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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/30/2003 6:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | Bush Opposed to Gay Marriage
President Bush said Wednesday he has government lawyers working on a law that would define marriage as a union between a woman and a man, casting aside calls to legalize gay marriages.
"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that," the president said a wide-ranging news conference at the White House Rose Garden.
Bush also urged, however, that America remain a "welcoming country" -- not polarized on the issue of homosexuality.
"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts."
"On the other hand, that does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage," he added.
Bush has long opposed gay marriage but as recently as earlier this month had said that a constitutional ban on gay marriage proposed in the House might not be needed despite a Supreme Court decision that some conservatives think opens the door to legalizing same-sex marriages.
The Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime, overturning an earlier ruling that said states could punish homosexuals for having sex.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia fired off a blistering dissent of the ruling.
The "opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned," Scalia wrote. The ruling specifically said that the court was not addressing that issue, but Scalia warned, "Do not believe it."
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., is the main sponsor of the proposal offered May 21 to amend the Constitution. It was referred on June 25 to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.
To be added to the Constitution, the proposal must be approved by two-thirds of the House and the Senate and ratified by three-fourths of the states.
Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
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I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/30/2003 6:51 AM (GMT -6) | | This doesn't surprise me. I think that the Republican's are going to try and puff up this issue so that it plays a big role in the upcoming election, helping them to continue to garner the relgious/social conservative vote for cheap.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 7/30/2003 6:57 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/30/2003 7:08 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by honorman
I don't have a problem with that...
Duh, anyting to keep your employer the CIA well funded.
The gov't is like a center for bargaining over who gets its support. Money-endowed people are reliant on it to ensure that their property remains under their governance. Not-so-Money-Endowed people are reliant on it for the provision of public-goods and welfare-safety-nets. There is a scarcity of what the Gov't can provide as such there is conflict over its control. Economic conservatives, reflecting the priorities of Money-endowed-types, have traditionally been made gradually to share the wealth some through the democratic process. The thing is that now they got these mostly middle-class "evangelical" Christians who generally don't like politics that much, as focused as they are on personal holiness, who vote reliably en masse on issues that they are convinced are a-political.
As such, such issues enable economic conservatives, quite often tending to be libertarians by choice, to buy votes relatively cheaply.
The Bill Bennets, Pat Robertsons get so much support and air-time in part because they perform important roles of marshalling support against the liberals seeking to undermine the US.
No distinction being made, whatsoever, between economic and social liberalism/conservatism. I wonder why?
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
|
Fleetwood
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2003
Total Posts : 110
| Posted 7/30/2003 12:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Praise the Lord! Was glad to see this recent news. I knew I voted for him for a reason.  | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/30/2003 12:11 PM (GMT -6) | | To bring on the rapture sooner?
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
C.S. Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
|
honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 7/30/2003 7:26 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/31/2003 5:32 AM (GMT -6) | | I thought I'd post this here.
this is
Text of Vatican Document on Gay Marriage
July 31, 2003
The following is the text of the Vatican document
"Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal
Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons" as posted
on the Vatican's web site, vatican.va
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
CONSIDERATIONS
REGARDING PROPOSALS
TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION
TO UNIONS
BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS
INTRODUCTION
1. In
recent years, various questions relating to homosexuality
have been addressed with some frequency by Pope John Paul
II and by the relevant Dicasteries of the Holy See.(1)
Homosexuality is a troubling moral and social phenomenon,
even in those countries where it does not present
significant legal issues. It gives rise to greater concern
in those countries that have granted or intend to grant –
legal recognition to homosexual unions, which may include
the possibility of adopting children. The present
Considerations do not contain new doctrinal elements; they
seek rather to reiterate the essential points on this
question and provide arguments drawn from reason which
could be used by Bishops in preparing more specific
interventions, appropriate to the different situations
throughout the world, aimed at protecting and promoting the
dignity of marriage, the foundation of the family, and the
stability of society, of which this institution is a
constitutive element. The present Considerations are also
intended to give direction to Catholic politicians by
indicating the approaches to proposed legislation in this
area which would be consistent with Christian
conscience.(2) Since this question relates to the natural
moral law, the arguments that follow are addressed not only
to those who believe in Christ, but to all persons
committed to promoting and defending the common good of
society.
I. THE NATURE OF MARRIAGE
AND ITS INALIENABLE CHARACTERISTICS
2. The Church's
teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the
sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason
and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the
world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human
beings. It was established by the Creator with its own
nature, essential properties and purpose.(3) No ideology
can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage
exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual
personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend
toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they
mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God
in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.
