The European Court of Human Rights, chamber judgement: Homosexual couple not discriminated against by denial of the right to marry
Note: What follows is the ECHR’s official press release. The Chamber was divided 4-3 and the dissenting opinions are quite strong. There is a good chance that this case will be appealed to the Grand Chamber (17 judges) and possibly reversed.
Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (application no. 30141/04)
No violation of Article 12 (right to marry)
No violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination)
in conjunction with Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life)
of the European Convention on Human Rights
Principal facts
The applicants, Horst Michael Schalk and Johann Franz Kopf, are Austrian nationals who were born in 1962 and 1960 respectively and live in Vienna. They are a same-sex couple.
In September 2002 the applicants asked the competent authorities to allow them to contract marriage. Their request was refused by the Vienna Municipal Office on the grounds that marriage could only be contracted between two persons of opposite sex. The applicants lodged an appeal with the Vienna Regional Governor, who confirmed the Municipal Office’s view in April 2003.
In a subsequent constitutional complaint, the applicants alleged in particular that the legal impossibility for them to get married constituted a violation of their right to respect for private and family life and of the principle of non-discrimination.
The Constitutional Court dismissed their complaint in December 2003, holding in particular that neither the Austrian Constitution nor the European Convention on Human Rights required that the concept of marriage, as being geared to the possibility of parenthood, should be extended to relationships of a different kind and that the protection of same-sex relationships under the Convention did not give rise to an obligation to change the law of marriage.
On 1 January 2010, the Registered Partnership Act entered into force in Austria, aiming to provide same-sex couples with a formal mechanism for recognising and giving legal effect to their relationships. While the Act provides for many of the same rights and obligations for registered partners as for spouses, some difference remain, in particular registered partners are not allowed to adopt a child, nor are step-child adoption or artificial insemination allowed.
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court
Relying on Article 12, the applicants complained of the authorities’ refusal to allow them to contract marriage. Relying further on Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 they complained that they were discriminated against on account of their sexual orientation since they were denied the right to marry and did not have any other possibility to have their relationship recognised by law before the entry into force of the Registered Partnership Act.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 5 August 2004. On 25 February 2010, a hearing was held in public in the Human Rights Building in Strasbourg.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Christos Rozakis (Greece), President,
Anatoly Kovler (Russia),
Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),
Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg),
Sverre Erik Jebens (Norway),
Giorgio Malinverni (Switzerland),
George Nicolaou (Cyprus), judges,
and also André Wampach, Deputy Section Registrar.
Decision of the Court
Article 12
The Court first examined whether the right to marry granted to “men and women” under the Convention could be applied to the applicants’ situation. As regards their argument that in today’s society the procreation of children was no longer a decisive element in a civil marriage, the Court considered that in another case it had held that the inability to conceive a child could not be regarded in itself as removing the right to marry.
However, this finding and the Court’s case-law according to which the Convention had to be interpreted in present-day conditions did not allow the conclusion, drawn by the applicants, that Article 12 should be read as obliging member States to provide for access to marriage for same-sex couples.
The Court observed that among Council of Europe member States there was no consensus regarding same-sex marriage. Having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, to which the Austrian Government had referred in their pleadings, the Court noted that the relevant Article, granting the right to marry, did not include a reference to men and women, which allowed the conclusion that the right to marry must not in all circumstances be limited to marriage between two persons of the opposite sex.
At the same time the Charter left the decision whether or not to allow same-sex marriage to regulation by member States’ national law. The Court underlined that national authorities were best placed to assess and respond to the needs of society in this field, given that marriage had deep-rooted social and cultural connotations differing largely from one society to another.
In conclusion, the Court found that Article 12 did not impose an obligation on the Austrian Government to grant a same-sex couple like the applicants access to marriage. It therefore unanimously held that there had been no violation of that Article.
Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8
The Court first addressed the issue whether the relationship of a same-sex couple like the applicants’ fell not only within the notion of “private life” but also constituted “family life” within the meaning of Article 8. Over the last decade, a rapid evolution of social attitudes towards same-sex couples had taken place in many member States and a considerable number of States had afforded them legal recognition.
The Court therefore concluded that the relationship of the applicants, a cohabiting same-sex couple living in a stable partnership, fell within the notion of “family life”, just as the relationship of a different-sex couple in the same situation would.
The Court had repeatedly held that different treatment based on sexual orientation required particularly serious reasons by way of justification. It had to be assumed that same-sex couples were just as capable as different-sex couples of entering into stable committed relationships; they were consequently in a relevantly similar situation as regards their need for legal recognition of their relationship.
However, given that the Convention was to be read as a whole, having regard to the conclusion reached that Article 12 did not impose an obligation on States to grant same-sex couples access to marriage, the Court was unable to share the applicants’ view that such an obligation could be derived from Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8.
Given that with the entry into force of the Registered Partnership Act in Austria it was open to the applicants to have their relationship formally recognised, it was not the Court’s task to establish whether the lack of any means of legal recognition for same-sex couples would constitute a violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 if this situation still persisted. It remained to be examined whether Austria should have provided the applicants with an alternative means of legal recognition of their partnership any earlier than it did.
The Court observed that while there was an emerging European consensus towards legal recognition of same-sex couples, there was not yet a majority of States providing for it. The Austrian law reflected this evolution; though not in the vanguard, the Austrian legislator could not be reproached for not having introduced the Registered Partnership Act any earlier.
