Bulletin insert this past Sunday at the Cathedral in Austin Texas


April 2015

In recent months, our nation has been debating the merits and legality of same-sex marriage. We present to you a simple explanation of the Church’s teaching on same-sex marriage.
The justices will consider two questions in April 2015 — whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution requires states to license marriages between same-sex couples, and whether it requires states to recognize such marriages when licensed by other states.

A DIALOGUE ON SO-CALLED GAY MARRIAGE

Puzzled: Why is the Church against homosexual marriage? Don’t all sexual orientations deserve equal treatment?

Mother Church: All people suffer temptation, and all should be treated with compassion. But we have to make reasonable distinctions among different kinds of sexual desire.

Puzzled: Why? Isn’t all sexual desire the same?

Mother Church: Not at all. The sexual desire that a husband and wife experience toward each other is good, but would you say it is good for a man to experience sexual desire for children, or for the wives of other men?

Puzzled: No, but who gets to say which kind of desire for sex is good and which kind isn’t?

Mother Church: Think of another kind of desire – say, desire for food. Suppose I said we shouldn’t eat food in excess, or eat food that makes us sick. Would you protest, “Who gets to say which kind of desire for food is good and which kind isn’t?”

Puzzled: No, but that’s different. Those things aren’t what eating is for. It’s for nourishment.

Mother Church: So you’re saying that good desire for food harmonizes with what eating is for, and bad desire for food is out of harmony with what eating is for?

Puzzled: I guess that is what I’m saying.

Mother Church: Well, the Church says the same thing about sex. Good sexual desire harmonizes with what sexual intercourse is for, and bad sexual desire is out of harmony with what sexual intercourse is for.

Puzzled: So what is sexual intercourse for?

Mother Church: What do you think? What does it bring about that nothing else can bring about?

Puzzled: Children, obviously. So you’re saying the purpose is procreation?

Mother Church: Yes, if you understand that term the right way. It means making families, turning the wheel of the generations. And one of the elements in turning that wheel is uniting husbands and wives in the special kind of love that helps them become mothers and fathers. The Church calls these two good things the “procreative good” and the “unitive good.”

Puzzled: I get your point that same-sex intercourse isn’t procreative. But you also mentioned love. Can’t two people of the same sex love each other?






Mother Church: Sure. Don’t you have any friends of the same sex?

Puzzled: That’s not what I meant. I meant sexual love.

Mother Church: Aren’t you assuming that sexual intercourse makes all love better?

Puzzled: Doesn’t it?

Mother Church: You tell me. Do you think it improves the love between a father and his daughter, or between a teacher and his student, or between two brothers?

Puzzled: No. I think it distorts and injures those loves.

Mother Church: The Church thinks so too. It distorts and injures those loves because it introduces a motive that doesn’t belong in them. But that motive does belong in the love of the husband and wife, because procreative partnership is what their love is all about.

Puzzled: So you’re saying that the love of the husband and wife is the only kind of love that becomes better and more complete through sexual intercourse.

Mother Church: That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Puzzled: Well, I guess I can see that. But still, if two men or two women want to get married, what business is it of anyone else? Why shouldn’t the law let them?

Mother Church: Would you agree with me that the law shouldn’t lie? Calling a same-sex relationship a marriage is a lie, because it’s impossible for it ever to be procreative.

Puzzled: I see that too -- but still, if two people want to call their relationship a marriage even if it isn’t one, what’s the harm? Who does it hurt?

Mother Church: To answer that question I have to ask you another. Why does the law take an interest in marriage in the first place?

Puzzled: For the sake of families. Mostly to safeguard the interests of children.

Mother Church: I agree. But what principle would the law teach if it offered the legal status of so-called marriage to relationships which are incapable of generating families?

Puzzled: I guess it would teach that marriage and family have nothing to do with each other.

Mother Church: Do you think that would that be good for families?

Puzzled: Why, I think it would be terrible for them.

Mother Church: There you go.

To learn more about the Church’s teaching on same-sex marriage, visit www.usccb.org.