Same-Sex Marriage: Our Agreements Solve Our Disagreement | Catholic Answers.
This is a very interesting article. Before I found my faith in God, I was a proponent for same-sex marriage. If not in the spiritual sense, then at least through civil union. I remember having a poignant conversation with P. Rogers back in my college days. We were having lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. He was an ordained pastor. I was a bleeding-heart liberal. “If two men truly loved each other, why can’t they get married? Who are we to say ‘no’?” I thought I was so smart.
Then I converted to Catholicism and stopped thinking altogether. Why do I need to think about what is right and what is wrong when it is already proscribed by a higher authority? My feeling towards many moral issues after my conversion is similiar to my feelings toward advanced mathmatics: Why should I learn calculus when I have an Excel spreadsheet? I don’t need to think about the moral issues because the answer is already there, thought about and concluded by people smarter than me. I just need to know where to look. So, when it comes to the moral issues, I look up my trusty Catechism of the Catholic Church. Is homosexuality bad? See CCC 2357. How should Christians treat homosexuals? See CCC 2358. What can a homosexual person do to remain faithful to God? See CCC 2359. With answers that I can easily reference, I can move on to other unsolved problems. It’s an efficient way to go about moral and mathematical problems.
But, I’m not being honest with myself. When I argued for the right of homosexuals, I did it from a deep sense of justice. It was unfair to persecute men and women who legitimately loved each other. How can I all of a sudden switch from a criterion of Justice to just “because God says so”? Have I become a politician, who changes his position depending on the day’s weather? Do I not have a core of beliefs? I did not, but I do now. It’s important for me to, at some point, explore this.
Leave a comment