{"id":273,"date":"2014-03-11T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/?p=273"},"modified":"2015-08-25T21:08:52","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T02:08:52","slug":"pope-francis-on-same-sex-unions-and-the-case-for-regulatory-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2014\/03\/pope-francis-on-same-sex-unions-and-the-case-for-regulatory-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis on Same Sex Unions and the Case for Regulatory Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Peter<\/a>
Jacob Jordaens [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>Rebbecca Hamiliton reports here on the recent CNA interview with Pope Francis, in which he comments on the prospect of same-sex civil unions<\/a>.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the money quote, from the bottom of her post:<\/p>\n
\n

Many nations have regulated civil unions. Is it a path that the Church can understand? But up to what point?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marriage is between a man and a woman. Secular states want to justify civil unions to regulate different situations of cohabitation, pushed by the demand to regulate economic aspects between persons, such as ensuring health care. It is about pacts of cohabitating of various natures, of which I wouldn\u2019t know how to list the different ways. One needs to see the different cases and evaluate them in their variety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been wanting to discuss this because of all the ways that one might approach the question of same-sex unions, the economic and regulatory question was the primary theme that kept recirculating in my combox last week when I wrote on similar topics<\/a>.\u00a0 To a limited extent, it is the one argument that resounds most with ordinary people, and it resounds for good reason: Our legal system is screwed up.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a scenario that was related to me several months ago, true story but as always I\u2019ve paraphrased enough to protect everyone\u2019s privacy:<\/p>\n

Dan and Bill were a couple of really nice guys, and no matter how you sliced it, they epitomized genuine love and care for one another.\u00a0 They\u2019d been housemates for years.\u00a0 Dan was estranged from most of his relatives, and Bill was the person he considered his family.\u00a0 When Dan got sick, Bill took care of him.\u00a0 But because Bill was not, legally, Dan\u2019s next of kin, they ran into all kinds of complications.\u00a0 Dan\u2019s mother (a real tyrant, let\u2019s say) kept trying to interfere.\u00a0 The hospital put up barriers to Bill\u2019s attempts to visit Dan, to direct medical decisions according to Dan\u2019s wishes, and so forth, even though no one in their right mind would have doubted that Bill was the person who was both Dan\u2019s choice for doing that, and the person most capable of it.\u00a0 Because he\u2019d never gotten around to writing a will before he fell ill at a relatively young age, when Dan died, Bill was left with nothing.\u00a0 The legal next-of-kin swooped in and claimed Dan\u2019s home and kicked Bill out on the street with no place to go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My telling here is based on real events, and you probably know of a similar story.\u00a0 Should Dan have gotten his will straightened out?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 But try it sometime: Writing a will seems easy, but being sure you\u2019ve written one that will hold up in court is intimidating.\u00a0 Add to that all the other paperwork required just to get some basic wishes concerning hospital visits, medical care, and so forth figured out . . . It can be a nightmare.\u00a0 Exhausting.<\/p>\n

If the folks in your community know you, and like you, and are on board with your choice of self-chosen next-of-kin, the hospital and medical thing doesn\u2019t have to be a problem.\u00a0 But one doubtful hospital administrator or psychotic-but-closely-related kinsman, and you\u2019ve got a battle on your hands just when you\u2019re least able to do battle.<\/p>\n

And here is where I think the Holy Father may be thinking out loud, and where I most certainly am: When it comes to basic questions of social justice, it doesn\u2019t matter what the relationship between Bill and Dan is.<\/p>\n

Are they cousins?\u00a0 Old college roommates?\u00a0 Longtime colleagues?\u00a0 Brothers?\u00a0 Just a couple of very good friends?\u00a0 There are any number of perfectly legitimate scenarios that would put someone in the same legal bind that same-sex couples face.\u00a0 Even if Dan and Bill\u2019s relationship is not chaste in the least, Dan still has a right to depose of his earthly goods, and direct the final decision-making in his medical care, and receive visits at the hospital, in the manner he chooses.<\/p>\n