3. The natural truth about marriage was confirmed by the
Revelation contained in the biblical accounts of creation,
an expression also of the original human wisdom, in which
the voice of nature itself is heard. There are three
fundamental elements of the Creator's plan for marriage, as
narrated in the Book of Genesis.
In the first place, man, the image of God, was created
“male and female” (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as
persons and complementary as male and female. Sexuality is
something that pertains to the physical-biological realm
and has also been raised to a new level – the personal
level – where nature and spirit are united.
Marriage is instituted by the Creator as a form of life in
which a communion of persons is realized involving the use
of the sexual faculty. “That is why a man leaves his father
and mother and clings to his wife and they become one
flesh” (Gen 2:24).
Third, God has willed to give the union of man and woman a
special participation in his work of creation. Thus, he
blessed the man and the woman with the words “Be fruitful
and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Therefore, in the Creator's plan,
sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very
nature of marriage.
Furthermore, the marital union of man and woman has been
elevated by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament. The
Church teaches that Christian marriage is an efficacious
sign of the covenant between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph
5:32). This Christian meaning of marriage, far from
diminishing the profoundly human value of the marital union
between man and woman, confirms and strengthens it (cf. Mt
19:3-12; Mk 10:6-9).
4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering
homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely
analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage
is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral
law. Homosexual acts “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”.(4)
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as a serious
depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10).
This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to
conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are
personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the
fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”.(5)
This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers
of the first centuries(6) and is unanimously accepted by
Catholic Tradition.
Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men
and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with
respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust
discrimination in their regard should be avoided”.(7) They
are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of
chastity.(8) The homosexual inclination is however
“objectively disordered”(9) and homosexual practices are
“sins gravely contrary to chastity”.(10)
II. POSITIONS ON THE PROBLEM
OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
5.
Faced with the fact of homosexual unions, civil authorities
adopt different positions. At times they simply tolerate
the phenomenon; at other times they advocate legal
recognition of such unions, under the pretext of avoiding,
with regard to certain rights, discrimination against
persons who live with someone of the same sex. In other
cases, they favour giving homosexual unions legal
equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along with the
legal possibility of adopting children.
Where the government's policy is de facto tolerance and
there is no explicit legal recognition of homosexual
unions, it is necessary to distinguish carefully the
various aspects of the problem. Moral conscience requires
that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the
whole moral truth, which is contradicted both by approval
of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against
homosexual persons. 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.
III. ARGUMENTS FROM REASON AGAINST LEGAL
RECOGNITION OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
6. To understand why it
is necessary to oppose legal recognition of homosexual
unions, ethical considerations of different orders need to
be taken into consideration.
From the order of right reason
The scope of the civil law
is certainly more limited than that of the moral law,(11)
but civil law cannot contradict right reason without losing
its binding force on conscience.(12) Every humanly-created
law is legitimate insofar as it is consistent with the
natural moral law, recognized by right reason, and insofar
as it respects the inalienable rights of every person.(13)
Laws in favour of homosexual unions are contrary to right
reason because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to
those granted to marriage, to unions between persons of the
same sex. Given the values at stake in this question, the
State could not grant legal standing to such unions without
failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an
institution essential to the common good.
It might be asked how a law can be contrary to the common
good if it does not impose any particular kind of
behaviour, but simply gives legal recognition to a de facto
reality which does not seem to cause injustice to anyone.
In this area, one needs first to reflect on the difference
between homosexual behaviour as a private phenomenon and
the same behaviour as a relationship in society, foreseen
and approved by the law, to the point where it becomes one
of the institutions in the legal structure. This second
phenomenon is not only more serious, but also assumes a
more wide-reaching and profound influence, and would result
in changes to the entire organization of society, contrary
to the common good. Civil laws are structuring principles
of man's life in society, for good or for ill. They “play a
very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing
patterns of thought and behaviour”.(14) Lifestyles and the
underlying presuppositions these express not only
externally shape the life of society, but also tend to
modify the younger generation's perception and evaluation
of forms of behaviour. Legal recognition of homosexual
unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a
devaluation of the institution of marriage.
From the biological and anthropological order
7.
Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and
anthropological elements of marriage and family which would
be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them
legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute
in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the
human race. The possibility of using recently discovered
methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involv- ing a
grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15) does nothing
to alter this inadequacy.
Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal
dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of
sexuality. Sexual relations are human when and insofar as
they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes
in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life.
As experience has shown, the absence of sexual
complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the
normal development of children who would be placed in the
care of such persons. They would be deprived of the
experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing
children to be adopted by persons living in such unions
would actually mean doing violence to these children, in
the sense that their condition of dependency would be used
to place them in an environment that is not conducive to
their full human development. This is gravely immoral and
in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,
that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and
more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount
consideration in every case.
From the social order
8. Society owes its continued survival to the family,
founded on marriage. The inevitable consequence of legal
recognition of homosexual unions would be the redefinition
of marriage, which would become, in its legal status, an
institution devoid of essential reference to factors linked
to heterosexuality; for example, procreation and raising
children. If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a
man and a woman were to be considered just one possible
form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a
radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common
good. By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane
analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State
acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties.
The principles of respect and non-discrimination cannot be
invoked to support legal recognition of homosexual unions.
Differentiating between persons or refusing social
recognition or benefits is unacceptable only when it is
contrary to justice.(16) The denial of the social and legal
status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not
and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the
contrary, justice requires it.
Nor can the principle of the proper autonomy of the
individual be reasonably invoked. It is one thing to
maintain that individual citizens may freely engage in
those activities that interest them and that this falls
within the common civil right to freedom; it is something
quite different to hold that activities which do not
represent a significant or positive contribution to the
development of the human person in society can receive
specific and categorical legal recognition by the State.
Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions
fulfil the purpose for which marriage and family deserve
specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there
are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful
to the proper development of human society, especially if
their impact on society were to increase.
From the legal order
9. Because married couples ensure
the succession of generations and are therefore eminently
within the public interest, civil law grants them
institutional recognition. Homosexual unions, on the other
hand, do not need specific attention from the legal
standpoint since they do not exercise this function for the
common good.
Nor is the argument valid according to which legal
recognition of homosexual unions is necessary to avoid
situations in which cohabiting homosexual persons, simply
because they live together, might be deprived of real
recognition of their rights as persons and citizens. In
reality, they can always make use of the provisions of law
– like all citizens from the standpoint of their private
autonomy – to protect their rights in matters of common
interest. It would be gravely unjust to sacrifice the
common good and just laws on the family in order to protect
personal goods that can and must be guaranteed in ways that
do not harm the body of society.(17)
IV. POSITIONS OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS
WITH REGARD TO
LEGISLATION IN FAVOUR
OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose
the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic
politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in
keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced
with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions,
Catholic politicians are to take account of the following
ethical indications.
When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual
unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative
assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to
express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote
against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the
common good is gravely immoral.
When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual
unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must
oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make
his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the
truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law
completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the
indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium
vitae, “could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting
the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative
consequences at the level of general opinion and public
morality”, on condition that his “absolute personal
opposition” to such laws was clear and well known and that
the danger of scandal was avoided.(18) This does not mean
that a more restrictive law in this area could be
considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a
question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at
least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total
abrogation is not possible at the moment.
CONCLUSION
11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons
cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour
or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common
good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect
marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of
society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing
them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the
approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of
making it a model in present-day society, but would also
obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance
of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values,
for the good of men and women and for the good of society
itself.
The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience of
March 28, 2003, approved the present Considerations,
adopted in the Ordinary Session of this Congregation, and
ordered their publication.
Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, June 3, 2003, Memorial of Saint Charles
Lwanga and his Companions, Martyrs.
Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect
Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary
NOTES
(1) Cf. John Paul II, Angelus Messages of February 20,
1994, and of June 19, 1994; Address to the Plenary Meeting
of the Pontifical Council for the Family (March 24, 1999);
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2357-2359, 2396;
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration
Persona humana (December 29, 1975), 8; Letter on the
pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986); Some
considerations concerning the response to legislative
proposals on the non-discrimination of homosexual persons
(July 24, 1992); Pontifical Council for the Family, Letter
to the Presidents of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe on
the resolution of the European Parliament regarding
homosexual couples (March 25, 1994); Family, marriage and
“de facto” unions (July 26, 2000), 23.
(2) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the
participation of Catholics in political life (November 24,
2002), 4.
(3) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution
Gaudium et spes, 48.
(4) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2357.
(5)
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration
Persona humana (December 29, 1975), 8.
(6) Cf., for example, St. Polycarp, Letter to the
Philippians, V, 3; St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 27,
1-4; Athenagoras, Supplication for the Christians, 34.
