The Catholic Position on Gay Marriage Reaches its Logical Conclusion
Although a lot of people might not guess this, at heart I identify very much as a Catholic—it defines me at a pretty deep level. I have considered very seriously joining the clergy at various times in my life. Ironically, this has gotten stronger the older I get. I say ironically because as I have gotten older, I have also diverged more fundamentally with a lot of what is today taken as basic Catholic catechism/dogma. I have become, in other words, both a more loyal Catholic, and a shittier one, at roughly the same clip and at the same time. That’s probably hard to adequately explain to someone that’s not there—and I really don’t mean that glibly—but so it goes.
Hence it’s no surprise, maybe, that Andrew Sullivan and I are pretty well on the same wavelength on such matters. Hence it’s no surprise that things like this amaze me. If you haven’t followed it, gay marriage is going to become the law of the land in D.C. this week. Hand-in-hand with that, if married couples who are gay are legally recognized as being on equal footing, in terms of rights, as any married couple, it would clearly be illegal to treat the two classes (hetero married couples, homo married couples) differently. Where that most plays out: Catholic charities, who enjoy tax exempt status but who also, as a matter of catechism, cannot accept gay married couples as, well, married. No distinction is allowable, apparently, between civil and religious marriage (a point which I am irrationally confident the Holy See will clarify/reverse at some point in the not-too-distant future).
Anyway, so the conundrum for Catholic charities in D.C. was that they couldn’t offer spousal benefits for hetero couples but not for homo couples.
Catholic Charities President and CEO Edward Orzechowski sent a memo out to employees yesterday informing them that spouses’ who have already been enrolled in the health plan would continue to receive care under a grandfather clause, but that new employees or newly married employees would no longer be eligible to obtain coverage for their spouses through Catholic Charities.
The change goes into effect today. The District of Columbia will begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning on March 4.
Got that? Heterosexual marriage, we are told, must be protected. It is not about discriminating against homosexuals, it is about protecting heterosexual marriage.
So the moment those two values come into direct conflict? Throw heterosexual marriage under the bus for the sake of protecting discrimination against homosexuals.
Make absolutely no mistake, that is the decision the Catholics have decided to make. That punishing homosexuals is of more value than supporting heterosexuals. Full stop.
Now you know.
I don’t know too much about the values of the Catholic Church, but, insofar as they view homosexual marriage as wrong, it seems to me they did the right thing here.
Ignoring the magnitudes, it is better to fail to confer a good than it is to support an evil.
Despite the fact that I disagree with (what I understand to be) the Church’s position on homosexuals (and despite the fact that I believe that if the state (for some reason) has to be in the marriage game, that it ethically has to allow homosexuals to get married), there’s something in me that approves of organizations acting in this fashion.
It’s sort of like when a company gets unionized and decides to shut down. I mean, sure, basically everyone is worse off, but there’s something satisfying (it is admittedly petty) about someone just giving the finger to a group of people who thought they could force their values on someone.
Comment by Redland Jack — 3/3/2010 @ 3:12 am
I’m also not that familiar with the workings of the RCC, but I know of a few Catholics who were married by a priest, then divorced (without being granted annulment), then remarried in a civil ceremony without any official recognition by the church. Do you happen to know how these charities have historically handled benefits for employees in arrangements of that nature?
Comment by Another Michael — 3/3/2010 @ 11:28 am
AM, I can’t to the particular instance you cite. We do know, however, that the church does NOT take the same stance towards other marriages which are equally invalid under church law.
The stand on spousal benefits has been reserved for one specific instance: homosexual marriage. Which would appear to support Brad’s larger point: that this is not about marriage, but about homosexuality itself.
Comment by Rojas — 3/3/2010 @ 1:13 pm
Thanks, that clarifies things a bit. My question was mostly in response to this:
This actually seems like quite a rational expectation if exceptions have already been made for other marriages that the church doesn’t recognize otherwise. Whether that would be good, bad, or irrelevant to the broader struggle for marriage equality, I won’t hazard a guess.
Comment by Another Michael — 3/3/2010 @ 2:59 pm