What if two chaste gays wish to marry civilly?

[michelleds]

OK, I appreciate the replies here, but really, nothing so far is answering my question.

[snip]

I’m asking what moral theology says about legal marriage between two chaste individuals, both of whom are the same sex.

Actually, the answers you discount do answer your question.

A marriage, **by definition **, is a union between a man and a woman. Therefore, no other mix-and-match will meet the definition, regardless of the proposed activities or lack thereof.

As for the specific two people you mention in the thread title, i.e., two chaste gays, moral theology would not prevent them from offering friendship and companionship to one another assuming that there is no near occasion of sin etc to either party. However, to call such an arrangement a “marriage” would not be true.

You can call an apple an orange but that doesn’t make it so.

 

[fnr]

*You don’t have to marry to have companionship! My neighbour has a little dog which is her best friend.
*

To play off your signature, Andrew Llyod Weber wasn’t referring to pets when he wrote, “Love will turn your world around, all the rules we make are broken.” Same song!

Love for a dog is incomparable to love of a human being. An intelligence and heart to which a person can relate in romantic love is so far beyond the love of a pet as to make the comparison meaningless. I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.

I was an RA in college and one of my residents was an evangelical Christian and gay. He was committed to celibacy, but could not deny his feelings. What if he found a person with his commitment to Christian sexual morality, but for whom he felt romantic love? Seriously, what is wrong with that? He was committed not to make any “homosexual acts,” but still wanted to date other gay Christian men. This is a true story.

What if he wanted to marry someone a civil ceremony?

 

[LJN21]

Whats the point of getting married if they are going to live as roommates? To scandalize people against gay ‘marriage’? To get along with their gay buddies that support gay marriage? You don’t need a civil union to get companionship.

Personally, if I was gay and committed to living a chaste life I would not got with in 100 ft of someone I was romantically attracted too forget moving in the same house with them. That would be a near occasion of sin if I ever heard of one.

 

[Loboto-Me]

To play off your signature, Andrew Llyod Weber wasn’t referring to pets when he wrote, “Love will turn your world around, all the rules we make are broken.” Same song!

Love for a dog is incomparable to love of a human being. An intelligence and heart to which a person can relate in romantic love is so far beyond the love of a pet as to make the comparison meaningless. I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.

I was an RA in college and one of my residents was an evangelical Christian and gay. He was committed to celibacy, but could not deny his feelings. What if he found a person with his commitment to Christian sexual morality, but for whom he felt romantic love? Seriously, what is wrong with that? He was committed not to make any “homosexual acts,” but still wanted to date other gay Christian men. This is a true story.

What if he wanted to marry someone a civil ceremony?

Sounds like following the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law to me. I suspect that’s just trying to find a loophole in rules.

 

[Dickie_Bush]

fnr; You propose that you are asking about moral theology,though you relate the question to a legal definition . There are plenty of people who have attractions to sex with children,and those attractions are supported by factions of the LGBT community ,however no amount justification at this point in time will allow for a discussion in the general population ,of the benefits of such relationships.The church will always say that marriage is a life time union of one woman and one man ,it does not confuse the issue with the question of marriage between adults and children ,there is no such marriage!
Our society will always deal with the, one instance justification of self gratification ,the church will deal with the issue as an eternal foundational teaching.

 

[fix]

I’m asking what moral theology says about legal marriage between two chaste individuals, both of whom are the same sex.

It would be wrong.

 

[fnr]

fnr; You propose that you are asking about moral theology,though you relate the question to a legal definition .

Actually, I’m doing so with the preconception that in a pluralistic society, we don’t apply our moral theology to extracanonical legal matters. If there’s a political theology that we can, in America, licitly apply in which the norms that apply to Catholic sacramental marriage also can be argued to apply to non-Catholic civil ceremonies, I’m looking for such an answer. So far, I see that canonically, sacramental marriage in the church operates by one set of rules, governed by canon law and the theology of the body. However, in civil society (e.g., outside the Church), I don’t yet see the rationale by which our precepts apply.

My hypothetical case, as I mentioned above, is based on the real world case of a celibate gay evangelical student who lived on my hallway. He rolled his eyes at “gay conversion” ministries, saying that he’d tried sincerely, but that he fundamentally couldn’t change what he felt. As such, he was committed to what he believed to be a a morally licit life as a Christian, but also enjoyed the company of other gay Christian men (who could relate to the particular tensions of his spirituality).

I posed the OP because, to me, he was living a “morally licit” life as far as the Catechism spells it out. My question remains, therefore, whether there is any basis in Catholic theology, moral or otherwise, by which if he were to hypothetically seek marriage in a state that allowed such arrangements, he would be “wrong.”

[snip]

The church will always say that marriage is a life time union of one woman and one man ,it does not confuse the issue with the question of marriage between adults and children ,there is no such marriage!