(7) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358; cf.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the
pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 10.
(8) Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2359; cf.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the
pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 12.
(9) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358.
(10)
Ibid., No. 2396.
(11) Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae
(March 25, 1995), 71.
(12) Cf. ibid., 72.
(13) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95,
a. 2.
(14) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae
(March 25, 1995), 90.
(15) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Instruction Donum vitae (February 22, 1987), II. A. 1-3.
(16) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.
63, a.1, c.
(17) It should not be forgotten that there is always “a
danger that legislation which would make homosexuality a
basis for entitlements could actually encourage a person
with a homosexual orientation to declare his homosexuality
or even to seek a partner in order to exploit the
provisions of the law” (Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, Some considerations concerning the response to
legislative proposals on the non-discrimination of
homosexual persons [July 24, 1992], 14).
(18) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae
(March 25, 1995), 73.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/international/31TEXT-VATICAN.html?ex=1060661363&ei=1&en=261e9e486284f1d4
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/31/2003 5:34 AM (GMT -6) | | excerpt from above.
"Laws in favour of homosexual unions are contrary to right reason
because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to
marriage, to unions between persons of the same sex. Given the values at
stake in this question, the State could not grant legal standing to such
unions without failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an
institution essential to the common good."
commentary from friend.
The partially-stated premise here is that the State has a duty "to
promote and defend marriage as an essential to the common good." Does
the State really have such a duty? And if it does, how does a
homosexual marriage attack, weaken, or destroy heterosexual marriage?
The Vatican tries to answer these questions in the next paragraph, but
it seems to me the author merely succeeds in repeating already stated
generalities rather than specifics: "Civil laws are structuring
principles of man's life in society, for good or for ill ... Legal
recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral
values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage." How?
Why so? No answer to that on the part of the Vatican. And still the
question arises, does the State really have a duty to promote and defend
marriage?
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/1/2003 3:36 AM (GMT -6) | | DLW, please pardon me if I'm over-reaching, but...
Are you making the implication (in posting the two posts above in sequence) that the Vatican has declared itself unable to voice on political matters. That it has passed a law that it now it stuck in following. Is that what you are implying?
Thanks in advance for your response.
- Fred from Missouri ("show me") | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/7/2003 8:42 AM (GMT -6) | | http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/july-dec03/leaders_8-06.html
MARGARET WARNER: The Episcopal Church isn't the only one struggling with how to deal with homosexuality in its ranks and its sacraments. Last week, Pope John Paul II issued a directive urging Roman Catholics everywhere to oppose same-sex unions, saying: "Marriage is holy while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law." Among mainline Protestant denominations in the US, united Methodist Church leaders in 2000 banned the ordination of homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions. Presbyterian Church leaders voted in 2000 to bar clergy from conducting same-sex union ceremonies. But in 2001, they voted to lift a ban on ordaining gays.
This June, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution urging its 42,000 churches to oppose same-sex unions. It also launched an initiative to reach out to gays with the message that Christianity can save them. And the Evangelical Lutheran Church has a task force now studying whether to ordain gays or bless same-sex unions. Its report is due in 2005.
Joining me now to explore all this are: Harvey Cox, professor of divinity at Harvard University. He is also an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church. Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. He's an Episcopalian. James Hudnut-Beumler is dean of the divinity school at Vanderbilt University. He's an ordained Presbyterian minister. And Edward Wheeler is a Baptist minister and president of the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis.
Welcome to you all.
Professor Cox, beginning with you. Why has this issue of how to cope with homosexuality come front and center in so many churches at roughly the same period of time?
Historic views of homosexuality in the church
HARVEY COX: Well, I think part of it is because it's an issue which can no longer be overlooked or ignored, and the churches are struggling with it in their own way depending on what the organizational polity of that church is or other factors. I think that it's... the move that the Episcopal Church has made just these last few days will clear the way now to move beyond this controversy, which has really paralyzed the churches a lot and allow them to move on to more important issues, issues of dealing with war and racism and hunger and famine, and to put this behind. I think it's a good move, and I think it's an important symbol for the other churches who are wrangling over this issue as well.
MARGARET WARNER: Michael Cromartie, what do you think is driving this because it's not just churches that are thought of as more liberal or progressive but also conservative churches like the Baptists who have still had to take votes, had to deal with it. Why?
