Realtalk Doma Thread

[Amppax]

What exactly will be the consequences (immediate) of this ruling? What are people's thoughts. 

[Basilisa Marie]

I don't think it's as big of a deal as either side is making it.  All the ruling says is that homosexual couples who are married in states with legal gay marriage and reside in said states get the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.  It doesn't force states to recognize gay marriage.  In fact, it forces everyone to work at the state level for marriage issues, which means our voices are more likely to be heard.  My priest got all over-dramatic and put purple bunting outside the church and wore purple vestments at mass today.  But then, I wish he'd put half the effort he spends on national political issues into our own parish programming.  

I prefer that the SCOTUS defend states rights, but I also agree with Scalia's sentiment in his dissent.  He said something about how it's wrong that Kennedy based some of his opinion on the fact that he sees the law as malicious in intent, because it's impossible to determine whether or not a law is truly malicious, and in theory you can just get rid of any law you don't like because you think it has a malicious intent.  

I haven't read Roberts' dissent yet.  

[Dr. Bombay]

It won't be long now until they start rounding up Catholics and putting us in boxcars and sending us off to the ovens.  I'm presuming they'll take down Catholics first since we're the biggest kid on the block.  Once we're down, the lesser lights will be easy pickings.

 

The God haters are excellent propagandists and they've played their hand superbly.  It's amazing how the tide has reversed almost completely in just a few years on this issue alone.  The only hope is that they'll overplay their hand but even if they do, there's too much water under the bridge at this point.  Nothing short of divine intervention will stop this cultural decline now.

 

And I think black vestments would have been much more apropos, for a number of reasons.

[PhuturePriest]

It won't be long now until they start rounding up Catholics and putting us in boxcars and sending us off to the ovens.  I'm presuming they'll take down Catholics first since we're the biggest kid on the block.  Once we're down, the lesser lights will be easy pickings.

 

The God haters are excellent propagandists and they've played their hand superbly.  It's amazing how the tide has reversed almost completely in just a few years on this issue alone.  The only hope is that they'll overplay their hand but even if they do, there's too much water under the bridge at this point.  Nothing short of divine intervention will stop this cultural decline now.

 

And I think black vestments would have been much more apropos, for a number of reasons.

 

I was sure you were joking in the first paragraph, but I became less certain at the end.

[Norseman82]

I gave my analysis here: 

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/128022-supreme-court/page-4

 

[Apotheoun]

The Church has issued documents during the past decade that make it clear that Catholics are not only obligated as a matter of divine faith to resist any and all attempts to legalize homosexual unions, but must work to overturn "laws" that promote this type of moral deviancy or that equate it with marriage.

[God the Father]

I was sure you were joking in the first paragraph, but I became less certain at the end.

 

 

Allowing a certain degree of poetic license, he's pretty much right on.

[dUSt]

I don't recognize the validity of government issued marriages period, let alone gay ones.

[Apotheoun]

The Church teaches that the state has a duty to protect and defend marriage and the family, and passing "laws" that promote deviant behavior, or which equate evil with good, do not serve the common good. Catholics are required, as a matter of divine faith, to resist what is happening in our society.

[Lil Red]

musing aloud: do you think that Catholics going along with government marriage requirements (like obtaining a marriage license) helped pave the way to a lessening of respect of our canonical laws? 

[Brother Adam]

This is one of the best articles I have seen on this subject:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/21/archbishop-cordileone-gay-marriage-catholic-church/2001085/

 

[Basilisa Marie]

musing aloud: do you think that Catholics going along with government marriage requirements (like obtaining a marriage license) helped pave the way to a lessening of respect of our canonical laws? 

 

Possibly, but I don't think it's necessarily going along with civil marriage licences that is the problem, I think it's the emphasis on those civil requirements over canonical ones that are the problem.  Sacramental marriage and civil marriage are two very different things, and I don't think people really appreciate the difference.  I mean, so many people believe an annulment is just Catholic divorce.  We're allowed civil and sacramental marriage to become basically the same thing in the eyes of the community.  I think if we had a better appreciation of the difference, it would change the way we talk about gay marriage issues.  That is, it would clarify the reasons why we think gay marriage is wrong (many pointed out in the article Br. Adam posted, including the perceived interchagibility of mothers and fathers, etc), and people would better understand why we're against it.  It'd destroy the "but it doesn't have anything to do with YOUR marriage!" argument.  To me, the most compelling arguments against gay marriage aren't ones that talk about the civil reasons (I agree with Kennedy's interpretation of the Constitution, it's a state issue and not a federal one, thus part of DOMA doesn't work), but the ones that talk about mothers and fathers.  