The Court was not convinced by the argument that if a State chose to provide same-sex couples with an alternative means of recognition, it was obliged to confer a status on them which corresponded to marriage in every respect. The fact that the Registered Partnership Act retained some substantial differences compared to marriage in respect of parental rights corresponded largely to the trend in other member States.
Moreover, in the present case the Court did not have to examine every one of these differences in detail. As the applicants did not claim that they were directly affected by the remaining restrictions concerning parental rights, it would have gone beyond the scope of the case to establish whether these differences were justified.
In the light of these findings, the Court concluded, by four votes to three, that there had been no violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8.
Judges Rozakis, Spielmann and Jebens expressed a dissenting opinion; Judges Kovler and Malinverni expressed a concurring opinion. The separate opinions are annexed to the judgment.
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It may be worth watching the video of Kevin Rudd after his defeat – it is a good reminder about the rise and fall from power.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10393918.stm
It is also an event in itself that Australia now has a first woman Prime Minister. It is amazing how a party leader, and prime minister, can be changed overnight in Australia. Who said one week was a short time in politics?
[Daphne – What I find amazing is this: that a four-year-old girl taken from Wales to Australia by her out-of-work coal-miner father ends up running the country as prime minister. Now that’s a real meritocracy.]
You are right. It shows how that country is based on ‘Advance, Australia Fair’ – the national anthem, composed by another migrant to Australia.
Australia is a land of opportunity. Above all, however, fairness is very much ingrained in the culture of the nation.
The time has come for Malta to adopt the principle of FAIRNESS into its Constitution. That principle at the moment only features prominently in the context of fair hearing in the courts.
I believe that fairness is one of those agents that is necessary to balance a modern society.
The ‘Rock’ should take notice. However, ‘meritocracy’ is not found in the Maltse dictionary.
“Now that’s a real meritocracy”
Well that’s the thing about Australia isn’t it. It was founded by real (and I don’t mean in a bad way) working class Brits primarily.
They have even less class separation than the U.S. and probably the least judgemental people around.
If I could only get used to the accent …
David, When spoken by Australians from the early British migrants, it is a very sexy accent, mate.
Oh come on, just kidding mate!
her father was never a coal miner – although his work was associated with the mining industry
True, that’s a fine example of meritocracy at work. Wonder if she enjoys burgers over fine cuisine and if anyone’s accusing her of being low-class though, given her modest background.
All this is well and good! At least the arguments for and against are rational.
Human rights did not descend from Heaven above. They had to be fought for to be achieved and more often than not, I suspect, it was the organised “religions” who resisted most of them.
I personally believe it is all a matter of economics. Same sex unions are presently being stalled because they will cost governments too much money which they can ill afford at present.
Look at what is going on right now on the development of maternal and paternal leave.
In time same sex unions will become legal because it is just that they do.
But how sad for us in Malta when we read as we do today in timesofmalta.com
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100624/local/muslims-and-catholics-unite-against-negative-media-and-same-sex-marriage
that the Catholic Church and the Muslim community have come together for a seminar on the role of the family from a Christian and Muslim perspective.
What do Christians have in common with Muslims? Divorce? Female circumcision? Oh. according to Mr. Hreba it is the story of Adam and Eve! For crying out loud! What are these people thinking?
And by the way, the rest of the seminar was not open to the public. Muslims and Catholics deliberating in secret? What next? This is outrageous and insulting to people who live in a democracy.
I suggest to Mr. Hreba and the other Muslims on that panel to sample some of the books:
The Hidden Face of Eve ( Women in the Arab World) by Nawal El Saadawi
God Dies by the Nile by Nawal El Saadawi
Women at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
Prison of Teheran by Marina Nemat
There are lots of others. These give you the basics of how women are treated in Muslim/Arab countries and how worse their condition becomes when they get married.
The Archbishop disappoints and hurts so many people by his statements, by his association in this seminar and by what he leaves unsaid especially about the treatment of women in the Arab world.
God help us all from the irrationality of religous fundamentalists!
Fundamental human rights are so not because someone fought for them or someone created them. These are rights which arise from the very own nature of human beings, thus ‘fundamental’.
No, same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right. It might be a right given in some jurisdictions but it is not a fundamental right.
I think you’re using the term ‘fundamental’ as if it was written in some divine book describing the ideal nature of the cosmos. There are no intrinsic moral truths we can ply out of nature.
That ‘theory’ has been discredited a long time ago. Life is what we make it.
Gays, lesbians, transgendered people and their families have a fundamental right not to be treated as second class citizens. Yet the Court’s judgement turns on the fact that this lucky Austrian couple have access to a registered civil partnership, with some but not all the bells and whistles, should they want it. Sorry folks, but quasi-marriage is not marriage, even if you were to squint your eyes and look at it sideways.
There is an underlying, unspoken assumption implicit in this Court’s judgement: that LGBT unions are inferior, less desirable, and less worthy of equal State support and recognition. How disappointing that the UK, of all places, filed a brief in support of this tortured position.
The intervenors before the ECHR cited the judgments of high courts in other jurisdictions that have carefully worked through the arguments on both sides of the debate and reached the very opposite conclusion. Tellingly, the European Court chose not to include any analysis of those decisions in their judgement. Hopefully, the Grand Chamber will conduct a more thorough analysis.
Oh dear. Here we go again.