MICHAEL CROMARTIE: About 40 years the world council of churches had a motto which was the world sets the agenda for the Church. I think that was a mistaken motto. Here's a situation where the world is dealing with this question apart from the Church in so many, so many ways. And now I think we see in various denominations both Catholic and Protestant people with this orientation saying I want to be a part of the church. Most of these churches say you can definitely be a part of these churches. The issue we're talking about today is not whether you can be a member of it but be a bishop in a denomination like the Episcopal Church. That's what's the controversy.
MARGARET WARNER: Has that been a movement just from being accepted as an openly gay member to now the issue is can you be ordained or will the church give the blessing of the same sex union?
MICHAEL CROMARTIE: Now, that is exactly the issue. The issue is here: What are the requirements to be a bishop? And as it says in the New Testament, one of the requirements is that the man be married to a single woman. We have a situation here where people are not upset about orientation. They're concerned about behavior. In this situation, we have the behavior of a newly ordained bishop that's in question.
MARGARET WARNER: Dean Hudnut-Beumler, do you agree with this, that really society is driving these churches? In other words that the churches, whether they're conservative or more liberal or wherever they fit on the cultural spectrum, to some degree all have to respond to the culture at large?
JAMES HUDNUT-BEUMLER: Well, I think they do but I think it's also true that churches sometimes give the values... give the best values to a culture and then the culture throws them back at the Church. Churches are very conservative institutions, but possess radical ideas. I had a colleague at a southern seminary once that told me segregationists taught me the bible and the bible taught me that segregation was wrong.
So what we have going on here is a back-and-forth between the Christian churches and the culture that surrounds them, and the churches that want to live faithfully in the present are going to have a struggle whenever the present culture changes. And the present culture has changed in a way that pushes the question of who can lead the church back upon the churches.
MARGARET WARNER: Rev. Wheeler, how do you see this debate that we're seeing played out and what's driving it?
EDWARD WHEELER: Well, I think the church itself is not immune from the culture. To speak of the Church as not even being a part of the culture I think is misrepresentation of the Church. The Church is in the world but not of the world. But in order to be in the world, you have to be able to know what the world is talking about. The issue of gay and lesbianism has been on the agenda for a long time. It is coming more to the forefront. And I think what the church has to begin to do is to not deal with this issue from a sociological or anthropological point of view but to begin to look again at scripture, to wrestle with scripture, and to also begin to wrestle with its theological understanding.
One of the concerns I have is that I think the moderates and liberals have often allowed the bible to be put aside and used only by the fundamentalists or the conservatives, and we turn away from the bible as if it doesn't speak to the situation. And this is where I think theological education, for example, has a major contribution to make where theologians and biblical scholars ought to be looking again at what scripture says in light of its own context but also in light of the context in which we live now.
Using scripture in today's context
MARGARET WARNER: Professor Cox, let's talk about this question of scripture because this came up a lot at the convention. Pick up on what Rev. Wheeler said. Do you think we're seeing a tension between people who have different readings of scripture or is there a tension between people who think scripture is a fixed document with fixed truths versus those who think, as I think Bishop Robinson sounded as if he believed, that we have an evolving understanding of what scripture or the bible or God's word really means.
HARVEY COX: Well, yeah, I think all Christians realize that we have an evolving understanding of what scripture says. We study it in different situations. We study it in different eras. I think it's important to point out that the people who pick out particular verses from the bible to refute gay and lesbian participation in the Church, for example, are being very, very selective in the very same chapter, for example, in the Old Testament where homosexuality is condemned, eating ham is also condemned, and lending money at interest. But we've learned how to live with those prohibitions. Even in recent years people have quoted St. Paul saying that women should be silent in the churches. That was used a lot when the whole women's order nation battle was with us. We've moved ahead. We now have women priests in the Episcopal Church. We have women bishops. A split was threatened but no real split came.
We learned to live with this as the... as our understanding of the nature of the biblical authority evolves over the years. I think we have to be very attentive to the bible but also to the history of its interpretation as the spirit continues to lead.
MICHAEL CROMARTIE: The question is, Margaret, how attentive do we need to be? I think Bishop Robinson said something very important at that press conference when he said just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teachings of the church and scripture does not necessarily make it wrong. We worship a living God and that living God leads us into new truths.
Now, the question is, do the norms of scripture and tradition dictate what we say to the world today or does my subjective experience and my feelings toward what my definition of love is dictate what we then take back to the scriptures? And so the debate here really is, what is the bonding authority? Scripture and tradition and our need to wrestle with what the text says, or do we say subjectively I think the text is confused here and I want to say that my feeling and my subjective opinion and my subjective morality is what should dictate how I read scripture? And that's what's really at stake here.
