In light of the recent vote (final tally on May 23, 2015) in the largely Catholic country of Ireland allowing same-sex marriages [1], the topics of marriage, surrogacy, children, family, promiscuity, polygamy, divorce and other moral, religious, social, economic, psychological and legal issues have taken a dive deep into uncharted waters. An in depth discussion of each of these areas is beyond the scope of this blog. What this entry proposes to do is to imagine an ideal marriage in its purest form which has no basis in reality.
First of all, marriage has to be defined. Marriage, for purposes of this entry, is defined as a loving relationship between two individuals whereby the most intimate expression of their love would be the union of their spirits, minds and bodies in the most natural form that would likely result in the conception of new life. Any deviation from this natural union is supposedly contrary to Creation, but not necessarily (see discussion infra).
The question then is whether anything that man does that is not in harmony with Creation is necessarily sinful. The short answer is almost everything that man does in this world is tainted by Sin for man is the product of Original Sin, whether or not what is being done can arguably be consistent with Creation's intent. The measure of sinfulness is not only what is visible, but also what are invisible: man's shortcomings and self-serving desires. Take for example a man with ambition and drive obtains power and uses it arrogantly, ruthlessly and ignorantly, making this world a worse and more dangerous place in which to live than if he had never existed, even though he may live a married life or the appearance of a married life that comports with the natural course of procreation. (Incidentally, whether a marriage, procreative or not, is a happy one is also beyond the scope of this entry.)
Thus marriage alone, based on an extrapolation of the foregoing example, does not define man. Rather, the extent of man's weaknesses and sinister desires relative to his will power to reform them to become more like Christ define him. Given that marriage does not define who a man is, and does not qualify nor disqualify him to be among God's beloved children, then whether a marriage is between a man and a woman or between two people of the same gender ought not to be the litmus test of Christianness that the Catholic Church wants to use to replace God's judgment of goodness.
Granted that there are self-centered, jealous, envious, small-minded gays and lesbians couples whose world is defined by hypocrisy and self-righteousness [2], but there are also those who are heterosexually married who cannot claim to be any better [3]. The fact that people do fall in love for whatever reason(s) and exist in their own particular worlds without God at the center is to be accepted as part of the exercise of Free Will.
Should marriage then be left to Free Will and out of the purview of the church and the state? Absolutely. Why should the church and the state have any say concerning a private matter between two people? Let Free Will be the lead.
When children are involved, then a marriage is no longer an arrangement between two individuals. Traditional surrogacy adds even add more layers of complication to those inherent in any marriage, usually with a child being denied a birth parent, a biological mother or father who may or may not have any emotional ties to her or his genetically related child or want to have those ties. In a marriage between two males, children born out of surrogacy would be denied a mother. That certainly would not be ideal. Equally unsatisfactory is a marriage between two females whose children would be denied a father figure. In that sense, a gay marriage with children born out of surrogacy is not optimum for the children.
"When we institutionalize same-sex marriage... we move from permitting citizens the freedom to live as they choose, to promoting same-sex headed households. Now we are normalizing a family structure where a child will always be deprived daily of one gender influence... Our cultural narrative becomes one that, in essence, tells children that they have no right to the natural family structure of their biological parents, but that children simply exist for the satisfaction of adult desires." -Katy Faust [4]However, not only children of gay parents are abused, children of all parents regardless of their sexual orientation are subject to and are abused in different ways to different degrees. [5]
So can there be an ideal marriage with ideal children? Theoretically, one or more ideal marriages and families could have existed or exist today still but there is no objective proof supporting such a theory. Not even the Holy Family had an ideal marriage in the sense that Joseph was told to marry the Blessed Virgin Mary by an angel [6] and that he married Her because he was a "righteous" man [7], not because he was smitten with love for Mary. Even if arranged marriages were a tradition during the time of Jesus, the marriage of Mary and Joseph is not within the definition of marriage provided, see supra, because of the unusual arrangement with Mary being conceived by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus technically had four parents, one of whom is God, the Creator.
The Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus is therefore most certainly a part of Creation--a very special Creation--not a coital union between a man and woman in a marriage, but a holy union without a marriage between the Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Conception of a Sinless Virgin, an event that was neither state-sanctioned nor church-approved, nor ideally based on mutual emotional and physical love.
If the one match that was made in Heaven in which God was a participant was not ideal in a worldly sense, how can a marriage made on earth be perfect? If a marriage cannot be perfect, how can a family be perfect? In conclusion, the objective of this entry is not accomplished. This blogger is unable to imagine a ideal marriage leading to an ideal family for there is no such thing, on earth or in Heaven. A person's ideal union is with God, the Creator. That is the perfect union. Everything else falls short.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/23/europe/ireland-referendum-same-sex-marriage/
[2] Quoted from http://australianmarriage.org/quartet-of-truth-adult-kids-of-gay-parents-speak-out/
"I grew up with a parent and her partner[s] in an atmosphere in which gay ideology was used as a tool of repression, retribution and abuse," wrote B.N. Klein of her lesbian mother and her series of live-in lovers.
"While I do not believe all gays would be de facto bad parents, I know that the gay community has never in my lifetime put children first as anything other than a piece of property, a past mistake or a political tool to be dressed up and taken out as part of a dog-and-pony show to impress the well-meaning," Klein wrote. She added that as a child of a lesbian mother, she was pressured to pay "constant homage and attention" to her mother's gay identity, taught that "some Jews and most Christians were stupid and hated gays and were violent," and told that homosexuals were "much more creative and artistic because they were not repressed and were naturally more 'feeling.'"[3] https://www.childhelp.org/child-abuse-statistics/
[4] http://australianmarriage.org/quartet-of-truth-adult-kids-of-gay-parents-speak-out/
[5] http://www.childsafe-international.org/ChildAbuse.asp
[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1%3A26-38
[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1%3A19&version=NASB
No comments:
Post a Comment