Same sex marriage - why we must act urgently

Today two members of our parish pro life group, Stella and myself, had the good fortune to attend one of SPUC's Information Days for clergy and laity which are to be held around the country on the subject of the same sex marriage Bill that the Government wishes to introduce imminently.  We were spoilt in that the meeting was held in our own church hall - other delegates had to brave icy roads and snow-delayed trains to attend, but I'm sure they thought it was worth it.  An inspiring and informative day which has, I'm sure, left us all convinced of the necessity of urgent action.

The first speaker was Anthony McCarthy, a bioethicist and Philosophy tutor who now works for SPUC overseeing their educational work and publications and their website.  His talk, Protecting Marriage - Protecting the Unborn, set the whole day in context by illustrating just why the issue of same sex marriage is so important for all of us and why an organisation whose primary concern is protecting the sanctity of life had got involved in the issue.  He pointed out that one doesn't have to be "religious" in order to believe that marriage, defined as an exclusive and committed union between one man and one woman, should be protected.  As Catholic Christians, yes we believe that Jesus Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, but the very existence of that sacrament depends on a prior reality - natural marriage, as inbuilt into our very natures as male and female human beings.  This natural reality precedes all civil definitions and thus determines them.

Natural marriage involves a very particular type of love; that between a male and a female, whose sexual union is oriented towards and contains the possibility of procreation.  To attempt to introduce same sex "marriage" is not a widening of that definition but in fact abolishes it.  If "marriage" is redefined as simply the union of two individuals (gender irrespective) who love each other and want to have sex (procreative potential irrespective), that is a new definition which supersedes and makes redundant the former more particular one.  Marriage as we know it will have been legislated out of existence!  The new definition is one which ignores all the natural attributes which come with our birth gender and its procreational characteristics; our bodies, our human natures, become blank slates which we can "orientate" as we wish.

The implications of this are far reaching and beyond the scope of this post to narrate in detail.  What I find frightening is that we seem to be wiping out any givens when it comes to defining human nature.  We are each a mini god, not only able but with a positive right to create ourselves into whatever we want to be, to do whatever we want to do, without any externally imposed limitations.  This is a highly individualistic worldview which ignores the many familial and social ties that were previously accepted as resulting from our inherent male or female human natures.  Ignoring ties means ignoring responsibilities and in a world of competing individual rights, whose right is going to dominate (because for the sake of social cohesion, someone's has to)?

Why has SPUC got so involved in this issue?  The redefinition of marriage and the new genderless, "orientationalist" concept of the human being impacts, as Anthony pointed out, upon our notions of sex and complementarity - and therefore our concept of the human family itself, where a man and a woman commit to a union from which children can potentially result.  Far more abortions occur outside of marriage than within it.  It follows that marriage has a primary role in protecting the unborn child and to weaken marriage is to leave many more children in the womb vulnerable.  Marriage and the family relationships stemming from it have in fact given rise to our societies as we know them and have very fundamental implications for our self-identity as individuals.

I've rambled on a bit but I think these foundational issues are important, because so many people will say "Yes marriage is important, but if people with same-sex attraction want to marry each other, let them - what difference will it make to the rest of us?"  Anthony showed (with a skill I have not been able to reproduce) that it will in fact make a fundamental difference to the rest of us, to the way we view ourselves, to the ethos and structure of our society.  He and Antonia Tully of SPUC (whose talk followed) both stressed the frightening legal implications for schools and churches.  Not only are pastors, teachers etc who refuse to teach the equality of gay and "straight" marriage unlikely to be able to avoid legal censure, in the case of some professions to the extent of losing their jobs (despite the Government's talk of protection of conscience, any cases brought against such professionals are likely to succeed in court once the basic legislation equalising all sexual relationships is in place), but there are implications for school curriculum content.  Antonia mentioned the insidious ways in which "gay sex ed" is already subtly infiltrating lessons.  Just a photo here, a phrase there, but the mindset is being prepared and the avalanche has been triggered...

So what can we do?  Antonia and the third speaker, SPUC's Honorary Treasurer Bob Edwards, had some clear suggestions to make.  First and foremost, lobby and/or write to your MP and get others to do so!  Consider getting a group together to pop SPUC's leaflets through letterboxes (see SPUC's website for order details).  Have you signed the Coalition for Marriage petition yet (you can do so via this blog on the right)? Catholic parishes should soon be receiving postcards from the Bishops for parishioners to send to their MPs; perhaps organise a table at the back of church so that people can sign these on the spot, and then arrange for them to be delivered to your MP en masse.  Do other people in your church fully understand all the issues implied in same sex marriage and that opposing this marriage does not mean one is a homophobe (it is worth noting that all gay people are by no means united in support of gay marriage)?  Can you work with your priest or pastor to inform others?

This is a difficult and sensitive area, of course, and it is hard to convince people that in opposing gay marriage one can still respect the sensitivities of those with same-sex attractions and understand that they have often suffered greatly.  None of us, gay or straight, are totally defined by our sexuality - we are more than that in our common humanity.  I'd be the first to admit that there are many, many gay people who are far better human beings than I and far more worth knowing!  That is not the issue.  This is not about judgement or condemnation, but it is often seen as such.  Neither, for that matter, are gay people the only ones of whom the Catholic Church asks celibacy.  And from a secular point of view, civil unions already provide gay couples with the same legal rights vis-a-vis property and inheritance etc that married couples enjoy.

