PLEASE READ THROUGH THE WHOLE THING! Please don't skip, because we all know out of context means misunderstanding. And commenting out of context is sort of a pet peeve. (Poor St. Paul).
Let us start with the basic:
WHAT IS THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF MARRIAGE?
Heaven.
Marriage between male and female is a foretaste of Heaven. The complete gift of oneself and union to another. Marriage is the actual imprint of the Most Holy Trinity into our very beings. In the Trinity, God the Father gives everything He is to the Son, Jesus. Jesus receives this gift and in turn gives everything He is back to the Father and this exchange of Love is SO POWERFUL it literally is a third Person - the Holy Spirit. When God made us in His image, through the complementarity of male and female, He created this same exchange for us to mirror the Trinity and experience a taste of a one flesh union. In holy. uncontracepted, faithful matrimony, the husband is able to give himself entirely to his wife, holding nothing back - not his fertility, not his commitment, not his love, nothing. In turn, the wife receives that gift in the marital embrace and in turn gives herself entirely to him, holding nothing back -- not her fertility, her commitment, her love, nothing. This exchange of love is so powerful that it can create a third person - a baby - but is nonetheless fruitful through the constant act required of marriage which is self-giving love.
NO other union is capable of this exchange in mirroring the Trinity.
A baby conceived out of wedlock, though a blessing and unique, unrepeatable life, was conceived without total commitment of matrimony. A contracepted marital act says, "I give myself to you, but (for whatever reason) I am not open to creating with you, and so I will hold back my fertility." And a gay/lesbian sexual act is missing the complementarity of the exchange, cannot co-create, and cannot give entirely of him/herself in the one flesh union. The man gives the woman what she does not have, and vice versa. In gay and lesbian unions, a man has already what his male lover can give, and a woman has already what her female lover can give.
Now, this said....
This does not mean there is no love in those unions.
This does NOT mean that gay and lesbian love is illegitimate and in fact the Church says it is very possible that a holy love may exist between gay and lesbian partners. The challenge that society will not accept is that the Church says that love must be chaste love... In the same way it calls non-married heterosexual couples to have chaste love. In the same way married people must have chaste love. In the same way priests and those called to religious life are called to have chaste love.
What does that mean? It means people who have same sex attractions are called to live chastity, to live out purity. It is not a different call from the rest of us, but it is a call that is often misunderstood as a judgment or punishment. Same sex attraction is not synonymous with living in exile or loneliness in the eyes of the Church. It is synonymous, though, with being unable to fulfill the male/female requirements of matrimony. Did you know there are holy Catholic men and women who have same sex attraction and are living a chaste lifestyle with deep, loving, holy friendships/relationships? Society tells us that if we are not having sex, we must be miserable.
But love doesn't equal sex.
Sex is an expression of love, but certainly not the only one. The six plus weeks after a woman has a baby, she is unable to have sex. Does her husband therefore not love her?
Prior to marriage, we are called to abstain from sex. Does that take away our love for one another?
Certainly not.
I do not have sex with everyone I love. That would be called weirdo nut job. The fact that I don't have sex with everyone I love does not lessen my love for them and with my husband, on our wedding night, sex did not increase my love for him. It is an expression of love and commitment and two becoming one flesh, inseparable and a way for us to establish a family, raise children as fruits of that union as God calls us to be fruitful and multiply!
Indeed Christ tells us the highest form of love is to lay down your life for a friend.
We are ALL called to love.
2. So, Love Wins, but What is Love?
What is love?
Ask people to define love and no matter the age of the person, the answer is often very much akin to what you would expect to hear from a five year old! "Love is a feeling", "Love is wanting to be with someone so much that you would do anything", "Love is romance", "Love is something that makes you feel all happy inside."
We get an awesome definition of love in Corinthians... love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy... it is not boastful or rude or conceited, love never fails, God is love.
What is love? God is love.
