Unhappy Union, Part III


Jameson Taylor is a writer at HLI. This article is reprinted courtesy of HLI Reports, a publication of Human Life International.



Endnotes

  1. Complains Elizabeth Birch, president of the Human Rights Campaign, “We are denied the right to put into practice the values embodied in any civil marriage — the values of caring, commitment, mutual interdependency and love.”

  2. Griswold misleadingly ignores the fact that the so-called Comstock laws had never sought to interfere in marital sexuality by prohibiting birth control altogether (coitus interruptus being the most common form of birth control practiced at the time), but originated as part of a more general campaign against lewd behavior and pornography.

  3. Andrew Sullivan, the most vocal proponent of homosexual marriage, describes his attraction to other men in terms of possession. Sullivan marvels “at the exotic beauty of other men, at the literally unbelievable sense of having them.”

  4. Couples who cannot have children as well as couples who properly practice NFP do not intentionally deprive one another of the gift of self; hence, their interior attitude is still one of unconditional love.

  5. The city of San Francisco is largely to blame for this revolution. In 1997, San Francisco became the first local government to cease granting contracts to companies that refuse to offer DP benefits.

  6. California legislators also voted into law a measure (SB 257; also see SB 225, SB 381) that could be used to classify as a “hate crime” speech that objects to homosexual behavior. AB 1338, which would have granted “civil union” status to homosexual relationships, was withdrawn from consideration on 14 January 2002.

  7. The bill’s critics—the ACLU, for example—are concerned that it will allow the federal government to prosecute “based on evidence of speech that had ‘no role in the chain of events’ that led to the violent act.” We should also note that the FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics Report, released on 19 November 2001, found that although the incidence of hate crimes rose slightly over the past year, those attributed to “sexual orientation” decreased.



Homosexual marriage, however, also does not foster the private ends associated with marriage: in particular, the capacity to give and receive unconditional love.

Both reason and experience confirm that “true” love seeks a commitment only satisfied by marriage. This fact lends a certain credibility to arguments favoring homosexual marriage.(1) Love seeks consummation in marriage because marriage gives an objective form to the passions love inspires. As explained in Griswold vs. Connecticut, “Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths….” The intimacy of marital love, surmised the court, requires a staunch defense of “the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms”—a defense that was used to legalize contraceptive birth control.(2)

The privacy necessary to marital intimacy is a reflection of the essential exclusivity of love. This exclusivity stems from the desire of lovers to fully share themselves with one another. Love is not love to the degree that this mutual gift of self does not occur. The heart—whose desires are expressed in the dictates of the conscience—cannot love when it recognizes that its love is unrequited.

If sex means anything at all (and, if it doesn’t, Griswold’s protection of marital sexuality is pointless), then it is because the sexual act is a concrete sign of one’s interior disposition toward the beloved. Physical acts that objectify one’s self or partner indicate an attitude of use of the person as a mere means to an end—pleasure, power, egoism, etc.(3) Such physical abuse distorts the conscience as well as the capacity to recognize and receive genuine love.

Certain acts of marital sexuality, not to mention non-marital sexuality, are thus destructive of the private good of love that marriage is supposed to foster. That the government has a right to forbid such acts was affirmed in Griswold itself, in Justice Goldberg’s concurring opinion: “the Court’s holding today…in no way interferes with a State’s proper regulation of sexual promiscuity or misconduct,” as for example, “adultery, homosexuality and the like.”

In spite of Griswold’s clear condemnation of homosexuality, proponents of homosexual marriage correctly perceive that Griswold’s approval of contraceptive sex helped pave the way for the legalization of sodomy in many states and, they hope, will do the same for homosexual marriage. Homosexual commentator Stephen H. Miller articulates the link between contraception and homosexuality: “After ‘the pill’ became widespread during the early '60s, human sexuality was freed as never before from being necessarily tied to procreation. Heterosexuals who value sex as much for emotional intimacy (or even, post-Playboy, physical recreation) as for reproduction can more easily make the leap into seeing ‘non-procreative’ homosexuality as an acceptable variant of sexual expression.”

As Miller observes, contraceptive sex and sodomy are equivalent insofar as both divorce “emotional intimacy” from the possibility of “reproduction.” Such acts are inconsistent with the attitude of unconditional love marriage requires because they entail the intentional denial of a part of one’s self—one’s physical fertility.(4) This deliberate withholding of the gift of self is inconsistent with the “sacred” intimacy of marriage that Griswold pretended to preserve. To put the matter another way, not every sexual act conducted in private between two consenting adults will foster the “values of caring, commitment, mutual interdependency and love” that married persons desire to “put into practice,” but only those acts that express the unreserved self-giving uniquely appropriate to marriage. Sodomy and contraceptive sex intrinsically prevent this mutual sharing on the physical level—and hence, at the emotional level as well.