While politicians, judges and clergymen get lost in legal technicalities and inventions of new words to define ‘alternative families’ they refuse to accept that there is a one size fits all solution. That solution is marriage and divorce for any two (or more) consenting adults. It couldn’t be simpler. Anyone who wants legal recognition of their relationship should marry. Anyone who doesn’t want legal recognition should cohabit. Anyone who had legal recognition but doesn’t want it anymore should divorce.
Once we have marriage and divorce for all, there would be no need to pretend that marriages never really happened (annulment). We would not need a separate registry for cohabiting couples (if we have marriage and divorce for all, cohabiting couples would be the couples who don’t want legal recognition anyway). We would not need some new lingo for same sex couples (they would be what they really are and want to be; a married couple).
The sooner everyone realises that the only real solution is marriage and divorce, the better.
C.Cassar: what about marriages between siblings?
And what do you mean by “two (or more) consenting adults”? Polygamy?
If adult siblings are fully aware of what they are doing and consent to it, then I find no problem with siblings marrying. The degrees between family members for them to be allowed to marry have been changed in different countries over time. For example, once upon a time it would be unheard of to marry a cousin but nowadays it is accepted in many places. Netherlands allows marriage between siblings. Sweden allows marriage between half siblings. There are places which allow you to marry an in-law. In-breeding was common in many societies with the upper classes to preserve ‘pure blood’ and inheritance within the family etc. Sexual relations between siblings in Malta are perfectly legal anyway and I’m sure incestuous relationships are widely spread but simply go unreported because they are such a taboo. Many anthropologists have argued that marriage between relatives is more a social norm than due to health related issues. Stories of monsters being born out of sexual relations between families are just myths to terrify people of getting into these relationships in the first place.
As for polygamy or polyandry, why not? As long as all adults involved know what they are getting into and consent to it, then I see no problem with it. Again, this is something which has been practiced in many civilisations and cultures across the world through time. It’s just something which we are not used to in our culture.
Marriage between siblings is to be avoided only because it adds to the possibility of deleterious genes, which in most cases are recessive. Consequently it adds to homozygosity thus decreasing heterozygosity.
And it is exactly because most deleterious genes are recessive and the chances are, those of, duplicating harmful alleles thus resulting into abnormalities, that it isn’t healthy.
Abnormalities in progeny of closely related parents (brother/sister, father/daughter) are not created because of inbreeding per se. It is because they merely appear.
There exist many cases when a disease, or any other characteristic, including hair colour, for example, which might seem uncommon, that could surface after it may have seemed never to have existed in the family.
In Malta, with a population of under half a million, and because we are closely related, that most diseases, such as cancer, are hereditary.
@Min Weber: what about marriages between siblings?
Karl: my question was rhetorical and in response to the statement – which seems to me a blanket statement – that the “solution is marriage and divorce for any two (or more) consenting adults.” You have given a very eloquent biological explanation as to why marriage between siblings should be avoided.
In morality, it is called incest. So, morality and biology seem to concur.
Despite the fact that the two siblings would be “two consenting adults,” to use C.Cassar’s phrase.
In other words, there are limits to what two consenting adults may do.
Marriage between siblings is not acceptable – for moral (incest) reasons and for biological reasons which you very adroitly explained.
It follows that the “two consenting adults” rhetoric of homosexuals is not based on strong foundations.
I am open to other arguments, as I am not deadset against anything. So far, however, I am not convinced by pro-same-sex argumentations.
There are no “limits” to what consenting adults may do sexually. There is however, an increased risk of congenital defects as Karl Flores explained above. Haemophilia in royal blood lines is a good example.
There will come a time in our lifetime (couple of decades) when siblings will be able to assess that risk. The genetic impact will be negligible and let’s be honest, the moral reasons were tenuous at best.
When this comes to be, there will be no reasonable impediment to siblings’ marriage.
[Daphne – Go off and read some social anthropology. The incest taboo is fundamental and universal, which is why we all know and remember the historical exceptions (ancient Egyptian royalty). It goes beyond genetics, a subject about which people knew nothing until recently.]
@C.Cassar
You are right that in the past these things have been done. The Histories of Herodotus confirms this.
But the fact that they were experimented is probably the reason why they were then discontinued. The experience was tried, the consequences were bad, and the practice abandoned.
The act of discontinuance is historically as important as the act of experimenting. The evolution of human society was a series of trials and errors. The act of discontinuance signifies that the practice had negative effects. Otherwise it would have continued.
Why should we repeat past mistakes?
@C.Cassar
As Edward Caruana Galizia rightly points out further down, in the past there was slavery. The practice continued till the very recent past.
But then the practice was discontinued.
Incidentally, someone said that the Catholic Church promoted (or some similar verb) slavery. In actual fact, very few Catholics were involved in the slave trade from Africa to the New World. The more correct historical interpretation would be that where profit is concerned, religious background or upbringing has very little bearing.
@C.Cassar
Female genital mutilation “is something which has been practiced in many civilisations and cultures across the world through time. It’s just something which we are not used to in our culture.”
Shall we campaign for the introduction of female genital mutilation in Malta?
Selling your daughter to the sex trade “is something which has been practiced in many civilisations and cultures across the world through time. It’s just something which we are not used to in our culture.”
Shall we campaign for the introduction of this practice in Malta?
[Daphne – Go off and read some social anthropology. The incest taboo is fundamental and universal, which is why we all know and remember the historical exceptions (ancient Egyptian royalty). It goes beyond genetics, a subject about which people knew nothing until recently.]
