Question: Can I Marry You?

I know my question is a bit audacious, but after all that talk about how stunning you were, I just had to ask. J

The question, I believe, is necessary in the world in which we live: Can I marry you? Or, can you marry me? Not will you, but can you?

This is the great debate.  

I would here to like address two common arguments I hear from proponents of same-sex marriage, in order to respond with a Catholic-Christian view, which I hope you will see is one of love and respect.

1) Claim: Love is love. Often attached to this statement is the appeal for the preservation of a relationship: Who are you to tell a person whom s/he can love? Two consenting adults should be free to love each other as they wish.

My response: As written, the claim is true: love = love. However, there are different kinds of love. In fact, the Greeks identify 4 types: phileo (love between friends), storge (love between family), eros (romantic love), and agape (self-sacrificial love). Obviously, the love in question here is eros, as we are dealing with a question of possible marriage. So the question becomes: Does romantic love between persons of the opposite sex equal romantic love between persons of the same sex?

Let’s imagine that A is a woman and B is a man.
If A + A = A + B
or B + B = A + B,
then A must equal B,
which would also make true the equations: A + A = C, B + B = C and A + B = C.
Yes?

As discussed in the previous blog, men are not women and women are not men. There are fundamental differences between the sexes, biologically, emotionally, and socially. Therefore, when two females or two males unite, the result is not the same as when two members of the opposite sex unite. We can see this even in friendship, familial and work relationships, but all the more clearly in romantic relationships. Our desire, our aim, in a romantic relationship is to be physically united with the one we love: I want to hold your hand, I want to kiss you, I want to marry you!!! As humans, we naturally desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, by another in this way, uniquely, intimately. But like our sexuality, sexual union has a purpose. In fact, it has a two-fold purpose: 1) To be united to the beloved; and 2) To bring forth children.

A+A (or B+B) ≠ C.

Two practicing homosexuals cannot unite to each other in sexual union the way a heterosexual couple can. Though they may have sexual relations with each other, even perhaps experience a kind of emotional union, physically they cannot unite in the same way, and their “union” is unable to bring forth new life. Biologically, it is impossible. Thus, love is not love.

This brings us to the second common argument.

2) Claim: Since we have reached a point evolutionarily in which we do not need to constantly reproduce (e.g. the population is at a high enough level), marriage can be entered into for other reasons.

My response: What are those reasons? Tax breaks? Societal acceptance? Financial security?

I hope we can rule these out as primary motivators for marriage. They are nice benefits and so sometimes become our focus, but generally people on both sides of the fence agree that the most important consideration should be love.

Absolutely! I am not really an advocate of arranged marriages (unless someone will arrange a marriage between me and the man of my dreams, haha!), I don’t care at all for Hollywood publicity marriages or situations in which people marry for money, and I would not walk up to a man and say, “I bet your children would be pretty darn cute. We should get married.” No. First comes love, then comes marriage… 

However, marriage has an end, a goal, in mind, which is both union and procreation. That union which I seek with my spouse MUST be open to bringing forth new life.

Pope Paul VI, in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, says that there is an “inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act. The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman” (HV, ¶ 12). See, I’m not making this stuff up! Somebody else done gone and verified it.
So…..can I marry you? I guess that depends. Will our loving union be open to new life? Hmm. Then maybe we could talk later…. ;)


*None of this I have written to express hatred or contempt towards those who experience homosexual attractions or those living the gay lifestyle. These are not fighting words. In fact, I pray often for each of you, as I do for several of my friends who identify themselves as gay or lesbian. Contrary to the bad example of some Catholics/Christians, owing to their own misconceptions or fears, the Church loves you. I love you, and ask your forgiveness for the times I (or other Christians) have judged you. The words I have written are not a condemnation, but they are a challenge. They are what God (through the Scriptures and the teaching authority of the Church) has revealed as Truth, and I hope you will reflect on these ideas and eventually come to recognize their goodness and sensibility, and seek to live out the true meaning of your human sexuality.*



For further reading, check out this blog: “Gay Marriage: Our Agreements Solve Our Disagreement”
http://mattfradd.com/2013/03/26/gay-marriage-our-agreements-solve-our-disagreement/

Or read: The Good News about Sex and Marriage, by Christopher West