So again, this is an issue of normative definition. That’s fine within the Church, but as is demonstrated in states where same sex marriage is legal, it’s not a definition with civil legal weight.

 

[bzkoss236]

To play off your signature, Andrew Llyod Weber wasn’t referring to pets when he wrote, “Love will turn your world around, all the rules we make are broken.” Same song!

Love for a dog is incomparable to love of a human being. An intelligence and heart to which a person can relate in romantic love is so far beyond the love of a pet as to make the comparison meaningless. I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.

I was an RA in college and one of my residents was an evangelical Christian and gay. He was committed to celibacy, but could not deny his feelings. What if he found a person with his commitment to Christian sexual morality, but for whom he felt romantic love? Seriously, what is wrong with that? He was committed not to make any “homosexual acts,” but still wanted to date other gay Christian men. This is a true story.

What if he wanted to marry someone a civil ceremony?

Then they would be sinning by the scandal they’d cause, not to mention putting themselves in a situation in which they could sin. If you married a woman, and you both decided to remain chaste, how well do you think that decision would work out? The fact is, is that if you have romantic feelings for someone and you live together, even if you are choosing to remain chaste, you can still fail. This is why it is not recommended that people who are dating or engaged move in together, because they are putting themselves in a situation where they will most definitely be tempted and could fall into sin. And even if they didn’t, they would be guilty of creating scandal.

 

[Glennford]

For, I’ll try to make it simple:

1.no gay sex. (immoral act)

2.no gays living together (proximate occasion of sin)

3.no civil marriage of gays. (gives scandal, causes confusion, proximate occasion of sin)

Again, I would think about what you know about marriage and try to give yourself a good crash course in that part of Catholic theology. And I’m serious about reading secular Men’s magazines.

 

[edwest2]

OK, I appreciate the replies here, but really, nothing so far is answering my question.

The replies so far have pretty much responded by defining marriage as one man and one woman. That, largely speaking, is what the public discourse on “gay marriage amendments” have been, presumably because any one religion’s moral theology can’t be the basis for law.

However, my question isn’t “what is marriage, and does this fall under the definition,” it’s “what does Catholic moral theology say about this situation.” This is a Catholic discussion forum, so I’m asking a question

I’ll put forward these bits of Catechism, because here is where I see the confusion:

"2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents* homosexual acts*** as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. **Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. **These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."

I’m asking what moral theology says about legal marriage between two chaste individuals, both of whom are the same sex.

First, it would cause scandal and confusion, even if both remained chaste. A civil marriage alone is not recognized as valid by the Church. And when you do get married by a Catholic priest, he also acts in a civil capacity as an agent of the State, since the couple must provide a valid marriage license first, and the priest also provides the Sacramental benefits of marriage.

Mother + son chaste civil marriage (if it were possible): automatic scandal. Would you call your mom your wife and she call you her husband? This appears to be about normalizing gay behavior. You may be in a situation where one or both can’t have sex, but what is correct about Husband and Husband? Yes, I know gay people are claiming discrimination but who’s stopping them from living how they want? And why should the State be involved at all?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Nate13]

Mother + son chaste civil marriage (if it were possible): automatic scandal. Would you call your mom your wife and she call you her husband? This appears to be about normalizing gay behavior. You may be in a situation where one or both can’t have sex, but what is correct about Husband and Husband? Yes, I know gay people are claiming discrimination but who’s stopping them from living how they want? And why should the State be involved at all?

Peace,
Ed

My point of bringing up the son-mother civil marriage thing was to demonstrate that the current civil marriage laws in America are not devoid of meaning as proponents of gay marriage say. Allowing civil gay marriage under current laws would be saying that the love between two gay people is equal to the love between a man and woman in marriage. The Church stands directly opposed to such a statement and thus opposes allowing sacramental and civil gay marriage.

The current civil marriage laws are a recognition of conjugal love (eros). We know this because as I stated before a brother and sister cannot marry, and a mom and her son cannot marry.

Some people like to say that civil marriage is just a packet of benefits devoid of meaning. For this to be so a brother and sister would have to be allowed to get “married”, because if they are not allowed to that law is by inference stating that civil marriage only recognizes conjugal “love”, not the “love” between brother and sister.

Thus it follows that if civil “marriage” was available to all kinds of love whether it be romantic love, filial love, friendship, random strangers on the street, then it would be permissible for gays and anybody to enter into that contract under law. It would be permissible because it would no longer be a recognition of “marriage” as the Church defines marriage.

 

[edwest2]

It appears “civil marriage” is regarded as a contract with a benefits package attached. So, under that definition, anybody above a certain age could get “married” for the benefits. And the contract can be broken at will as we see in divorce statistics all the time.