The heart’s demands, however, will be satisfied by nothing less than unconditional love; and so homosexual lovers with even the best of intentions find it very difficult to remain faithful to one another. Most, if not all, of the proponents of homosexual marriage have quietly let it be known that their understanding of marriage does not necessarily entail life-long monogamy. Homosexuals, in other words, do not really want to get married—at least not in the sense that most people, including the Griswold court, define marriage. What they do want, along with many unmarried cohabitating heterosexuals, are the financial and legal benefits that marriage provides—without any of the moral responsibilities that real love entails. “What is needed,” argues homosexual advocate Peter Tatchell, “is a new modern, democratic, egalitarian and flexible model of partnership rights…any new legal framework ought to be universalist; applying to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples…thereby creating a broader and more powerful coalition for legal reform.”



Domestic Partnerships

With the number of unwed cohabitating partners in the United States having risen by 72 percent over the past ten years, Tatchell’s logic is unassailable. Over 4,000 companies, colleges, universities and state and local governments—a 50 percent increase over the last two years—already offer domestic partner (DP) health insurance coverage. The number of Fortune 500 companies offering DP benefits has more than doubled in the last three years.(5)

Federal and state legislators and judges—apparently using the tragedy of 11 September as cover—are also increasingly bypassing voter mandated “Defense of Marriage” laws and granting DP benefits to homosexuals. On 25 September 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives—“seeking to avoid major issues in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks”—voted to use federal funds to pay for the District of Columbia’s DP benefits program. The Senate overwhelmingly passed a corresponding measure on 7 November 2001, and President Bush signed the bill on 21 December 2001. In the wake of the 11 September tragedy, the Red Cross, the United Way (via Safe Horizons) and the Sally Mae 911 Education Fund are disbursing survivor benefits to domestic partners. The federal September 11th Victims’ Compensation Fund will also likely be used to provide financial support for domestic partners. In Pennsylvania, former governor Tom Ridge (now director of “Homeland Security”) ensured that that state would provide benefits to the “significant other” of those persons injured or killed in the 9-11 attacks. New York governor George Pataki also issued an executive order making such benefits available through the state’s Crime Victims Board; and New York City mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, has even gone so far as to agree to appear in drag on Showtime’s Queer as Folk to raise funds for disaster relief efforts.

Adding insult to injury, the California State Assembly passed on 12 September the “most comprehensive domestic partner bill in the country.” Governor Gray Davis signed the bill into law in defiance of a 7 March 2000 referendum in which over 60 percent of Californians voted against the legal recognition of same sex marriages.(6)

Next door, the Washington Supreme Court, on 1 November, granted same-sex partners the right to inherit the property of their deceased lovers. A civil union bill similar to that passed in Vermont is also on the docket in Washington. On 26 December 2001, the Vermont Supreme Court rejected a suit challenging the validity of that state’s civil union law. Similarly, a Maryland judge, on 21 November 2001, denied citizens the right to vote on a recently passed homosexual “rights” law, making Maryland the 12th state to give “sexual orientation” protected status.

Finally, Congress is currently considering three bills that, if passed, would begin the unraveling of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Law. The first, ironically titled the “Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2001,” would expand federal jurisdiction to cover “hate” crimes based on “actual or perceived” sexual orientation. The bill enjoys the sponsorship of 51 senators and 204 representatives.(7) A second bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), would make it illegal to choose not to employ someone because of their perceived sexual orientation. The bill has 44 sponsors in the Senate and 186 sponsors in the House. The Permanent Partners Immigration Act, which has the support of only 88 Congressmen, would grant immigration rights to the same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

Such legislation, ultimately intended to legitimize same-sex marriage, is simply unconstitutional. Neither the natural law nor the “history and tradition” of the United States has ever recognized a “fundamental” right to same-sex marriage. The right to marry and procreate, like the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are unalienable precisely because they are not of human origin and so not subject to the machinations of positive law. True happiness as well as true love can only be attained by freely choosing to live according to the laws of human nature upon which our natural rights are based. Same-sex marriage, by undermining the very basis of family law itself, will destroy the “sacred” intimacy once accorded marriage by transforming the family into a mere creature of public policy. As we recall, it is not the founders of the American Republic, but Karl Marx and the founders of the communist party, who desire this abolition of the family.

Subscribe to CE
(It's free)

Go to Catholic Exchange homepage

MENU