Claude Levi Strauss would certainly agree with you and yet Henry Maine (died 1888) had already put forward the idea of the increased risk of homozygotes attributed to incest before the science of genetics was even established. Like Mendel, who was active in Maine’s lifetime, he observed traits in inbred animal populations and extrapolated his observations to include humans.
Apologies for the name dropping but I do want to stress the point, that social anthropologists do not agree even between themselves.
The question is whether this universal taboo will hold ad eternum or will it be accepted as genetics eliminate the risk associated with it. Western European countries have been questioning the morality behind this issue since Napolean’s times (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6424337.stm).
Modern genetics have already pinponted both mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosonal Adam. It’s ironic that we are all direct descendants of one man who lived circa 60,000 years ago.
“Once we have marriage and divorce for all, there would be no need to pretend that marriages never really happened (annulment). ”
I agree that divorce should be available BUT annulment will still be necessary for any Catholic who wishes to re-marry!
Yes, it would still be necessary. After all even Catholics need divorce.
Annulment is also for non-Catholics.
The difference between annulment and divorce is an important one, and should be maintained, even if divorce is introduced.
Annulment is also regulated by the Civil Law.
It is useful even in certain civil law cases, even for non-Catholics.
Stefan Vella: The term ”congenital” isn’t the word I used for defects that may be inherited.
”Congenital” means present at birth.
Cataracts, for eg, known to be ”static” are immediately diagnosed at birth. Hip dysplasia is not identified at birth but will be manifested at a later stage in life. Similarly, a few inherited eye defects cannot be identified until we are in our teens.
These are, examples of inherited but non-congenital defects.
@Karl Flores
I stand corrected.
I don’t care what the laws on the matter say. If the laws do not allow people to get married because they are of the same gender then the laws are wrong and people should do their best to change them.
Let us not pretend that the laws which prohibit same-sex couples from marrying have nothing to do with religion, because they do. That is the only reason. In fact it is the only argument that can be given.
What Adam and Eve have to do with sexuality is beyond me (ref the report of a meeting between Muslim and Catholic leaders on timesofmalta.com today). I was always told that it was just a story of sorts, and extended metaphor about sinning, not about how we should get married.
And since when do we, in 2010, use Adam and Eve as a model to live by? Does that mean that we’re back to thinking that women tempt men and that it is women who are to blame for our sins, and that they deserve to endure pain while giving birth as part of their punishment for tempting Adam?
I don’t understand why people are still trying to find logical reasons to stop gay men and women from marrying their partners when it is clear that any argument against gay marriage has been found to be fallacious.
Yes, John Dimech, it is a fundamental right to be treated equally by your government. You do not know what it means to be denied the recognition you deserve.
The person you choose to spend your life with is very special to you. Plus, it is also a very personal thing. In fact, when someone develops a liking for someone they usually bring it up with their friends sometimes, at the correct moments, and if friends express disapproval because they do not find that person attractive, it can be very upsetting.
It can result in the person losing interest in the other person lest their friends think they are with someone ugly. No one can deny the fact that being told that your partner is ugly, inappropriate or undesirable, by friends or family, is upsetting, and also frustrating.
This is what gay marriage is about. It s about being told that such a personal choice is bad. Sure there are people who don’t care what others think of their spouses. But that may be because they have developed such a love for one another that they do not care what others think.
But still even they are happy that their relationship is recognised by the state the way it should be. Why is it so hard to understand this?
How would you guys feel if the state didn’t allow you to marry someone because it didn’t like the person you were marrying? Would you not then feel the need to fight for your right to get married when you watch the state favour everyone else’s marriage?
You might say that you wouldn’t care but actually the reality is very different and one which you can never know because you do not live it.
The Catholic Islamic leaders in Malta met together to discuss a matter that concerns a social minority without inviting members of that community to join in the discussion. So much for building bridges.
That is a tacit admission that their arguments can exist only within the confinements of their faith within their stone walls, and not in the real world. They can’t have homosexuals present at that discussion because then they will have to actually come up with real reasons, which they cannot do.
Edward, I do not agree that the state is treating you differently and discriminating against you. You have the same rights as everybody else: you may marry an adult woman who is not already married.
You could say, however, that you do not care to marry a woman, but that is up to you – the law treats you exactly as everybody else. It’s a common misconception among gays that straight people can marry whomever they want but that is not true: a Muslim man is not allowed to take a second wife, for example, and a woman who lives in a hippy commune (let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that such groups still exist) cannot have two legally-recognised husbands. So much for ‘alternative families’.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you blame religion for all this: it is dictated only by our social and cultural norms.
No, Antoine, the state does not treat me the same, nor does it protect me from any for of discrimination that may or may not come my way.
You, like many others, insist on creating this dream world where it is the other way round, but it is not. Trust me, I would know. You clearly do not. So stop with your condescending placating which is based on lies.
I am not allowed to marry the person I choose. You say I can marry a woman. Great, so you are advocating lying, hypocrisy, self-hatred and also encouraging people to put themselves and others in a situation that invariably ends in a lot of pain and anguish not only on the part of the husband and wife but also if and when children are involved. Do I really need to explain how wrong that is?
