This is an example of what happens when the culture at large diminishes the value and purpose of marriage. I almost hate to dignify it with any recognition, because the sponsors of this initiative are deliberately trying to cause controversy, to which I will only be adding. It would serve them right if it passed. But, the fact that they think they have a legitimate bit of legislative satire going on here is purely due to the way marriage gets oversimplified by some of us who wish to protect it.
Marriage, for Catholics anyway, is not just a legal contract between a man and a woman. It binds them together, making them one flesh. It is a Sacrament, through which God helps them (and they help each other and their children) to get to heaven. The Church isn't terribly picky about how many children we have. It does not limit us to our biological offspring only. It only requires us to be open to the will of God in that area. It affirms that the intimate relationship between spouses serves multiple purposes, of which procreation (or at least the possibility of such) is one. Catholic marriage is a sacrament, an exclusive lifelong commitment, a vocation to self-sacrifice, a basic unit within the Body of Christ, an illustration of how God's love for us works, and a reflection of the nature of the Holy Trinity. I could go on and on.
Catholic Marriage, as a priest I know put it, is the kind of marriage that everybody wants, deep down, but which most people don't understand. It gets written off as impractical, or impossible, often by people who have little faith in the power of God to give them strength for it, or who can't believe that self-sacrifice can hold gratifications of its own. The secular world has reduced marriage to a legal contract, not always binding, in which sex is still primarily expected to be selfish, recreational, and purely for pleasure. And maybe procreative. If we feel like it.
The problem is, too many of us across the denominations of the Christian world have bought into the secular ideas, and that makes it twice as hard to defend the institution, whether to advocates of same-sex marriage, or cohabitating heterosexual couples who see it as unnecessary and antiquated. The fortress, ladies and gentlemen, has been weakened.
And that makes attacks on it twice as easy.
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For the full text of the initiative, go here, if you must.
The social, cultural, spiritual, political, academic, and literary rantings of a slightly strange Catholic English teacher.
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