Four Things The Marriage Debate Taught Us

[Basilisa Marie]

A friend of mine posted this article from CatholicVote on facebook, and I thought it was pretty interesting.

[quote][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. The homosexual activists who want to redefine marriage are true believers who work diligently to change public opinion. Whenever and wherever their issue comes up, they are there, telling their stories and winning converts.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
I also give them credit for refining and sharpening my own understanding of this issue, helping clear away the dross and leave the heart of the matter.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
Here are four things I think we have learned in the marriage debate.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
[b]1. We learned that being grossed out by homosexuality hurts us.[/b][/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
In an article I wrote for Crisis more than 10 years ago (which even then was called “Can Same-Sex Marriage Be Stopped?”) I spoke with a man who had been raised partly in the home of a homosexual couple.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
“What people like my mom see in the religious right is people who say, ‘Ooo, this is icky and disgusting and horrible,’ reflexively, without explaining why,” he told me. “Then my mom and her friend look at their own lives, at their sacrifice and friendship and generosity and say, ‘Well, these people are just hate-mongers.’”[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
There is no reason we should feel special disgust at homosexual acts compared to any other sexual sin. And there is no reason we can’t appreciate the mutual friendship and authentic love in a long-term homosexual couple. If we know what marriage is, a thousand such couples shouldn’t in any way threaten us.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
[b]2. Being okay with heterosexual sexual sin hurts us.[/b][/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
As Ross Douthat points out in his [i]Bad Religion [/i]book (thanks,[url="http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/04/holy-week-ecce-homo-ecce-us/elizabeth-scalia"] Anchoress[/url]): “[O]ne reason the Christian insistence on chastity for homosexuals seems particularly cruel and unreasonable is that the Christian churches no longer successfully hold up heterosexual chastity as a clearly defined, successfully lived-out ideal.”[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
Human beings have spent millennia judging each others’ sexual morality. But whether we are judging others too uptight, too obsessed or too cavalier, we are agreeing that sexual behavior has a moral dimension We are acknowledging that sexuality is the greatest human power, and that with great power comes great responsibility.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
The question has always been where the line is drawn. Let’s have that argument: What level of sexual responsibility is best: morally, emotionally and physically?[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
[b]3. Our opponents don’t have an argument, but they do have a history of injustice.[/b][/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
There’s a reason every civilization has defined marriage the same way.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
It isn’t because that state knows that giddy in-love feeling is just a little more special when you report it to a bureaucrat. That’s just weird. It isn’t because the state is benefited by maintaining a list of citizens’ official sex partners. That’s creepy.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
The reason states privilege marriage is that it promotes two things the state does have an interest in: Child-bearing and child-rearing . Why does the state care about that? Because families give you something no amount of money can provide: A population that cares more about the future than the present.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
To make marriage into a merely romantic gesture – to make it into a state-issued Valentine – will strip it of its meaning.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
But you don’t see homosexual activists argue why it’s good for civilization to stop privileging child-bearing and child-rearing and start privileging romantic involvement. Instead, you see [url="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/egregioustwaddle/page/2"]bumper sticker slogans[/url] and character assassinations that sparked the “[url="http://www.startdebatingstophating.com/"]Start Debating, Stop Hating[/url]” effort.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
Our opponents’ tactics are undesirable, but understandable. Homosexuals have spent a lifetime being sneered at and bullied. They have the expected human reaction against those who seem to side with the bullies. Which is why ….[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
[b]4. At this point, we can only win this the hard way: Through charity.[/b][/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
The way pro-lifers turned the tide of abortion opinion was through charity: Finding the wounded people at the heart of the problem, and serving their real needs. Without the long, sustained effort at loving unwed mothers, we never would have had the pro-life victories we received.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
At the heart of the homosexual marriage movement are another set of wounds: And in this case, they are wounds we all share because we have all allowed ourselves to darken and empty our view of sexuality. Only by restoring an understanding of sexuality that puts the whole human person in its center will we make headway against the misunderstanding of marriage.[/background][/size][/font][/color][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]
Christ’s answer to the world’s problems is always the same: Suffer the opposition of the world in order to bring it the truth that will set it free from sin.[/background][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]Catholics and other Christians have started that effort with websites that [/background][/size][/font][/color][url="http://www.1flesh.org/"]tell the truth about sexuality[/url][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent] in an [/background][/size][/font][/color][url="http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/"]engaging way[/url][color=#585757][font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=3][background=transparent]. The more of that, the better.[/background][/size][/font][/color][/quote]
[url="http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=34376"]http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=34376[/url]