[Daphne – I think Antoine’s point was something else altogether: that the law gives men the right to marry women and does not into the issue of sexuality or love. Hence, you are not discriminated against. Issues of discrimination arise when we qualify the right to marry with the phrase ‘the person I love’. So far, it is not qualified or interpreted that way. It can’t be repeated enough that the idea of marriage as a union of romantic and sexual love is a very recent one. The love referred to in the Christian marriage rite is of a different nature altogether: loving care, support and respect, three elements which – as irony would have it – are generally absent from romantic and sexual love, where the prevailing emotions give rise to jealousy, tantrums and ‘paying back’.]
Don’t act like marrying is just some sort of whim. Using your argument we can say that we should all not bother with dating and relationships because we can just marry anyone we want, provided they fit the legal requirements.
This is clearly not the case since we all take lots of care to find the right partner who we love, who loves us, and who we feel we can and want to share the rest of our lives together.
Relationships may be described as a stronger form of friendship, but they are not simply friendships. Even when it comes to friends we are careful of who we trust and love, let alone the person we wish to marry. People are out to find Mr or Mrs Right. It is like that for a reason.
[Daphne – The belief that there is such a thing as Mr or Ms Right is the root source of much misery in the contemporary developed world. Through the rest of history, and still in other parts of the world, people were happy to have a spouse who was kind, had enough to live on, and treated them well, and didn’t faff around looking for The One, wasting half their already limited lives in the process. People are so busy looking for Mr and Ms Right that Europe and North America are stuffed full of single people in their late 30s and 40s, who never married, had children or settled down because The One never came along, and who have woken up to the fact that it is now way too late – for the women, if not for the men.]
Your post here seems like nothing but some desperate attempt at finding a loophole where you basically ignore one fundamental aspect of a relationship and marriage. You have to love the person first.
[Daphne – That’s very idealistic, Edward, but actually, you don’t. The most lasting relationships are built on care and respect, not on romantic love, which has a lifespan of just two years. Taking romantic love as the basis for marriage is actually a terrible idea, not unless you can evolve it into something else.]
No- I do not say “ I do not care to marry a woman” . I don’t want to marry a woman because I cannot love her the way she would like and need me to. A woman should find herself a husband who can give her what she is looking for in a relationship. Why on Earth would I encourage her to be with me? How selfish would that be, not to mention unethical on so many levels. Once again, do I really need to explain this?
We don’t marry someone we “care” to marry. We marry someone we love. It is a deeply personal choice, and one which should be recognized by the state no matter what.
To be honest I don’t quite understand what your point was? Are you saying that this is the way it is and it s not going to change? What rubbish!
10/10 dear Edward, I think it was a meeting of birds of a feather that flock together (when need be) .i.e. in depriving one of his fundamental rights.
And no, I am not barking up the wrong tree since it is only religion that is putting a stop to gay marriage. There is no logical reason to not allow two gay men or two gay women to marry.
[Daphne – There are cultural reasons which predate both the Muslim and Christian religions. Those religions merely adopted the cultural norms. It is a common misconception that society reflects religion; in reality, it is the other way round. Throughout history and right across the globe, from those who worshipped the sun to those who worshipped spirits in stones, and right up to Christian Europe, there has never been marriage between two people of the same gender, for the very obvious reason that it was pointless. Marriage was for the bearing of children, for dynastic, inheritance or farm-labour purposes. The idea that marriage is a vehicle for love and solidarity is entirely new in historical terms.
It never was that. So obviously, there would have been no gay marriage because there was no reason for it. And to preempt the obvious rejoinder: women past childbearing age did not get married, again because there was no point to it (they rarely lived beyond the menopause in any case, usually dying long before) and marriages in which the woman was found to be infertile (the man never was) or which went unconsummated were regarded as null and void. Now that the view of marriage has shifted – at least in highly developed democracies – from a vehicle for the bearing and raising of children to a union of personal solidarity – the way in which we regard the prospect of marriage between two people of the same gender has shifted too. What hasn’t changed at all is the idea of marriage as an economic union. We still think of it that way.
Also, I hate to have to say this, but it’s important to remember that we live in a democracy, where there is freedom of worship and freedom of expression. The Catholic Church is free to rail against gay marriage and others are free to mock and criticise it for doing so. What they are NOT free to do is attempt to silence the Catholic Church’s opinions. Unfortunately, too many in Malta rail against the Catholic Church like a teenager rebelling against a parent: indeed, it is the same psychological situation. It is not the Catholic Church which prevents the introduction of divorce legislation and gay marriage. It is Catholics, who are lucky enough to live where there is freedom of worship and also a parliamentary democracy – hence, they have a vote and both the government and the opposition are conscious of that. The archbishop is extraneous to the circumstances.]
None whatsoever. Not even you can provide one. (Saying it isn’t normal doesn’t really count does it? Especially when you seem to have a very dated definition of normal. )
If the Church changes its stance on homosexuality, it might not change all homophobes, but it sure would take away the feeling of going against morals.
[Daphne – No, it wouldn’t. This has little or nothing to do with religious morals. If it had, then there would be no homophobia in atheist societies, and homosexuals would have been able to marry in China and what was the Soviet Union.]
Many of people, including our politicians, seem to have it in their heads that legalizing gay marriage would be going against their values. So the only thing that is going to change that is if the Church gives them its blessing. Which it seems dead set not to do.
