"If anything is marriage, nothing is marriage"

While I have addressed the specifics of the teaching of Christ and His Church on same-sex marriage, it is important to give a general sense of what is going on. Same-sex marriage is just part of the general movement of liberalism or relativism which basically says that anything goes because there is no truth. I was in college when I first became aware of this movement and have been majorly turned off by it ever since. The movement uses contraception, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality to advance its radical agenda. It hates Christ and the Church or any authority which threatens to stand in its way. Its relentless attacks on life and family, the two most precious things in our world, reveals its agenda which is evil by nature. I have known good people who have joined the movement, not because they see its evil nature, but because they think it is good. That’s one of the things about evil: it appears to be good. When we see evil for what it is, we don’t pursue it. But, evil presents itself as good and attractive. The movement uses good and attractive themes such as “freedom”, “choice”, “safety”, and “tolerance”. When these things come about through good means, they are good. But, when they are through evil means as in the ways I listed above, then they are not good. They only appear to be good. Philosophers call evil an “apparent good”. So, I would insert the word “apparent” in front of each theme.


Last point before I turn it over to the Archdiocese of Washington’s blog which gives an overview of the whole issue and corroborates my first paragraph. Pope Benedict XVI referred to the “dictatorship of relativism” just before he became pope. This is the movement I’ve been describing. Its tenets are that every belief is true and every act is allowed. It labels anyone who denounces an act as immoral or wrong a “bigot”. This is what “apparent tolerance” looks like; it tolerates everything (including sin) except opposition.


On Ignoring the “Canary in the Mine.” Why The Demise of Marriage Matters
By: Msgr. Charles Pope

New York State’s redefinition of marriage is the latest domino to fall in the trend sweeping the nation of legally recognizing so-called “gay marriage.” Many people, especially younger people, are prone to shrug and wonder what the big deal is about all this. Many, too, of all ages, have bought into the notion that this is all about fairness, and being unbigoted.

Perhaps part of the reason for this is that we in the Church, and other defenders of traditional marriage, have allowed this to become a discussion about gay “marriage” only, rather than about the overall and devastating effects of the sexual revolution, and the sexual liberationist movement in general.

Gay “marriage” is only the latest battleground. It was preceded by the no-fault divorce wave that swept the country, beginning in 1969. The battleground is also about the explosion in divorce rates. It is about rampant promiscuity and shacking-up (or more politely “co-habitation”). And gay “marriage” is now the latest coffin nail, as secular culture buries traditional marriage.

Sadly too, in many of the other “nails” mentioned in the previous paragraph, even Christians have long engaged in these practices and the Church has been too silent in the last forty years and lacked the prophetic voice we are only lately (too late?) rediscovering.

To those who are dismissive or minimizing of concerns related to the State defining marriage out of existence, we must re-articulate, in a credible way, that traditional marriage does matter, and that its demise is not only lamentable, but devastating for the future of Western culture as we have known it.

Consider the following quote from Robert P. George, a Professor at Princeton University and interview in National Review. He is answering the question, “Why should people care” :

Well, people should care because the whole edifice of sexual-liberationist ideology is built on damaging and dehumanizing falsehoods. It has already done enormous harm — harm that falls on everybody, but disproportionately on those in the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of our society. If you doubt that, have a look at Myron Magnet’s great book The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass, or some of the writings of Kay Hymowitz and other serious people who have examined the social consequences for the poor of the embrace of sexual liberalism by celebrities and other cultural elites. Marriage is a profound human and social good; its weakening and loss is a tragedy from which affluent people can be distracted (and protected) by their affluence for only so long. The institution of marriage has already been deeply wounded by divorce at nearly plague levels, widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation, and other damaging factors. To redefine it out of existence in law is to make it much more difficult to restore a sound understanding of marriage on which a healthy marriage culture can be rebuilt for the good of all. It is to sacrifice the needs of the poor, who are hurt the most when a sound public understanding of marriage and sexual morality collapses. It is to give up on the truth that children need both a father and mother, and benefit from the security of their love for each other. [1]

I have personally experienced what he is describing about the poor being the first to be hit with the effects. Having lived, as I did, in the one of the poorest sections of Washington DC, the breakdown of marriage and its effects were very clear. In that neighborhood, 80% of the homes were headed by single mothers. It was not unusual for women in their late 20s to be grandmothers already. The effects on the children of having no father, of children having children, and living in dysfunctional situations plagued, with many layers of promiscuity and confusion was very clear. 60% of the children in that neighborhood never graduated high school. Of those that did, 40% of them, were functionally illiterate. Over 70% of the young men had police records by age 15 and the teenage pregnancy rates hovered near 65% for girls by their 15th birthday. STDs are quite high and the District of Columbia has the highest AIDs rate in the nation.

Some want to blame all this merely on poverty. But prior to 1965, when poverty rates were worse in the Black community, more than 80% of children lived with two parents, graduation rates were much higher, teen pregnancy rates were quite a bit lower along with STD rates. The sexual revolution is a huge factor in the devastation of the poor, and it is rightly said, from a statistical point of view, that single motherhood has the highest correlation to poverty of any other factor.

And the fact is, this breakdown is reaching the suburbs where gang violence, youth crime rates, promiscuity, STD rates, teen pregancy, abortion rates, and many other deleterious effects have been on the rise for decades. And sure enough, all of this is happening at a time when the numbers of suburban children who no longer with both both parents is approaching 50%.

We who live and work in the “inner city” like to say, “We’re the canary in the mine.” This image goes back to coal mining days when the miners brought a canary down in a cage. If gas levels rose, the canary died first, signaling trouble, and sounding an alert that it was time to get out. So for years as the wider US population either shook its finger at the inner city, or pitied those living there, the fact is they were ignoring the canary in the mine. The gas has now reached the suburbs, and the effects are spreading. And the main ingredient of the gas is the breakdown of marriage and the traditional family.

We ought to care that traditional marriage is in crisis. It is clear that children thrive best under the care of a mother and a father, and that removing this fixture from our culture is devastating to children and to our culture. The canary is not lying. If we do not fix marriage and family, we are doomed.

As professor George states above, legislators defining marriage out of existence is going to make any restoration of it quite difficult. Some may argue that the phrase “defining marriage out of existence” is too strong, and that judges and legislators are merely widening its scope. But at some point, if anything is marriage, nothing is marriage.

This juggernaut will not stop. The polygamists are next (just google polygamy and see that the steam is building). After them come the incest crowd and other odd combinations. And there will be little legal basis to resist them. And in a secular culture that has lost any basis to morally reason, or determine right from wrong, who among the secularists will be able to say “nay?” Yes, in the end, if anything is marriage, nothing is marriage. Marriage, as a culturally recognizable institution seems doomed, it is being legally defined out of existence.

Tomorrow on the blog I want to revisit a notion I raised more than a year ago, when I wondered if we need to find a new word for what we mean by Christian Marriage. For it would seem that the word is losing any meaning with each year that goes by in the secular world. More on that tomorrow.

For now, we have every reason to be very alarmed at the demise of marriage in modern times. Those who want dismiss or minimize the effects of the loss of traditional marriage ought to think again. Try visiting my prior inner city neighborhood, look at the devastation. Heck, try visiting my old high school in the suburbs where the drafting lab, where I learned mechanical drawing, is now a nursery for all the single high school “moms” to park their kids while they try to finish high school. What was once unthinkable is now the “new normal.” And as traditional marriage and family continue to take a beating we are foolish to think that we are headed anywhere but into serious trouble and ultimate ruin.