Over at dotCommonweal, J. Peter Nixon provoked a vigorous debate about homosexuality by linking to a recent study on the attitudes of the young toward Christianity. The study find that the young (defined as 16-29 year olds) are more hostile toward Christianity than those in previous generations. And while a decade ago, the majority of non-Christians had a favorable impression of Christianity, this has fallen to 16 percent (and 3 percent when it comes to evangelicals). And the culprit seems to be Church teachings on homosexuality:
“Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is “anti-homosexual.” Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a “bigger sin” than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.”
As I talked about before, I’ve often wondered why Christians elevate homosexual activity as a sin above all other sins. This is especially true of evangelicals, but Catholics are not immune from criticism either. Of course, while the teaching might appear superficially similar, the theology is quite different. Evangelicals simply appeal to biblical injunctions against homosexual activity. They have a hard time distinguishing between the eternal moral law contained in the Old Testament and the custom of the time– remember that the ancient Israelites viewed the dietary and ritual purity laws as seriously as they did injunctions against illicit sexual activity.
Catholics, on the other hand, appeal to the natural law, which tells us that sex involves the complete self-giving of one man and one woman, united in marriage, ordered to the bearing and rearing of children, and that it is never licit to separate the unitive from the procreative act. When you think about it, the Church’s teachings on homosexual acts are fully contained in Humanae Vitae (some far-thinking Catholic moralists realized immediately that the import of Humanae Vitae stretched far beyond contraception).
With this in mind, it seems strange to single out homosexual activity as the vice of vices. Why do we not hold unmarried heterosexual activity to the same standard? More pertinently, why do we not hold couples who use contraception to the same standard? (Without the injunction against separating the unitive from the procreative, the moral case against homosexual sex would be dramatically weakened). The grave injustice of adultery seems more tolerated in our society than homosexual activity. Just look at the differences in treatment between David Vitter and Larry Craig. And would Bill Clinton be so popular today if he had had an affair with a male intern? And why even focus on sex? The sins of greed and gluttony are rampant in our society, and yet they seem to be overlooked– signs of weakness for sure, but not serious sins. No, I believe homosexuality is singled out because it threatens some notion of “manhood” and “masculinity” — and yet this is not a Christian approach at all.
As Pope Benedict is fond of saying, we need to get beyond thinking of Christianity as a set of negative prohibitions. We need to emphasize the positive. In other words, instead of condemning gays, we should be stressing the beauty of the traditional Catholic teaching, and the social nature of the institution of marriage. This does not mean justifying homosexual activity, but neither does it mean casting those who do not live up to the ideal from the community, or holding gays to a higher standard than other human beings facing temptations on a daily basis.
When the young look at Christian attitudes to homosexuals, they see hypocrisy. Interestingly, they do not take the same view of the Church’s position on abortion, where— even when they do not fully accept it– they respect that it derives from a consistent ethic of life. In other words, the charge of hypocrisy is muted, assuming of course that Christians are consistent (I talked about the virtue of consistency recently). A similar poll from a few months ago showed that young people were more tolerant of homosexuality than their elders, but had serious qualms about abortion. Bottom line:
“Young Americans, it turns out, are unexpectedly conservative on abortion but notably liberal on gay marriage. [i]t is curious that on abortion they are slightly to the right of the general public. Roughly a third of Gen Nexters endorse making abortion generally available, half support limits and 15 percent favor an outright ban. By contrast, 35 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds support readily available abortions. On gay marriage…Almost half of them approve, compared with under a third of those over 25.”
It seems inevitable that the gay rights juggernaut leading toward full recognition of gay marriage is not going to stop. This presents a serious challenge for Catholics. The answer I think is to stress Church teaching in a positive light, rather than denigrating gays. The first step will be to make a crucial distinction between the sacrament and secular marriage. In the modern era, the path of secular marriage has diverged substantially from the sacramental norm. More and more, people do not see marriage as a lifelong commitment. Divorce is rampant, as serial monogamy becomes increasingly acceptable. And yet the Church does not oppose the availability of divorce. The precarious state of civil marriage goes far beyond easy access to divorce. In many places, extended cohabitation has effectively replaced marriage as an institution. And the institution itself is often belittled. To take an extreme case, think of Britney Spears’s alcohol-induced 48-hour Las Vegas marriage. This pathetic “marriage” came with all the legal rights and responsibilities of any civil marriage. Some may very well argue that it hard to see how much more damage gay marriage could bring to an already-debased institution.