[Daphne – Both political parties fear not the Catholic Church but the electorate. They are not elected by the archbishop but by the citizens of this country. Both political parties know that the majority of electors regard the prospect of gay marriage with views that range from mere distaste to outright horror, and will vote against the political party that contemplates such a thing. Electors are now pretty much evenly split on the matter of divorce, which is why the political parties are not speaking against it and both are instead hedging their bets. If the Catholic Church changes its stance on gay marriage, then electors will turn against the church, rather than changing their views. Also, it is quite impossible for the Catholic Church to change its stance on gay marriage. Like other religions, it stands for something and has principles to which it must adhere even if they are in conflict with changing mores. No religion champions or sanctions same-sex marriage or even same-sex coupling.]
So for all you people defending the Church keep in mind. Despite the good the Church does, it is also doing wrong. Denying that just makes it all worse.
[Daphne – Edward, the Catholic Church no longer calls the shots. You are free to ignore it, or to listen and then go and do your own thing. This archbishop’s predecessor regularly took to the pulpit to tell women to stay at home and that working women were an evil in society. Did anyone listen? No. It was no longer the 1960s. The fact that the vast majority of women don’t work in Malta has nothing to do with religion. Like the antipathy to gay marriage, it’s 100% cultural. Wives complain about not being able to get by on what their husband earns, and it never occurs to them for one minute that they might usefully work. Some EU survey results were published a few days ago indicating that people in Malta are among the Europeans struggling most to get by and pay their bills. But there was an inherent flaw in that survey: no cognizance of the fact that in other EU member states you have two people working to pay the household bills, but in Malta you only have one.]
It is very interesting to note who the dissenting judges are:
(i) Rozakis (Greece)
(ii) Spielmann (Luxembourg)
(iii) Jebens (Norway)
There is much to say about perceptions and prejudices on nations and cultures from this observation.
I am for same sex ‘union’ (or any similar name). But I think that the word ‘marriage’ should be reserved for a union between a man and a woman.
In a union between two people of the same gender, these should have the legal safeguards that married couples enjoy. However, they are not to have concessions like subsidized housing and other allowances which are given to get children for the continued existence of the nation.
“However, they are not to have concessions like subsidized housing and other allowances which are given to get children for the continued existence of the nation.”
That is what I would call a very fascist view on the matter. Would you do the same for a straight couple who can t have children- NO.
Once again, an argument that has been tried, and lost.
What is the difference between my example and yours? The gender – which neither couple can control or do anything about. It is not fair to give people less than others because of something they have no control over.
You can’t control who you fall in love with. And you can’t insist that people remain single and deprive themselves of a loving and intimate relationship just to fit in with your view of the world.
When will you people learn?
[Daphne – Edward, it’s quite possible to have a loving and intimate relationship without marriage, and one doesn’t have to stay single simply because one cannot or will not marry.]
I know what you mean. I was not clear in that post.
The reason why I mentioned being forced to be single is because many people who share same and similar opinions as po-em usually come back with the whole -you can control it. Just don t act on it.- argument which I thought would come my way very soon after my post got published. So I thought I would just put it in straight away, as a sort of preemptive strike if you will.
As if like magic ( see above comment)
‘Same sex union’ is a marriage by another name in the same way that annulment is a divorce by another name. Why bend over backwards trying to avoid using the obvious names ‘marriage’ and ‘divorce’?
Every human society has had marriage for people uniting and divorce for people who don’t want to be in that union anymore. It really is very simple but everyone is determined to complicate and muddle the issue just to avoid using a word, as if the word will change anything in real life.
If you think that subsidised housing is given for couples to have children only you’re mistaken.
‘The continued existence of the nation’? That’s such a silly comment.
If humanity was about to become extinct because everyone is gay then I would understand this extreme measure – but as it is, the human population keeps exploding.
Some argue that the world will have an overpopulation of humans in less than a century and will find it extremely hard to feed everyone and supply everyone with the necessary resources for life. Maybe governments should give incentives to homosexual couples which it doesn’t give to heterosexual couples to keep the population in check.
What utter nonsense! Why is it so hard to understand that LGBT couples can and do have children, and that they can and do form families – even in Malta – whether you like it or not?
So let’s see… two hetero couples show up at the registry office demanding marriage licences. In one case, the groom is aware that he is infertile, while in the other case the wife is well beyond childbearing years.
By your rule, both couples should be denied the privilege of a marriage licence because their unions can never assist with the “continued existence of the nation”.
Are you therefore suggesting these two hetero couples ought to be satisfied with a licence to form some other kind of a “union”, but not a “marriage”?
Are you also suggesting that these two hetero couples ought to be denied access to subsidized housing and other allowances that are “given to get children”?
From Italy:
Lei 87 anni, lui 49 sposi in Versilia
Interviene Procura di Lucca. Ipotesi, circonvenzione di incapace
(ANSA) – LUCCA, 25 GIU – Il matrimonio era gia’ fissato per lunedi’ tra Ines Orsolini, 87 anni, e Daniele Bernardi, 49 anni,ma e’ intervenuta la Procura di Lucca. L’annuncio delle nozze, con rito civile, ha scatenato non poche polemiche nella piccola comunita’ versiliese per la grande differenza di eta’ dei due sposi. Tutto era pronto, ma la procura di Lucca si e’ formalmente opposta al matrimonio dopo un esposto presentato da una nipote della futura sposa per circonvenzione di incapace.
The point I want to make is that the small community of Versilia was shocked by the age difference between the spouses. So not all heterosexual couples attract the benevolence of their community. There are certain rules which apply – and they are not all necessarily religious.
