More amused than pained

I, OF COURSE, was pained when I learned about the US Supreme Court decision on the so-called “same-sex marriage” (SSM). But as I started going through the pertinent articles, including parts of the decision, sorry, but I started also getting more amused than pained.

I am now more convinced that this so-called landmark event would not take off and fly. It may appear as a big, whopping success to those who favor it, but that victory can only be at best Pyrrhic and very subjective, vibrant only in the mind and heart of its supporters. It’s a victory in fantasy land.

Why so? Simply because it is mainly based on the very flimsy argument of “equality,” “equal protection,” “equal right.” It is like saying that any opinion, position, preference, view, lifestyle, sexual orientation, etc., do have the same moment and value. Equality here is taken to mean uniformity, and the tolerance that it is expected to foster is completely detached from any objective standard outside of a purely subjective one. In this regard, no one talks anymore about what is right and wrong, what is natural and unnatural. It simply depends on a subjective ground that can gain some weight if a consensus of some sort is achieved.

If a couple of the same sex want to live together, they are always free to do so. I am not aware of any law prohibiting them to do so, nor throwing them into prison, except perhaps in some ultra-conservative countries. But it’s another story when with its legalization, its proponents start to redefine marriage, altering the nature of marriage, and nullifying what US Chief Justice John Roberts as the “millennia” behind the institution of marriage understood as between one man and one woman.

These are his words: “The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs… Just who do we think we are?”

I completely agree with him when he said: “If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

And if I may add, much less has it anything to do with the nature of marriage. Marriage is not a political animal that can be defined simply by a certain consensus of the people. It’s about a lifelong commitment of love, of total self-giving that involves the use of the body, i.e., sex. It has its own nature and law, quite independent of how we understand it.

As such it has to be stable and indissoluble until death, exclusive, between one man and one woman, and always open to life. A love that involves sex has these properties. And since we are humans who are free, it is a love that requires them. Conjugal love is not just for pleasure. It is procreative or open to life, because that is the very nature of sex, irrespective of whether the recourse to the conjugal act results in procreation or not.

The love that underlies those in the side of #LoveWins, which in turn underlies that Supreme Court decision, is a love detached from natural law. It’s a love that can go in any which way, a love that can include the expression of human sexuality that has gone berserk, that is perverted.

It’s with that frame of mind that another group, for example, is claiming that pedophilia is natural to men since they are always attracted to young people. And so we will hear more of all sorts of so-called natural and human rights that for millennia have been considered unnatural and inhuman. I wonder what would be next.

Of course, divorce and abortion have already long been legalized. All kinds of rationalizations were made, and the vicious drift continues. It’s the slippery slope in action.

In all this, we should try to be discriminating but not discriminatory. Discriminating in the sense of being keen to distinguish between right and wrong, and choosing the best and practicable option for the good of all. Not discriminatory in the sense of not being intolerant even of those who are clearly in error, always practising patience, understanding, and mercy. We should aim at unity and communion based on truth and charity.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com