The reality is that every unmarried person, and a certain number of married persons for various unfortunate reasons, needs to be able to make certain legal decisions easily.\u00a0 In much of the United States, doing so is a royal pain in the rear end.\u00a0 We bumble along and hope things shake out well.\u00a0 They don\u2019t always.<\/p>\n

The Limits of Broad-Minded Legal Reform<\/h2>\n

Of the various privileges and protections afforded to married people, some are strictly ordered towards child-rearing and the protection of the family as the foundational unit upon which society is built.\u00a0 American regulatory law being the vast, complicated, and slightly-corrupt tangle that it is, we can also point to any number of laws that undermine the good of the family.\u00a0 I will roll my eyes if you say to me, \u201cHeterosexual couples have the right to designer babies imported from surrogates in India, so I should too!\u201d because no one should have the right to commandeer a mail-order baby to gratify one\u2019s personal sense of a \u201cright\u201d to a child.\u00a0 Such unjust laws and loopholes need to be repealed and closed, not extended and expanded.<\/p>\n

Pause for frankness:<\/strong> In considering the possibility of civil-union-type solutions to social justice problems, let me emphasize that I do not think same-sex unions should be recognized by the state as analogous to marriage, in accordance with all that Rebecca Hamilton cites in quoting John Paul II<\/a>. \u00a0 This colors my regulatory viewpoint, certainly.\u00a0 My worthy opponents, desiring to enter into a serious and committed relationship, will I hope concede that romantic interest and not raw greed is their primary motivation in wishing for marital legal status.\u00a0 If you just want to lower your taxes, there are better ways.<\/p>\n

With all our respective biases on the table, let me nonetheless propose: I don\u2019t think legal unions are the best way to solve our existing regulatory-justice problems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why do I say this?\u00a0 Because I don\u2019t think that basic rights like the ability leave your property to whom you will, or be visited at the hospital by whom you will, are the sole province of those in stable long term relationships. It is not \u201cjustice\u201d to say, \u201cWe who form stable romantic attachments need health care benefits the rest of the unwashed just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course not.<\/p>\n

Where does that leave us?<\/p>\n

As an argument for legal reform,<\/strong> concerns of same-sex couples about the complexity of our existing laws have sound basis.\u00a0 The solution, however, is not to welcome a privileged few into the easy life of simplified legal partnership that can only be undone via yet more complex and expensive legal separation.\u00a0 The solution is to simplify the processes for managing all the basic legal situations that ordinary people of all types must deal with sooner or later.<\/p>\n

I assume that the Holy Father\u2019s willingness to consider certain specific legal unions is oriented towards some imaginable scenario, somewhere in the world, where legal recognition of a \u2018household\u2019, say, might in fact for whatever reason to be the most prudent path.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not one those people he calls every month to chat with, so my perception is only conjecture.<\/p>\n

As an argument for same-sex unions,<\/strong> we must look elsewhere. While certain noisemakers are arguing that simple jealousy is reason enough to admit all-comers into the ecstasy of a jointly-filed 1040, in my experience, those who take marriage seriously are proposing same-sex unions for other, more laudable reasons.\u00a0 I disagree with their conclusions, but that\u2019s a topic for a different day.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebbecca Hamiliton reports here on the recent CNA interview with Pope Francis, in which he comments on the prospect of same-sex civil unions.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the money quote, from the bottom of her post: Many nations have regulated civil unions. Is it a path that the Church can understand? But up to what point? Marriage is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,87,44,21,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-qa","category-chastity","category-church-craziness","category-economics","category-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\nPope Francis on Same Sex Unions and the Case for Regulatory Reform<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rebbecca Hamiliton reports here on the recent CNA interview with Pope Francis, in which he comments on the prospect of same-sex civil unions.\u00a0 Here's the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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