If love is simply a feeling, it is no better than anger or depression or hunger or thirst. It is fleeting and temperamental. It is convenient and it requires no commitment or effort. If love is sex, then it will also be gone as soon as the sex is no longer available. Love is the sacrificial gift of oneself. Putting the other above yourself, laying down one's life for the sake of another. Love is "my Body given up for you." -- A Scripture I can certainly relate to as I near the birth of my fourth child and experience in a tangible way my body given up for this little one out of my sincere love for this new life.
Love isn't narrow minded either. Love welcomes others into itself.
So when people say "love wins" and then spit on priests walking by, or name call, or judge others, it isn't really love winning, is it? And when people say God loves us and refuse to recognize the dignity of our fellow man and the crosses, including but not limited to that of same sex attraction, that person carries, it isn't really love is it? God withholds Himself from no one. God IS love, and God's love led Him not to roses and warm fuzzies or even rainbows. It led Him to the cross. It led Him to literally pour Himself out completely.
He gave you His dignity, being mocked and spat upon.
He gave you His humility, being crowned with thorns.
He gave you His purity, being stripped naked for all to see.
He gave you His body, blood and water poured forth from His side, but then also in the Eucharist, to continue a one-flesh union with us as we prepare for the union with Him in Heaven.
He gave you His Mother, at the foot of the cross.
And after all of this, He gave you His mercy.
That is love. Love won, not at the Supreme Court, and love winning is more than a cheesy trending hashtag and rainbow filters. Love won when after all we did to Him, He not only rose again, but invites us into His Heavenly Kingdom.
If I were the Lord, I would have smote us by now. It is probably a good thing none of us are the Lord.
3. Love Isn't...
I find it hilariously depressing that in the all-accepting, free-thinking, "educated", tolerant, loving society that we have, that if you speak a counter-cultural opinion, you may guarantee the following actions to be taken against you:
1) You will lose your job.
2) You may be sued.
3) You will be publicly shamed.
4) You will be called a number of things ending in the word "phobe" or "-ist" or "bigot."
5) You will be blacklisted.
6) You will undergo financial ruin.
7) You will be forced monetarily, publicity-wise, and by the all-powerful government to comply with the current cultural opinion.
Isn't this horrific to a free-thinker? If someone has an old view, that the earth revolves around the sun, does it necessarily make it wrong? Are progressive ideas the only ideas that are true? Acceptance of homosexuality is older than non-acceptance, actually, in civilization. Learn the history before saying it is a good thing we are progressing from *antiquated ideas* because it is false that widespread promotion and acceptance of same sex unions is new. There is nothing new under the sun. (Ever hear of Sodom and Gomorrah?)
Other so-called progressive ideas that are actually nothing new... Ancient cultures accepted child sacrifice (currently known as abortion), Pedophilia (Greek pedophiles actually get disability pay from the government since 2012 now), concubines (now open marriage or pornography or any number of things can go here), abuse/enslavement of women (now the culturally accepted by both men and women BDSM, pornography, etc). Our traditional Christian ideas may go back a ways, but Christian ideas led a majority to end many things like slavery, create hospitals, create opportunity for education for all, and so on and so forth. Please, don't get your history from blogs and memes. Even mine... Go do some non-Wikipedia research!
Progressivism is really not the same as liberalism. Liberalism really does make use of science and logic to negotiate a stance. I find it so much easier to dialogue with someone who declares themselves conservative or liberal than a progressive. Progressivism is 100% based on feelings. That is why you cannot call a progressive out on a hypocritical stance, because it is such an individualistic, subjective philosophy that there are no consequences and even if there are, you need to mind your own business. They can call out Christians, rightly so, for our own hypocrisy though -- why? Because we profess publicly to hold ourselves to standards communally shared and dictated by our faith. The only difference between our hypocrisy is that in Christianity you find and expect repentance and we know in our sin and imperfection we need a Savior.
Here are a few cracks in the armor of current progressive thought:
1) You are born with your sexual attractions, however, your gender is a social construct. So it is possible that your sexual attractions could change with your socially constructed gender.
2) You need to stay out of people's business and let them love who they want, but you must be complicit in all of our ceremonies celebrating these relationships or you are a bigot and we hate you and will destroy you.