The moral dimension is this:

"Therefore, discreet and prudent actions can be effective; these might involve: unmasking the way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the phenomenon within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality and, above all, to avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of their necessary defences and contribute to the spread of the phenomenon. Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.

“In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”

Full document here: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

So this appears to be a clear case of two gay chaste men gaining husband and husband status, with the State footing the bill for their benefits.

As the document I quote from clearly indicates: tolerance is not the issue here. And nobody needs my or the Church’s permission to do anything. Miss Mass on Sunday? I guarantee a priest will not be pounding on your door on Monday asking where you were and for a few bucks.

I’ve worked in a hospital for nearly 10 years. Sexual orientation was never an issue, including my lesbian coworker and her formerly bisexual “interest,” who I ended up dating after she gave her life to Christ.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Dickie_Bush]

fnr;In my last answer I attempted to delicately mention the notion that some, may attempt to propose adult child relationships as an acceptable concept. Now there are some persons who follow through and actively relate to pubescents often sexually and often end in criminal court.It could be argued that a man is for instance naturally attracted to ,an example 13 year old girl.The argument will not keep him off the sexual offenders list if he follows through.There are many who suggest that such an individual is bound to offend again,that he has deep seated attraction to such children,in fact so deep seated as to be irreversible.And courts usually order that these offenders never remain alone in the company of children from there forward. Quite naturally the afore mentioned individuals are incredibly selfish. Such attractions are disordered ,no girl remains 13 forever.
Homosexual attractions are like wise disordered and, in similar manner the situation which you posit is extremely selfish.If two men with homosexual tendencies were to marry in civil ceremony,they would likely swear some fidelity and constancy to their relationship.Such an oath would preclude any immediate escape from such a disordered lifestyle chaste or not.Some homosexualist activists would angrily resist the notion of an escape from such a ‘‘natural inclination’’.We know very well that many have left the homosexual life behind and gone on to live normal heathy lives. No person should promote same sex marriage. Same sex relations should be kept on the same level as any healthy man would relate to a pubescent child ,friendly and on a very safely unselfish level.That would be the moral thing to do.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

What is the moral theology of such a scenario? How does that differ from a chaste man and woman seeking a civil marriage?

you are aware that chastity doesn’t mean continence right? A married man and woman can engage in sex and still be chaste.

What people fail to realise is that while Catholic theology is firmly in opposition to legal marriages and pseudo-marriages between two members of the same sex it doesn’t actually oppose a domestic partnership in the strictest sense. A domestic partnership in the original sense is a partnership in domestic life, id est a joint household. There is nothing wrong with two persons of the same sex having a joint household in Catholic theology.

 

[Cinette]

To play off your signature, Andrew Llyod Weber wasn’t referring to pets when he wrote, “Love will turn your world around, all the rules we make are broken.” Same song!

Love for a dog is incomparable to love of a human being. An intelligence and heart to which a person can relate in romantic love is so far beyond the love of a pet as to make the comparison meaningless. I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.

I was an RA in college and one of my residents was an evangelical Christian and gay. He was committed to celibacy, but could not deny his feelings. What if he found a person with his commitment to Christian sexual morality, but for whom he felt romantic love? Seriously, what is wrong with that? He was committed not to make any “homosexual acts,” but still wanted to date other gay Christian men. This is a true story.

What if he wanted to marry someone a civil ceremony?

*Marriage is the union of one man and one woman who want to be a family.

 

[Cinette]

To play off your signature, Andrew Llyod Weber wasn’t referring to pets when he wrote, “Love will turn your world around, all the rules we make are broken.” Same song!

Love for a dog is incomparable to love of a human being. An intelligence and heart to which a person can relate in romantic love is so far beyond the love of a pet as to make the comparison meaningless. I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.

I was an RA in college and one of my residents was an evangelical Christian and gay. He was committed to celibacy, but could not deny his feelings. What if he found a person with his commitment to Christian sexual morality, but for whom he felt romantic love? Seriously, what is wrong with that? He was committed not to make any “homosexual acts,” but still wanted to date other gay Christian men. This is a true story.

What if he wanted to marry someone a civil ceremony?

The two are close friends - why can’t they live together as such? In the case you mention what would be the definition of marriage?

 

[edwest2]

you are aware that chastity doesn’t mean continence right? A married man and woman can engage in sex and still be chaste.

What people fail to realise is that while Catholic theology is firmly in opposition to legal marriages and pseudo-marriages between two members of the same sex it doesn’t actually oppose a domestic partnership in the strictest sense. A domestic partnership in the original sense is a partnership in domestic life, id est a joint household. There is nothing wrong with two persons of the same sex having a joint household in Catholic theology.

I don’t understand. What is a “joint household”? The top is gay civil marriage.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

The two are close friends - why can’t they live together as such? In the case you mention what would be the definition of marriage?