Min Weber: ”Lei 87 anni, lui 49 sposi in Versilia
Interviene Procura di Lucca. Ipotesi, circonvenzione di incapace”,
”circonvenzione di incapace, significa, il reato commesso da chi inganna qualc’uno approfittando della sua incapacita mentale”.
And that is why the Procura di Lucca, intervened.
As for the shock the small community of Versilla took, because of the difference in age gap, I am not surprised, but only because, as in many small villages, you tend to find more busybodies and superstitious people, than anywhere else. Certainly not because they are broadminded.
I cannot understand why the heterosexuals in question need attract the benevolence or not of their community.
@Karl Flores
Gossip magazines are sold only in small villages?
In the early 20th century it was thought that urbanization would bring emancipation. Psychologists and anthrolpologists today see that the cities of Late Capitalism have not brought about that expected emancipation.
@pe-em I might agree with you that the word ‘marriage’ should be reserved for a union between a man and a woman, but only because it has been used to mean so for so many years that it is now established as is.
However, I disagree with you, that whilst saying that in a union of two people of the same sex should have the legal safeguards that married couples enjoy, you also said that they are not to enjoy certain benefits heteros enjoy, like housing and other allowances.
What makes gay couples inferior? We are the ones to have labelled them so. And, if you believe that providing housing should be reserved for those ‘not gay’ only?
What happens if a flat/house is subsidized to a single ‘gay’ who later unites with his partner?
My reasoning that we shouldn’t feel burdened, if a same sex couple were to ‘unite’, (so as not to use the word, ‘marry), and enjoy the present subsidies on housing or any other allowances, is only because, ”we are living from this moment onwards”.
When/if laws are amended re pensions for widows/widowers, those for homo’s will be changed accordingly.
Furthermore, I AGREE that those married women who choose to stay at home, unless there is nothing ‘serious’ that impedes them from working for a decent wage, instead of complaining, should be the least to grumble about the possibility that their pension ends, immediately the husband dies.
However, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
To oppose gay marriage ”for fear of the unknown” only is quite subjective and misleading. Who on earth said that they want to marry because of the benefits, like ‘pension’ vis a vis death of one of the two enjoy, only so far.
And how do you know that same are not willing to work, as is in many cases, nowadays, for heteros who marry?
@JP Bonello; ”Gossip magazines are sold only in small villages?”. Your question is not related to the subject matter.
If you are referring to my statement that in small villages it is easier to meet busybodies/those who gossip than elsewhere, it is only because life there is more tranquil (for various reasons, including unemployment). Conversely, in larger areas, where life is so fast, there is less gossip.
AND NOT BECAUSE those humans who live in cities would have been any better, if they were to live in a small community like that of Versilla.
I do agree with you, though, that ”cities of Late Capitalism have not brought about that expected emancipation”, unfortunately.
Contrary to what I may have led you to imagine, I would prefer tranquillity ‘senza’ gossip unlike the small community of Versilla did, whose story Min Webber chose,without malice, to misinterpret to substantiate his comments.
Maybe it’s time we gave up hope of the Catholic Church ever ceasing to insult human intelligence, sexuality and spirituality.
It’s not going to happen, simply because a book that was written 2000 years ago with a highly political agenda will not allow it to.
I’ve come to believe that the best thing we can do is to simply ignore these people (just like everyone ignores a five-year-old child when it throws a tantrum) until they see (hopefully) that that no one is listening and that no one gives a damn about their judgemental punishing god.
Anyone who’s frustrated at the Catholic Church’s disgusting hypocritical ways, check out Tim Minchin’s pope song on Youtube. A tiny bit of consolation is guaranteed.
From a psychoanalytic point of view, it is very interesting to note that the anger of mighty boosh is directed toward God the Father.
Even the nickname (“the mighty boosh”) is a direct reference to God (the Father) as law-giver. The reference is obviously to the semblance God (the Father) took when he appeared to Moses.
[Daphne – The Mighty Boosh is a BBC comedy about two zookeepers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/mightyboosh/ ]
The only snag in this symbolism is that the book which tells this story was written more than 2000 years ago – 5000 years ago.
The book written 2000 years ago tells of the Son.
And the Son brought with Him an update of the law Moses said he got from God (the Father).
The Son taught about Love.
Love can help people find the right way.
What is the Right Way? Hah, that’s a tough one.
Everyone has to find the Right Way within them.
The Catholic Church claims to be equipped to help people find the Right Way. One might disagree. Still one might also listen, and see for oneself what the CC is exactly saying.
To return to the pyschoanalysis of all of this: the Church is like a Mother.
Yes, but he could have chosen any other name. The choice of The Mighty Boosh coupled with the God-the-Father discourse is indicative.
[Daphne – Indicative of what? We’re talking comments beneath a blog-post.]
It is indicative of what motivates people like The Mighty Boosh. It is projection of the inner images and psychological relationship of the individual with his father and with his mother.
In this case, it seems very apparent to me that The Mighty Boosh is projecting unto the notion of a judgmental and punishing God-the-Father his fear of castration from his own “psychological” father (I’m sure his real father never wanted to castrate him). Likewise, it seems very apparent that he is projecting unto the notion of a Church which “insults human intelligence, sexuality and spirituality” his frustration at his “psychological” mother.
Since his Mother does not take his side against his Father – in the classical Oedipus Complex menage a trois – he is angry at her. He feels she is “insulting his intelligence, his spirituality and his sexuality.”
