It doesn’t shake the foundations of society if two people who love each other live together. What they do in the privacy of their own home whether it be playing ping pong or whatever, does not affect me and therefore does not affect society. It is promiscuity, soliciting etc that causes the harm to society and that goes for couples of any sex. Gay couples are part of my society and are friends, they play an active, beneficial part in it…church included in some cases. I would have no desire to deprive them of the love and comfort of living with another human being like I am lucky enough to have with my husband. I have no idea if they are sexually active or not…any more than anyone knows about me! I’m not interested and see no evil.
At least the new pope is looking into the subject with love rather than hate.
We’re not just talking about two people living together–we’re talking about marriage and there is a difference. I would direct you to the article “What is Marriage” in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy [Vol. 34 No. 1] pages 246-247 for a discussion of marriage and society and the two competing views of marriage.
Here is a quote from there conclusion:
"A thought experiment might crystallize our central argument. Almost every culture in every time and place has had some institution that resembles what we know as marriage. But imagine that human beings reproduced asexually and that human offspring were self-sufficient. In that case, would any culture have developed an institution anything like marriage? It seems clear that the answer is no.
"And our view explains why not. If human beings reproduced asexually, the organic bodily unions–and thus comprehensive interpersonal union–would be impossible, no kind of union would have any special relationship to bearing and rearing children, and the norms that these two realities require would be at best optional features of any relationship. Thus, the essential features of marriage would be missing; there would be no human need that only marriage could fill.
The insight that pair bonds make little sense, and uniquely answer no human need, apart from reproductive-type union merely underscores the conclusions for which we have argued: Marriage is the kind of union that is shaped by its comprehensiveness and fulfilled by procreation and child-rearing. Only this can account for its essential features, which make less sense in other relationships. Because marriage uniquely meets essential needs in such a structured way, it should be regulated for the common good, which can be understood apart from specifically religious arguments. And the needs of those who cannot prudently or do not marry(even due to naturally occurring factors), and whose relationships are thus justifiably regarded as different in kind, can be met in other ways.
“So the view laid out in this Article is not simply the most favorable or least damaging trade-off between the good of a few adults, and that of children and other adults. Nor are there ‘mere arguments’ on the one hand squaring off against people’s ‘concrete needs’ on the other. We reject both of these dichotomies. Marriage understood as the conjugal union of husband and wife really serves the good of children, the good of spouses, and the common good of society. And when the arguments against this view fail, the arguments for it succeed, and the arguments against its alternative are decisive, we take this as evidence that it serves the common good. For reason is not just a debater’s tool for idly refracting arguments into premises, but a lens for bringing into focus the features of human flourishing.”
Please take the time to read the whole article.
Our society and all of us as members of it have been affected by abortion, contraception, no fault divorce–and our society and our children are the poorer for them. We should not kid ourselves–we will also be affected by this.
The peace of Christ,
Mark
