Jessica's note: This is the second part in the series about the Church, the State, and Marriage. I thank both of my guest bloggers for taking the time, and their talent, to write on this subject of marriage and the state's recognition of marriage. I'll let Rev. Johnny Walker provide his own summation on his piece.
A Defense of Legal Recognition of Marriage from an Evil
Statist Theocratic Catholic Bastard
In this piece, I will argue that the state should in fact recognize and promote marriage,
as taught by the Church, and that the law should recognize the true definition
of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
Contrary to our gracious hostess’s statement on this blog, I
could care less whether or not the state
has a vested interest in recognizing marriage between one man and one
woman. Rather, I believe that
society--that all of us--have a vested interest in marriage being thus
correctly recognized by the law.
In accord with the consistent social teaching of the Church, the state
has a duty to promote the common good, whether it happens to benefit those in
power or not.
While Mr. Peters has given us a rousing libertarian rant
against various abuses of power by the state, from Mayor Bloomberg’s War on
Soda-pop to Prohibition, he fails to adequately address Catholic social
teaching on the proper relationship of the law to marriage.
As Catholics, our primary concern should not be with what
Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Barrack Obama, NOM, the ACLU, or any other politician or
political lobby has to say about this issue. Rather, we should be concerned with what Jesus
Christ’s One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church has to say about it.
There isn’t space here to go into this entire document in
depth, but I strongly recommend that every Catholic with an interest in this
debate read the entire document.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s learning, wisdom, and holiness far exceeds my own,
and it is best to read it in his own words. However, I will quote the document’s conclusion here:
The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons
cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal
recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize,
promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of
society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same
level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, with
the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also
obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The
Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and
for the good of society itself.
Many Catholics today decry state
recognition of marriage as “giving the state power over a sacrament,” and talk
as though this is similar to the state deciding who should be baptized, or
allowed to receive Holy Communion.
While the Church has in fact
elevated Catholic marriage to a sacrament, marriage is in fact an institution
of the natural law, and is a good in the natural order. Marriage between a man and a
woman simply provides the best situation for the procreation and raising of
children, and is the most fundamental unit of human society. As such, it is in everyone’s interest
to promote and support it, as the Church recognizes. Study after study confirms that it is best for
children that they be raised in stable homes with both a mother and a father,
and our society is currently suffering from the effects of fatherless homes and
broken homes associated with the decline of marriage.
Thus, marriage between man and
woman is not only a religious concern, but rather a good essential to the
proper functioning of society, which deserves to be supported by law and
government, just as the law should support such goods as human life and
property rights.
While much more could be said
about the above-cited CDF document, two main points are relevant to this
particular debate.
First, law-makers have a
duty to ensure that the law “recognize, promote, and protect marriage.”
While there can certainly be
legitimate debate about how the law should best do this, this is obviously
contrary to the law not recognizing marriage at all, as Mr. Peters
proposes. If the law does not even
recognize marriage in the first place, then it follows that it can do nothing
to promote or protect it.
Secondly, it is wrong to
give legal recognition to homosexual unions, and “place them on the same level
as marriage.”
While Mr. Peters claims to be
opposed to state recognition of homosexual unions, this is exactly what his
proposal to “get the state out of marriage” would in fact entail. If legal recognition of the marriage
contract were scrapped, as Mr. Peters proposes, and replaced entirely with
contracts by private attorney, then the state would indeed place homosexual unions
and marriage on the same level.
(And I hardly think it beneficial to married couples if, after getting
married, they have to make a separate visit with a lawyer simply to receive any
legal recognition as being related to one another.)
A marriage between a man and a
woman, in Mr. Peters’ brilliant proposal, would receive exactly the same legal
recognition as a private contract between two or more cohabiting homosexuals,
or any other grouping of persons having nothing to do with marriage. Such a move would utterly fail to
promote and protect marriage in any way, but would utterly devalue it, as to
make marriage legally meaningless.
Likewise with Senator Paul’s
absurd proclamation (reverently quoted by Mr. Peters) that “There should essentially be no limits to the voluntary
definition of marriage.” If there
are essentially no limits to the legal definition of marriage, “marriage”
becomes essentially meaningless.
This “voluntary” redefinition of “marriage” to mean anything and
everything you want it to mean, would in reality force the state to recognize
as “marriage” not only homosexual “unions,” but any other couplings or
groupings of persons (or animals?
inanimate objects? Let’s
not be limiting!) that one can come up with. In Senator Paul’s brave new world, states would have
to legally recognize your “marriage” to your gay lover, or your sister, or your
grandmother, or your Rottweiler (or all four if you’re feeling particularly
adventurous) No limits, baby!
But, the libertarian opponents of legal marriage will say,
so what if the law gives no special status to marriage between man and woman,
and places it on equal footing legally with contracts between homosexuals or
others? After all, it’s not the
place of the law to promote moral values!
