have married, and I would note that you apparently did so because you find it important that you and your family have those benefits that accrue to marriage).

It’s another thing altogether to stand in the door and tell those seeking a right you have, but choose not to avail yourself of, that they do not have such a right—-and don’t need it, in any case!

Several posters, including me, have pointed out the abundant legal and social advantages attached to marriage, from which gay people are automatically excluded when we are denied the right to marry. I won’t rehearse those. I’m very surprised you don’t see them—-the benefits present to you that your stance re: gay marriage denies to a whole class of citizens on the grounds of something innate, sexual orientation.

What I’d like to draw attention to here, though, is not so much the benefits a couple automatically derives from being permitted to marry. I’d like to return once again to a theme I’ve stressed over and over in our conversation.

This is the assured place within the Christian community that one has, when one is heterosexual and able to marry. In my view, one of the most harmful effects of social and ecclesial refusal to marry gay couples is the exclusion of gay couples from full acceptance and participation in the Christian community.

Marriage is entrée. It is unbelievable entrée. For those of us on the outside looking in, it seems unthinkable that those who have this entrée, who enjoy all its benefits, would be unable to see how the lack of this public approval, support, and blessing of a lifelong committed relationship automatically excludes those who do not have this right.

Creating two tiers of relationships—-one fully sanctioned, one grudgingly accepted—-within the Christian community divides the community into the fully blessed and fully accepted, and the merely tolerated. This system is a class system, in which there are upper and lower orders.

I think it’s little wonder that, as long as churches approach gay people and gay relationships in the way you are advocating, gay people will simply walk away from the churches. Why would we not? Why should a group of human beings willingly subject themselves to systems of social order—-especially ones that claim divine sanction—-which automatically demean them?

From where many of us stand, church often looks like this: an attractive banquet table set for some folks, which we can see through a glass wall, but which we can’t touch or sit at. And the people at the table seem to have the illusion that they are welcoming everyone to their table, even as we stand just outside the glass wall, seemingly invisible to the welcoming folks eating and drinking and making merry at the table.

As we peer through the glass, our brothers and sisters from the right sometimes come out to chat us up and tell us that if we’d only admit we are gross sinners in need of repentance—-a special class of sinners who deserve exclusion more than the ordinary sinners sitting at the table-—we’d be welcome. Some of these brothers and sisters tell us it would be better to marry, to try to deny our nature, to deceive and pretend, and perhaps God will somehow miraculously change us into what they so confidently know God wants us to be. If not, we can always go to confession as often as we slip, and the community will not be disturbed, since it won’t have to think about a group of people whose very presence makes it uncomfortable.

So, come inside, but leave yourself outside. Then you’ll be welcome.

And