Who’s stopping them from living together? The topic is gay civil marriage.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Joe_5859]

The Catholic Church did not invent marriage. Marriage is what it is quite independent of what we think.

Any legal recognition of homosexual unions is contrary to Catholic teaching and what marriage is. That’s the answer. That always will be the answer.

Why the two men or two women in question want to be “married” is irrelevant. Whether or not they plan on being chaste is irrelevant. Marriage is not just society’s stamp of approval that this relationship is a-okay.

All that being said, I have a hard time imagining how two gay men desiring chaste living would benefit from getting “married” and living together. They would be placing themselves right in the midst of temptation day-in-day-out. I don’t see how that would be prudent for someone striving to grow in holiness.

 

[lifeandhope]

Actually, I’m doing so with the preconception that in a pluralistic society, we don’t apply our moral theology to extracanonical legal matters. If there’s a political theology that we can, in America, licitly apply in which the norms that apply to Catholic sacramental marriage also can be argued to apply to non-Catholic civil ceremonies, I’m looking for such an answer. So far, I see that canonically, sacramental marriage in the church operates by one set of rules, governed by canon law and the theology of the body. However, in civil society (e.g., outside the Church), I don’t yet see the rationale by which our precepts apply.

My hypothetical case, as I mentioned above, is based on the real world case of a celibate gay evangelical student who lived on my hallway. He rolled his eyes at “gay conversion” ministries, saying that he’d tried sincerely, but that he fundamentally couldn’t change what he felt. As such, he was committed to what he believed to be a a morally licit life as a Christian, but also enjoyed the company of other gay Christian men (who could relate to the particular tensions of his spirituality).

I posed the OP because, to me, he was living a “morally licit” life as far as the Catechism spells it out. My question remains, therefore, whether there is any basis in Catholic theology, moral or otherwise, by which if he were to hypothetically seek marriage in a state that allowed such arrangements, he would be “wrong.”

[snip]

So again, this is an issue of normative definition. That’s fine within the Church, but as is demonstrated in states where same sex marriage is legal, it’s not a definition with civil legal weight.

In this “hypothetical” situation of your very real friend, I would say that he is playing with fire sexually for considering a living arrangement in close proximity to another gay male as well as compromising morally by trying to fit the letter of the law (or the absence of the Bible or the Church to address his specific situation) into how he wants to live his life.

As Christians, Protestants/Evangelicals (as I used to be) or Catholic (as I am now), we are called to live as Christ. We are told that the greatest commandments are to Love God and Love Others. Are you loving your neighbor as yourself if you are “married” to him, living with him, and thus tempting him to sin by putting him in close proximity to you on a daily (more importantly, nightly) basis? Is that loving? Is it the MOST loving thing to do? See, everyone is trying to see what they can get away with, how far they could push the envelop and still be ‘not sinning’ or still make it under the heavenly limbo pole without touching. But as Christ followers, lovers of Jesus, we should make decisions that are unequivocally going to best represent Jesus in our lives, that are going to best show the love of Jesus toward others.

In an earlier post you said: “I would dare say that unless you’re gay, you can’t speak to the kind of same-sex relationship that gay people have – like a heterosexual relationship, it’s not just physical.” Sexual attraction is sexual attraction–male to male, male to female, female to female, female to male. If I was struggling to be pure, and my best (girl) friend was also, and we were providing Christian love and support to help us through that struggle, there is no question that can be a GOOD and LOVING relationship or living situation because the struggle of sexual purity is not with other females. It can be argued that perhaps the two gay men living together are not attracted to each other, but I would say…yet. Because if a female and a male decided to live as celibate man and wife, and try to help each other not have sex with members of the opposite sex, what’s to say that in vulnerable moments they would not sleep with each other? The same applies to two gay males.

The appearance to the outside world is that two gay men are married and living together; even if they tell everyone they know, “hey, we are celibate” --that does not really mean much considering they can’t speak to every single person who observes their lifestyle. Does their lifestyle speak as a witness to Christ, or is it a poor witness of someone who lives relativistically and tries to bend Christ’s INTENT into their own image? We are Christ’s witnesses. We must always remember that.

You can perhaps twist words, fit in certain sayings of the church and verses of the bible to say that two gay men can marry, and you could say, “see! I’m right! There is nothing that emphatically proves that this situation is not okay. So, let’s go for it!” However, if you have to jump through that many hoops, and there are so many people (esp. faithful Christians, laity, clergy, doctors of the Church, the CCC) pointing toward this not being the BEST and WISEST life course to travel on, why go there?

Like I said above, life is not about seeing how much we can get away with to be able to do what we want to make ourselves happy and comfortable. I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, NEVERTHELESS IT IS NOT I WHO LIVES BUT HE