3) Marriage is an awesome standard for gay and lesbians couples to have to show their commitment to one another, but hetereosexual, cohabitating couples don't need a piece of paper to prove they love each other and should be able to sleep with whomever they want at any time even if not a spouse.
4) It is a sob story and valid reason for abortion when a child will be raised by a single parent, due to the challenges and lack of the opposite sexed parent in the household, but children raised by two parents of the same gender will experience no negative effects in not having a mom or not having a dad.
5) You are entitled to your opinion as long as it is not religiously based and does not remotely suggest a potential or possible consequence of anyone else's actions.
6) This was an actual court case... A cake baker does not have to serve someone who wants to write messages against homosexuality on a cake, but they DO have to serve someone who wants a wedding cake for their gay marriage.
7) You may love any of us, but if you suggest an alternative solution to our problems other than the one we are currently promoting, you are a bigot and we hate you and will destroy you. (IE suggesting that perhaps a transgender who has conflict between brain and body should try to change their brain before submitting themselves to physical, financial, emotional, social risks when changing the body.)
8) Let your child decide his or her gender and stay out of the public schools way in teaching your child about his or her own sexuality. But leave same sex parents alone so they can raise their children with their own values.
I could go on, and this is really the only part of this blog that I get emotional/upset thinking about it.
Sometimes when I listen to techno music, I literally want to bash my head into a wall, and the same goes here as I try to negotiate logic where there literally is no logic. I am usually able to have fantastic conversations and debates with people from all walks of life, but I cannot wrap my mind around a feelings based pursuit of knowledge and lifestyle and a feelings based approach to discussing things like social issues. I like to balance my actions with the reactions. Sin and consequence. Love and truth. It is hardest to swim upstream, against the cultural flow, but if I cannot grasp logically and historically an idea...it makes me wonder if it really is the best thing. Intellectual discussion and pursuit used to be valued and I think we will get back to that, but probably not for awhile.
4. Persecution of Christians
It is hilarious that people are laughing when we bring this up. Did you know what the most persecuted group of people in the world is and has been? CHRISTIANS and JEWS! That is right! We foresee this coming because we have never stopped experiencing it. From Ireland, to Mexico, to North Korea, to China, to currently the Middle East, to here in the United States where a Muslim can wear their burkas but we cannot hang a crucifix in our office. Persecution is not something we pulled out of our you know whats, it is something our brothers and sisters experience daily. Now the latest talk is we are threatened to lose tax exemptions if we do not perform gay marriages. Do you know why we are tax exempt? And I will only speak for the Catholics here, not mega Churches and coffee house churches and other religions because I have no idea of how they use their money. But Catholics send the money they receive on Sundays to Catholic Charities who help immigrants and homeless and battered women and children, to missionaries overseas who are providing food and education and healthcare to third world villages and communities, to soup kitchens here, to Vincent dePaul which actively ministers to the needs of the poor and helps them to find jobs, and so on and so on and so on. Sure the government could take all of that over, but do you want them to? Look at the dysfunction of the welfare system. The government cares about getting homeless off the streets because it is an embarrassment. Christians and people who actually love people care about the homeless because THEY CARE ABOUT THE HOMELESS!! The last thing government needs is more power, but when we turn away from God, our inclination to seek a higher power turns to government. And government becomes our god.
There is hatred on all sides of the debate regarding gay marriage, but you know what is going to happen to Christians? We won't be slaughtered here like we are slaughtered in the Middle East - actually gay and lesbians join us in being slaughtered in the Middle East (See what hatred does?) But we will be killed more civilly. Bullied by well-funded advocates of *tolerance* to participate in ceremonies that violate our beliefs. Fined and sued until financial ruin. Job loss and suffering of our families. Coercion, manipulation, incarceration, censorship. In first world countries, we persecute people much more civilly but as ultimately deadly as third world beheadings. This isn't a prophecy, or prediction or whiney exaggeration. This stuff has already happened and is already happening.
IF WE SEEK TO COEXIST THIS HAS TO STOP.
I would never shove my beliefs down the throats of your children in what is intended to be a neutral academic environment.