I think the biggest problem is that society has such a wildly different understanding of what marriage is, and what motherhood and fatherhood are, that we're talking past each other.  Because we think sacramental marriage is different from civil marriage, any argument on those grounds devolves into a "why do you even care?" position.  The better answer (to me) has to do with gay marriage making motherhood and fatherhood both the same and irrelevant.  

[PhuturePriest]

musing aloud: do you think that Catholics going along with government marriage requirements (like obtaining a marriage license) helped pave the way to a lessening of respect of our canonical laws? 

 

I don't like marriage licenses. First off: Who the heck is the Government to give me a license to allow me to get married? What if they refuse to give me a license and I get married anyway? What are they gonna do, throw me in jail? It's like they're treating marriage like a driver's license.

[Era Might]

The American evangelical worldview looks at things through a theocratic, Protestant lense, and (conservative) Catholics through a sort of hybrid of medievalism and libertarianism. So some will lament this as the prophets of Israel might lamented the backsliding of the Hebrews, as a symbolic moment of national reckoning. Others will lament it as the death of some idea of religious secularity, the breakdown of the medieval relationship between Pope and Prince, etc.

 

I don't see it in quite the same way. I am troubled by this from a religious and moral perspective, but not on those terms. Modernity has been a gradual abstraction of rights and institutions. To have the society that we have, you have to abstract people to the lowest common denominator not bound to religious institutions, family, culture, tradition, etc. America is a deeply individualist society. If you don't like a church, you hop to another one, or found your own. If you don't like a business, you assert your rights as a consumer. If you want access to work, school, etc., you claim the abstracted rights granted to all, which forbids discrimination for color, gender, whatever.

 

Another way of saying America is "individualist" is to say it is privatized. Live and let live is a central feature of American culture. Gay marriage is just a recognition of that. To pronounce a judgment on two gay people getting married is (in this context) as silly as pronouncing a judgment on two gay people eating at Chick-fil-A. Whatever Chick-fil-a's thinks about gay marriage, they are still going to take gay money in their stores. They are serving, not two gay people, but two abstracted "consumers." That abstraction and privatization is the grease that keeps our national engine smooth. Capitalism has no roots...capital follows whatever people want and need. If society gets gay-friendly, so will companies. If labor is cheap in China, capital will follow.

 

Trying to live within this context as if we are the nation of Israel, and Christians are the prophets calling their people back, makes no sense to me. Christianity was never about creating a world-wide theocracy, but about calling together the saints into the house of the Lord. The church has a universal mission, not to create a medieval theocracy, but to witness to the kingdom of god within the community of the church, to announce this kingdom in all lands, and, if necessary, to wipe the dust from its feet and move on when the message is not received, when the moment of visitation is spurned.

 

I think the question of gay marriage is a legitimate question of what it means to have a civilization. Can there be a true civilization along the lines of modernity, capitalism, mass media? Religion, of course, is part of any civilization. Modernity has not gotten rid of the "role" religion has always played, but it has transferred it to other institutions. Today, our rituals are the pledge of allegiance, Sunday football. Our churches are Facebook and Twitter. Our "great commission" is economic development. Christianity can try to integrate itself into this world order, but for me, that it is not a project I want to be a part of.

 

From a biblical perspective, as we move toward the end of times, the world gets worse, not better. Christians are not here to make a lasting city, but to call people in from the coming flood, and to invite them into the hope that the church witnesses to within its community, the hope of the coming Lord. Our presence in the world is an inconvenience. I don't think gay marriage is the monster we imagine, it is just another thing to get around as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ (to quote the Mass).

 

There is the civilizational / legal question around this issue, and I find that interesting, certainly, but I don't think that is the central issue around what gay marriage means for the church.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Era Might

[Era Might]

I gave my analysis here: 

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/128022-supreme-court/page-4

 

This:

 

 

 

I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.

Is a purely practical argument, which may or may not have some merits, but doesn't say much from a Christian perspective. It simply makes an argument for middle class families.

 

And this:

 

 

 

Q: Why is this of such importance to children?

A: Why has virtually every known civilization across time and history recognized the need to bring together men and women to make and raise the next generation together? Clearly something important is at stake, or human beings of such different cultures, histories and religions would not come up with the basic idea of marriage as a male-female union over and over again.

I'm not sure what to make of, given the fact of polygamy even in ancient Israel. He seems to be doing nothing, again, but making an argument for the modern bourgeois family. Not having a father, in the sense of a modern nuclear family, does not logically mean one lacks male influence. There are other means of male influence. I'm not arguing against having a father, but that is not a particularly strong argument against allowing gay marriage (in fact, I consider it a bad one, because it assumes a certain image of the family which is not universal even today, let alone throughout history).

Edited June 27, 2013 by Era Might