Our own group plans to meet soon to discuss some of the things we could do.  And as our Deacon Tom pointed out at today's meeting, our most powerful weapon has to be prayer... For marriage, for our government, for all those who struggle with same sex attraction, for all of us that everything we do may be founded in truth and charity.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, sought thy help or implored thy intercession was left unaided.  Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother.  To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.  O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petition, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.  Amen.

Are we equipping young people to be pro-life against the odds?

Defending traditional marriage -
an act of politics or not?

Today the BBC reports that Education Secretary Michael Gove is to examine whether the Catholic Education Service (CES) has infringed political impartiality rules, by circulating a letter to nearly 400 Catholic schools in the state sector asking them to back the Coalition for Marriage petition against homosexual "marriage".  (As far as I can make out, this is the same letter that was read in all Catholic parishes in March.)  The CES says that reading this letter to pupils is just part of the Catholic school's legally permitted remit "to teach matters relating to sex and relationships education, including the importance of marriage, in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church".  The Department of Education fears that the CES has encouraged schools to infringe their "responsibility under law to ensure children are insulated from political activity and campaigning in the classroom".  (Note: the petition is only intended to be signed by those over the age of 16, so we are, I hope, talking about sixth-form pupils.)

There's quite a lot to mull over in this situation.  Firstly, I note with interest that the DoE spokesperson says "While faith schools, rightly, have the freedom to teach about sexual relations and marriage in the context of their own religion, that should not extend to political campaigning".  Is this political campaigning?  To me it sounds more like, as the CES put it, "a positive affirmation of marriage, as is the Coalition for Marriage's online petition".  It is the Government who have decided to take a socially and legally-recognised institution and turn it into something else, something it has never through the ages been recognised by anyone as being.  The definition of marriage should not be the stuff of political debate and vote-chasing; if voicing an opinion in favour of traditional marriage has become a "political" thing to do, the Government have made it so.

There is, as so often, also the implication that supporting traditional marriage is part of a package of discrimination against gay people.  It is not. The CES says, "The Equality Act 2010 applies to all schools and we are fully supportive of the Act. It is central to Catholic teaching that all individuals should be treated with respect and dignity."  Yes, you can oppose the redefinition of marriage without being homophobic or treating pupils with same-sex attraction differently from others.

This also rings of today's widespread secular dogma that religious beliefs are all well and good - as long as they do not make any difference whatsoever to the way an individual relates to the society around him.  They must remain purely "private and individual views".  No genuine religious belief can ever remain thus, of course, by its very nature.  Whilst I continue to think that the CES' actions in this case should not be described as "political", it does throw into sharp relief an attitude that perhaps many Catholics themselves are dangerously close to taking on board these days.  "Of course I believe this and that, but I wouldn't impose my beliefs on you."  Well, no, you can't impose or indoctrinate.  You can, however, witness and speak out; you have every legal right to do so; you have an evangelical obligation to do so.

What is the point of having Catholic schools if they cannot offer a clear and challenging witness to their pupils of what it means to be a faithful Catholic?  I notice that the BBC makes sure to point out that the schools in question are state-funded.  Well, they're still Catholic.  Either withdraw state funding from them or let them be Catholic.  My children have all come through the Catholic school system and I am grateful for it; they were good, supportive schools.  However, many Catholic parents these days do not see the clear benefits of sending their children to Catholic state schools and if wishy-washy catechesis is to be the only incitement to do so, then I can understand how they feel.

One school at the centre of this row is St Philomena's in Carshalton.  The BBC, in a beautifully unbiased paragraph, tells us that "Earlier this week, Pinknews.co.uk reported that students at St Philomena's Catholic High School for Girls in Carshalton were 'encouraged' to sign the anti-equality pledge by the school's headmistress". Apparently a sixth-form pupil remarked, "In our assembly for the whole sixth form you could feel people bristling as she explained parts of the letter and encouraged us to sign the petition... She said things about gay marriage and civil partnerships being unnatural. It was just a really outdated, misjudged and heavily biased presentation."

Now, I know very little about St Philomena's, other than that orthodox Catholic friends send their polite and very pleasant teenage daughter there.  I'm sure it's a very good school; the Headmistress evidently did speak clearly and unambiguously about the teachings of the Church; and the sixth-form pupil quoted may not have been typical in her her views. Perhaps the pupil was remarking on the mode of presentation rather than the content.

Having said all this, however, I fear that what this sixth-former said would be echoed by young people in many Catholic schools across the country.  Are our Catholic schools in fact producing well-catechised young people, who know the Faith thoroughly on the formal level and have been given every encouragement to develop their faith on a personal level?  The second I believe is probably true in most Catholic schools, but without the first - solid orthodox catechesis - that personal faith development is going to go awry.

Our society gives more evidence every day of its determination to marginalise those of religious faith and to positively strip them of any meaningful opportunity to live out that faith.  In such a society it is more vitally important than ever that Christian schools have a robust catechetical curriculum.  Otherwise the pressures on poorly-instructed young Catholics to compromise will just be too great, and they will not see any reason not to do so.  The areas in which this is most likely to happen are marriage and pro-life issues.