I just expect the same respect. But unfortunately, being politically correct has become the god of society. They will worship at its altar no matter the cost or casualties.
In that same vein, I know that I, as a Christian, have to deserve that respect by treating those who believe differently from me with love. I strive to see Christ in everyone. I strive to love more deeply.
You are not defined by your sexuality, your sin, etc. You are defined by the simple fact that you are created by Love Himself and you are His child, and He makes no mistakes.
So, would I come to your gay wedding? Yes, I would. (See, this blog gets on everyone's nerves now!) Because I love you and I would pray for you, though I would not waiver from my belief that marriage is defined by man and woman united as one flesh under God. In the same way I would attend a non-Catholic wedding, believing that marriage is a Sacrament and more than a piece of paper handed to us by a justice of the peace.. I would come. And I would love and I would pray for you.
Would I be an active part of the ceremony? Probably not. I wouldn't do justice in participating as someone who believes this is a union, not under the definition of marriage. I would support you and be there for you throughout the relationship however, just as I would any of my friends or family and as I would expect the same.
5. State and Marriage
If the state chooses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I think that is a matter of public policy and is a result of who we vote for. I understand that not everyone believes the same as I do, and conversion is never brought about by forcing our views upon another (see above). However, in the same breath, the state should not force, coerce, or manipulate parties into participating in that contract. No one ever forbid someone from loving another person of the same sex, we simply believe, as have generations before us for hundreds of years, that the unique bond of marriage belongs to man and woman for procreative reasons, for raising children, and as the foundation of any society. The Supreme Court, though, did not take away from the sanctity of marriage in this recent decision. The sanctity of marriage has been at risk for a very long time and that was the result of heterosexual actions! Our 50 percent divorce rate, contraceptive mentality, etc. When you take out being faithful and fruitful from marriage, any kind of union should be acceptable. Do not think that anyone will draw the line at same-sex unions, even same-sex advocates are uncertain on this one...
One thing that most people don't know.... People are denied marriage all the time!! For a host of reasons!! They may have a previous marriage. They may have lied about their age. They may not be emancipated. They may have serious addictions or a history of abusing their partner. They may not have fulfilled the legal and religious requirements to get married. They may not be able to prove their citizenship. In the Church, marriage is discerned at length and couples spend 4 months to a year or more taking classes learning about the Sacramental nature of marriage,
Consequently..... Marriage is NOT A HUMAN RIGHT. If it were a human right, anyone could get married to anyone at any time for any reason anywhere and there would be charities providing marriages to people in the street.
Marriage, like love, is a decision. It has the sacred purpose of uniting two into one flesh, no longer are they two, but one. And it is to be total, fruitful, free, and faithful. It is more than a government contract, it is a union between God and man. And not everyone has the right to it. Just as you don't have the right to friendship -- otherwise no one could deny being friends with you (or block you on social media and post nasty comments on your stuff). You don't have the right to express your anger in unhealthy ways. You don't have the right to drugs. You don't have the right to marriage because marriage is not a right. Marriage is a promise, a choice, a commitment, and the foundational piece of the family, the mini-society.
If the state wants to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples, that is something we have little power over, however, they better be prepared to hand over marriage certificates to that man who wants to marry his dog. The man who wants seven wives. The women who want three more wives. IF the logic is consistent here, in the progressive mind, marriage as a human right is therefore unlimited.
Fulton Sheen says the first time man discovered he could have no limits was when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
So, there is that...
6. The Gay Marriage Movement Has Aided Christians in Many Ways
I have been blessed to know people who struggle with same sex attraction who are willing to share their stories. Who are willing to enter in to a civil dialogue in order that we may better understand one another and our belief systems. I don't know that I would have had this opportunity in the same way were it not for those efforts of those who came out of the closet to share their struggle to be loved and find love. Because this community of people who have same sex attraction is such a minority in numbers, they have often been overlooked or misunderstood, particularly in our faith communities.