MARGARET WARNER: Dean Hudnut-Beumler, weigh in on this question of scripture. I won't try to paraphrase what our two previous guests just said. But what do you think the tension is here?
JAMES HUDNUT-BEUMLER: Well, the tension is what part of scripture and what is the whole movement of the big story about what God is doing in the world? I think really it comes down in recent years to an awareness, first of all, that gay and lesbian people exist.
Forty years ago, gays and lesbians were hidden in the Church to an extent that people could say, I don't know any; now people in the workplace do. Secular psychologists and medical doctors have said it's not a pathology; it's the way people are. Then we ask theologically, well, if God made all of these people this way, what is supposed to... what are we supposed to infer from that act of creation and then how does scripture apply to all of those of us who live in various conditions of human life?
MARGARET WARNER: Are you saying....
JAMES HUDNUT-BEUMLER: And so....
MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. Are you saying though that you believe as, I think Rev. Wheeler was saying, that these churches still feel-- whatever side you're on-- that the scripture remains very important and that you're still wrestling with ways to make it compatible with evolving mores? I don't know if I'm expressing that right.
JAMES HUDNUT-BEUMLER: As a Christian and as a Christian minister, I believe that there is no point in being in this tradition and orienting my life toward God through the teachings of Jesus and life and example and resurrection if I don't take the narratives seriously. But situations that I have to bring back to the scriptures or bring the scriptures to bear on situations that we didn't imagine were possible 40 years ago are the fact of contemporary church life in this culture. Just as questions about, could a slave owning bishop be ordained or be confirmed back in the 19th century? The scriptures don't speak exactly to this with some kind of legal index in the back. They speak to us as stories that we have to apply in the given situation as best and as faithfully as we can.
The effect of the Episcopalian decision
MARGARET WARNER: So, Rev. Wheeler, where do you think all this is heading now?
EDWARD WHEELER: Well, as a church historian I'm always real nervous about talking about where it's heading. A Church historian is also much better at looking at where we've come from.
MARGARET WARNER: What does history suggest to you?
EDWARD WHEELER: I would hope that Harvey Cox is right. I would hope that there is not a major split within the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church in America. I would hope that people who have different points of view would wrestle with those ideas from a biblical and theological understanding. I think the dean has made a very good point. Scripture is in a sense the document that keeps us altogether and keeps us sane. To take seriously the narrative that we have is to take seriously the word of God in a real, very real way.
But it's also true that it has to be taken in context. You have to take new understandings and bring those to the table. One of the statements that Bishop Robinson made that may be able to provide us with a key of the direction we might move in to is when he said God is doing a new thing. Well, those of us who are Christian, who believe in prayer, believe in the movement of the Holy Spirit, believe that God still speaks, have to take those kinds of statements seriously. That's why I believe that we need to look seriously at scripture. There have been some efforts in last ten to fifteen years by some very capable theologians who have wrestled with the issue of homosexuality and the bible and have looked at the traditional understandings that we've had. And they have raised some questions as to whether the traditional understandings that we have garnered and used and held up are really what the bible says at that point. That's where I think we ought to continue to have the discussion, and my prayer is that the Church will not be divided but that the Church will once again find a way to be real and alive in a world that needs the witness of the Church.
MARGARET WARNER: Michael Cromartie.
MICHAEL CROMARTIE: Dr. Cox said that at the beginning of our segment that we would be moving on now to new issues. We will not be moving on to new issues. This issue is really going to explode in the Episcopal Church. The Anglican communion of Africa is 18 million strong. It could well be that the conservatives in this country will break with the Episcopal Church in the United States and join the Anglican community of Africa, which is the fastest growing Anglican communion in the world. I just think that the important thing to remember here is the new bishop of New Hampshire has said tradition and scripture may have taught this, but that doesn't make it wrong. That's the real issue here is: what are the normative, binding issues that keep Christians in distinction from the world and their sexual ethics.
MARGARET WARNER: Professor Cox, a brief final word from you on where this is all heading.
HARVEY COX: I don't think there's going to be a split in the Anglican Episcopal Church. Maybe Michael Cromartie and I could make a little bet on this. Anglicans love their church. They will stick with it. They'll see their way through this. I'm not an Anglican or an Episcopalian but I'm grateful that they've shown a way to argue this out, think about it, work on it, pray on it. I hope other denominations will do the same.
MARGARET WARNER: All four of you, thanks so much.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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