One key problem is that we too often defer too much to the state in defining marriage. That is not too surprising in a Protestant country, given that Protestantism denies the sacramental nature of marriage. It is reduced to a contract, blessed by the Church, but enforced by the state. If you do not think they have become entwined, look at the reaction to the annulment process– instead of understanding that an annulment simply means that the union was not sacramentally valid, critics instead react in secular terms, as if the Church was saying that a legal contract never existed!
I think that establishing a firmer distinction between secular and sacramental marriage would prove enormously beneficial. The Church could then restrict sacramental marriage to those who actually believe in the sacrament, and all it entails. This alone will undoubtedly strengthen marriage. John Courtney Murray argued that, to elevate moral standards above the minimal level, there is need for subsidiary mediating institutions, including the Church. Interestingly, the Anglican C.S. Lewis had similar thoughts in Mere Christianity:
“There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, and the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought be to quite sharp, so that a man know which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.”
At the same time, simply retreating into an enclave and giving up entirely on civil marriage is also not optimal. For marriage, geared to the bearing and rearing of children, is ultimately a social institution. In the language of John Courtney Murray, it is an example of public, not private, morality. In a recent review of David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage, Mark Sargent notes that the advocates of gay marriage speak in the language of individual rights rather than social institutions. He notes that the debate on marriage is “oddly sentimental”, with marriage defined primarily in terms of love and commitment, as an “emotional enterprise”. What gets left behind is the role of marriage as a social institution, as an indelible component of the common good. When you think about it, this is just another aspect of the move away from the notion of an organic community to a society based on individual rights knitted together in a social contract. It is the same justification for laissez-faire liberalism, where the common good was supplanted by notions of private liberty. It is the same philosophy than underpins Roe v. Wadeand the ascent of Reaganist economics. It is no wonder that the increasing support for gay marriage flows naturally from a society underpinned by these values.
It all goes back to stressing the positive. Promoting traditional marriage is in line with the common good, consistent with protecting life, securing peace, defending the environment and aiding the poor. We need to close the current rupture in the moral fabric that pits those who defend the life of the unborn and marriage against those who support peace and justice in the world. There should be no discontinuity! As Pope Benedict stresses, we must “reconnect.. these two parts of morality and to make.. it clear that they must be inseparably united”. This gets back to the point I made at the outset: Church teachings on marriage and sexuality should not be seen as a set of prohibitions, but a positive, even vital, component of the common good. If this came out in the debate to a greater extent, I believe people would listen.
How far should we go in opposing all measures to legally recognize homosexual unions? Remember, John Courtney Murray always argued that the role of law should be strictly limited, especially in the context of guiding moral action. In other words, coercive law should be restricted to “relatively minimal standards of public morality” which would be affected by prudential calculations. Subsidiary mediating institutions are vital. With this in mind, would a strategy that focused solely on opposing legalization backfire, especially in light of the poll results above? We should also note that legal divorce also has evident public morality implications in terms of changing attitudes toward marriage, as indeed has the free availability of contraception (many link the decriminalization of contraception to the increasing acceptability of abortion). And yet, few people are calling for the law to ban divorce and contraception. At the same time, as noted, marriage is a core component of the common good. How do we balance these competing considerations?
I have argued that Catholics should endeavor to make a finer distinction between the sacrament and civil marriage while at the same time stressing the social nature of marriage, including non-sacramental unions. I admit there is a certain tension between these two arguments, and this tension feeds into how Catholics deal with demand for some legal recognition of homosexual unions. The Church has deftly balanced these considerations in certain circumstances. The groundwork was set by then-archbishop Levada’s arrangement with city of San Francisco in 1996. The issue was that all who did business with the city were required to provide domestic partnership benefits. Levada allowed church groups to comply, as long as the domestic partner could be anybody (“any legally domiciled member” of a household), not just a same-sex partner. In other words, it is just a secular contract, not marriage. Joseph Tyson, Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle (and one of Pope Benedict’s first appointments in the US), testified at state legislative hearings last year concerning the expansion of domestic partnership rights and benefits, seeking to broaden the provisions, to encompass not only same-sex couples but any registered “domestic partnership” (that could include, for example, an elderly parent). This approach was also adopted by bishops elsewhere in the world. Cardinal McCarrick also noted that the Church could accept civil unions, but would never support a radical re-definition of the institution of marriage.
This seems to be the crux of the issue. Catholics should, first and foremost, present a positive message highlighting the key role that marriage, family, and the rearing of children plays in the common good, presenting a coherent and consistent message. And while we should emphasize the chasm between the sacramental ideal and the secular reality, we need not oppose each and every “pro-homosexual” piece of legislation, with the caveat that we should not yield on the definition of “marriage”. Talk about muddling through!
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In