I do think, however, that it is awesome that the Catholic Church has had her stance on same sex attraction for years. YEARS. Not recent days. That the Church, while recognizing that the homosexual act itself is incapable of being procreative and thus not a union according to the laws of nature for survival of the species, co-creating life with God, etc, that those with same sex attraction are just as loved as anyone else and should be welcomed into the Church. They are fearfully and wonderfully made. God has a purpose for them and those attractions are not sinful, just the sexual act.
It is not a sin to have same sex attraction. The Church offers a deep love and union with Christ through ministries like Courage, who support those with same sex attraction who choose to live chastely.
I think the gay marriage debate has also caused us to reflect on our own marriages. Gay marriage has not destroyed traditional marriage. We have done a pretty good job of that ourselves, through contraception - sterilizing the act of marriage, infidelity, pornography addiction, no-fault divorce, cohabitation, etc. Humanae Vitae was quite the prophetic document. Read it sometime! Every single one of those prophesies has come true. The Church doesn't seek to be popular (clearly). The Church seeks to lead people to Heaven. The Church exists to provide us with the physical reality of God in the way the world cannot.
The Church never says you cannot love who you wish to love. In fact, you are supposed to love everyone to the point of laying your own life down for them. You are supposed to love your enemies and those who hate you, because even pagans and hypocrites can love their friends. The call is to love in chastity particular to your state of life. In our oversexed world, it seems impossible to be gay and live without the act of sex. It seems impossible to be single and not at least hook up. It seems impossible to stay married and faithful to the same person until death do you part. It seems impossible to stay away from pornography and porn addiction. It seems impossible to date and not have sex before marriage. However unpopular the position may be, it is our call, and all things are possible with God. This higher call brings a higher level of love and happiness and intimacy than the world that invites us to indulge our every whim.
There are a lot of angry and bitter people walking around who have tried the love without truth approach. There are a lot of angry and bitter people walking around who have tried the truth without love approach. The two go hand in hand and cannot be separated. In Scripture Jesus was the toughest on those who should know better -- the religious leaders -- but were leading people away from Him in the rules and no love approach. The people who really became followers of Christ all the way to the foot of the cross and the seed of the Catholic Church, were sinners who encountered the love of Christ and conformed to His truth.
In conclusion to my fellow Christians...
When I first heard of Rachel Dolezal, I could almost understand why she pretended to be black when she is actually white. Why? Because being white is seen as privileged or you must be racist and is generally very individualistic. As a person who is half white and half Mexican, I prefer the Mexican in me, because the Mexican community is fantastic! There is culture and food and tradition and instant fellowship, and identity, and a sense of belonging. There really isn't much of that in the caucasian/anglo community unless you like sports. But many young people seeking this sense of community and belonging have found it in various social justice movements from Vietnam to Gay Marriage. I have seen so many people, get caught up in the rainbow profile pics who then ask questions about what the ramifications of this decision could be, and want to see lines drawn around marriage so it cannot be a slippery slope including other combinations of unions.
But they don't want to seem unloving by offering an alternative thought or opinion or by NOT changing their profile pic.
Here is the thing...
No one is going to agree with you all of the time no matter what you do or do not stand for.
In the end, who are you trying to please? I am older now and care less about what people think. I guess being a mom does that to you. You do all kinds of embarrassing things as a mom. Like today... I walked through the library shouting my two year old's name because he disappeared. Didn't care what people thought of me.
What I do care about is that even if I am vehemently disagreeing with someone, do they still know and experience that I care about them?
This is how you show love. Not with hashtags and filters and t-shirts and flags or blogs or statuses or instagrams. You love by your life. Then people who know you don't approve of their choices know that you still love them. And vice versa. Those who disagree with you find you easier to love, because
you have been authentic.
That is really about it. Live the faith you believe or if you need to discern, ask questions, pray and study. There is nothing more undesirable to the Lord than luke-warmness. He would prefer you hate Him than to pretend to love Him and refuse to follow Him.
Course, He would rather you love Him and follow Him and trust that He knows you inside and out, knows the desires of your heart, and loves you. YOU. SO. VERY. MUCH.
Prayers and blessings to you all, friends. Fight the good fight and love with all your might.
