The issue at hand, as I see it as a cultural subject, is the arbitrary meaning of marriage. The reason I see marriage as meant for a man and a woman is because of how it is represented in the biblical text. Again, my issue is not with gay partnership, but with labeling a non-religously defined coupling as marriage. While the Supreme Pontiff views marriage as between a man and a woman, our political system has merged a religious doctrine within an ever-changing cultural society. Instead of calling a union or partnership between two people, whatever their sexes may be, as "marriage" it would seem that by calling those couplings as "unions" the state would be able to further separate from religion, thus keeping all religion free. By doing this, the Supreme Pontiff would be able to keep the institution of marriage as he sees it between man and woman. So, what I am suggesting is that the state recognizes all unions, and with it, all the benefits provided within the law and by doing this allow the "cultural conservative" to keep their arbitrary meaning of marriage.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Arbitrary Meaning of Marriage
This is a quote from "Humanae Vitae" under the heading Married Love, which is located in paragraph 9 from the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI's writing; "Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself." What I believe the Supreme Pontiff is saying is that in order for marriage to work one must love his partner as he loves himself. By doing this, what it does, is encourage people in a marriage to take the best care of themselves while also bestowing that same care on their partner. While I tend to think that every person, with a will of effort, should love another fellow human. This can be seen as idealistic, but it is rooted in "treat others as you want to be treated". I will attempt to illustrate this by using gay marriage as an example. I believe that two men can love each other unconditionally within our culture.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like that you pointed out here the difference between religion in marriage and having other benefits that are recognized with marriage. Recognizing unions would allow gay couples to have all of the same benefits that "married" couples have without disrupting what the church deems marriage. At the same time that is still neglecting gays from having the same basic rights as straight couples because it still forbids them from being in a religious union (marriage). I think all couples deserve the same benefits regardless of the two sexes, not giving them the same benefits causes an even bigger gap between the straights and the gays and further discriminates the gays.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I talk about or read about the issue of whether or not it should be allowed for same sex couples to get married I always wonder why it is not separated from the church. Are not church and state supposed to be separated? I think it is a good place to start because the issue is one that I believe will take time. And it is something that needs to be accepted culturally before it can be accepted religiously. I also always wonder what people will say about this argument 50 years from now how will culture have changed.
ReplyDeleteI for one could not care what the church's stance on homosexuality, but I do care about the fact that it should never be represented by the government in any form. When I saw Rick Perry's add earlier this week I couldn't help but ask the question of if he could read the words, "Separation of Church and State", let alone realize what it means. If marriage was only associated with the church, then whatever rules god wants to apply are fine, but when you need a marriage license it becomes something legal and should be dealt with by the government who shouldn't discriminate. I agree that calling a homosexual partnership a union would neglect homosexual's rights since everyone has the same Bill of Rights and certain people shouldn't be classified differently because of what they are attracted to.
ReplyDelete