But this is where Catholic social teaching differs sharply
from secularist libertarian doctrine.
The Church has always recognized and taught that it is the
responsibility of law and government to promote the common good and natural law
morality, rather than oppose it.
Thus, “legal recognition of homosexual unions
or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval
of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day
society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common
inheritance of humanity.”
Laws both reflect and affect the
moral values of a society, and people’s ideas of what is right and wrong. The Church teaches that the law has a “teaching”
function. If you doubt this
notion, consider whether you think it is easier or harder to convince people in
our country that abortion is wrong and evil after it has been officially
legally enshrined via Roe v. Wade as “a woman’s constitutional right to choose.” Or you might consider whether you think
the outlawing of slavery has had any effect on people’s general attitudes
toward “the peculiar institution.”
If the law does not recognize and promote marriage, but
regards it as having no more value than homosexual shack-ups, it sends the
clear message that marriage is of no value.
Now that we’ve shown that the Church teaches that the law
must recognize and protect marriage, and that abolishing all legal recognition
of marriage is contrary to the Church’s teachings, let’s deal briefly with a
couple of Mr. Peter’s objections.
“The Church shouldn’t need permission slips from the
state to perform marriages!”
Fair enough. I
don’t have a problem with getting rid of state marriage licenses, though I
don’t think they’re quite the horrific oppression Mr. Peters apparently thinks
they are, given the big scheme of things. The law should still recognize and promote marriage
though, and this can be done without marriage licenses – as the law did in fact
recognize marriages before state licenses were introduced. I think a written document with the
signatures of the spouses would do fine.
Just so long as the state only recognizes marriages between a man and a
woman, as nothing else is, or ever can be, a marriage.
If you really want to “get the state out of marriage,” then
just don’t get a marriage license.
I’m sure you can arrange with a priest to have a marriage ceremony
performed without a license. No,
you wouldn’t receive any legal recognition from the state as being married to
your spouse, but isn’t that exactly what those of Mr. Peters’ ilk want? No one’s going to get locked up for
having a Church ceremony, all paranoia to the contrary. (In states that don’t recognize “gay
marriage,” homosexuals are free to have church “marriage” ceremonies. The state simply doesn’t recognize
those couples as legally married to one another. What they do in church or in the bedroom remains their own
business.)
“Catholic churches will be forced to perform gay marriage
ceremonies!”
This is simply a hysterical slippery-slope non sequitur. This scenario would be a direct violation of the first amendment’s
religious liberty clause, which even the most liberal lawyer would have trouble
weaseling around. And yes, I
realize religious liberty is under attack, but we should stand and defend
religious liberty on its own grounds, rather than duck and run by failing to
promote and defend marriage.
While the law recognizes the right of persons to get married, no one has
a “right” to get married in any particular church, synagogue, or mosque. Religious clerics are not forced
to marry any (heterosexual) couple in violation of their religious beliefs. Time and energy would be much
better spent defending first amendment religious liberty rights, than trying to
abolish all legal recognition of marriage.
(Besides, I’m sure the local liberal Episcopalian church would be more
than happy to oblige any homosexual couple looking for a quaint
and atmospheric location for a “wedding” ceremony that would beat the local
Catholic architectural monstrosity hands-down.)
The Church always calls on us to stand up and defend what is
right and just, to be a shining light on the hill, rather than run for the
cover of darkness at any sign of a tough fight. She doesn’t call on us to stand up for what is right only
when we deem it politically expedient or popular, or “on the right side of
history.”
The Church continues to exhort Catholics to do all we can to
ensure that the state and the law defend and protect all innocent human life,
born and preborn. She does this
regardless of the fact that the government of our country (and many others) has
failed miserably in this regard over the past forty years or so.
In the same way, the Church calls on law-makers to defend
and protect the good of marriage.
We Catholics should step up our efforts to evangelize society, and take
a stand for what is right, rather than declare surrender, and pursue a legal
agenda blatantly at odds with the Church’s teaching.
The Reverend Johnny Walker is a hairy knuckle-dragging
Neanderthal without a single enlightened or progressive thought in his thick,
primitive skull. He lives in a
cave somewhere in North Texas, and occasionally stumbles into the outside light
to walk among more evolved hominids.
He attends the Traditional Latin Mass with other unenlightened Catholic
bigots. He holds degrees from
Christendom College and University of Dallas, as well as a Doctorate of
Divinity from the Theological Seminary of Hard Knocks. In his spare time, he enjoys scorching
and eating the flesh of murdered animals, oppressing the masses, waging war on
wymmyn, and tryin’ to put y’all back in chains. Read more of his unevolved ranting at
www.thegregorianrant.com.
Related:
Part One