At the same time, he loves her a lot. So the anger combined with the love produces the frustration.
All this is coupled with the fear of castration (punishment) if the Father finds him guilty (judgmental) of harbouring so much love for his Mother.
This is what the choice of The Might Boosh as nickname and the God-the-Father discourse indicate.
[Daphne – Some people have a wild imagination. I think the more likely explanation is that lots of Maltese are so brainwashed into thinking of Catholicism as the only way that they think the sky will fall on their head if they b**ger off. So rather than b**ger off, they try to get the Catholic Church to change into something with which they are comfortable.]
Yes, I agree with your analysis of the “immature” relationship some people have with organized religion.
With regard to the “wild imagination”, you could be right – I was just offering a Freudian explanation.
My motivation is that unfortunately homosexuals seem to equate their subjectivity with objectivity, and this is worrying, as I shall try to say further down.
But there are many arguments against same-sex marriages which do not stem from religion. Freud, for instance, was atheist, and many psychoanalysts are atheists. Yet, they would explain homosexuality as a wish to remain faithful to the mother in the unresolved Oedipus complex.
Equating subjectivity with objectivity is worrisome. (By objectivity one means that which is viewed more or less the same by a community.)
Because if everyone’s subjective experience is taken to have equal weight, then there is no more space for what is acceptable and what is unacceptable: everything becomes acceptable.
This could lead to anarchy and a pre-civilized state of affairs.
By the way, nobody said that civilization is necessarily without its victims.
As Kissinger pointed out, one has to choose between order and justice.
This is what this discussion boils down to: order in society (normative hegemony) vs. justice (with the subjective world-view of minorities).
The Mighty Boosh refers to nothing and no one but the Roman Catholic Church.
As for the rest, I’m a she not a he. So you may wish to re-think your Oedipus Complex psychobabble. :D
Daphne, I buggered off a long time ago. I just hope that one day the Roman Catholic Church will have to keep its ‘no man shall lie with another man’ thing to itself. That when it comes to passing new laws, they will be based on democracy rather than on what’s written in the Bible.
“Psychobabble” is the foundation of much of advanced thinking done today. Deconstructionism and postmodernism draw water from the stream of psychoanalysis.
Ironically, The Mighty Boosh (who, by the way, I think is a man, despite the poker move! :D) might be right in this: “the Roman Catholic Church will have to keep its ‘no man shall lie with another man’ thing to itself”.
This would seem to be very much in line with the teachings of St Paul. It would seem that St Paul insisted on rules applicable to the Church but not to all of humanity, and the observance of those rules would save the members of the Church. In other words, whereas Paul wanted to convert as many gentiles as possible, he saw salvation as belonging only to Church members.
This teaching is also the Church’s teaching: salvation is achieved only through the Catholic Church.
In other times, it was considered necessary to convert people even against their wishes. The Crusade against the Baltic peoples comes to mind; idem Montsegur; and Augustine bribing the Emperor (with horses) to send in his troops to (literally) wipe out heretics. (The Vallodolid debate is also interesting in this connection.)
But this zeal to convert others seems to be un-Christian.
People should really be given the freedom to choose their religion, if any, and to practise it if they want to. (This seems to be the Orthodox view.)
The problem is that there is a very strong nexus between religion and law. And this has been the case since time immemorial.
It is very difficult to find a modus operandi for a secular society, a society, that is, which is not bound together by religion.
Experiments in this direction have ended up with the creation of the paradox of secular religions – see: Soviet Russia and the exaltation of Marxism as religion; Fascist Italy and the exaltation of the Nation-State as religion; Nazi Germany and the exaltation of the Race-State as religion; Liberalism and the exaltation of Human Rights as religion.
Real democracy – as The Mighty Boosh intelligently points out – is secularization. Whether human nature will allow it to flourish… that is an imponderable, to my mind.
Valladolid – corrigendum
Coup de main! Coup de main is the term I’ve looking for all morning!
It was not a poker move, but a docile coup de main!
You’ve made me laugh so much I think I’m in love with you! (rest assured I’m really a girl – and straight)
It’s hard to believe, and very charming, that you’ve spent a whole Saturday trying to come up with “coup de main”.
Goodnight :D
By the way, France has been a secular state since 1798 – that’s where your fundemental human rights come from – and it was also one of the three founding states of the European Union. So you might as well ditch your Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy etc. argument.
(Daphne, I promise this is the very last one from me. Sorry I’ve been a pain. Addio!)
[Daphne – You haven’t been a pain.]
Daphne, is your blog becoming a dating site? This made me really smile!
@ The Might Boosh: A pain?! Not at all!
However:
1. I still think you are a (very intelligent) homosexual man. Why? Because, among other things, I cannot but think of what Oscar Wilde said: “Women are like a sphinx without a secret”… and you seem to be a sphinx with a secret!
2. France really tries to be a secular State: it is in a pre-Fascist state (the fasces are still part of France’s national emblem: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Armoiries_r%C3%A9publique_fran%C3%A7aise.svg
Julius Evola and Fascist thinkers were locked in a debate on whether Italian Fascism was one of the sons of the French Revolution… It is not uncommon for many to hold this view.
There is an American-Jewish author who argues that Liberalism shares the same roots as Fascism…
Anyway, 3. People should be careful of falling in love on internet… listen to what Checco Zalone has to tell you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4F92uE2Blc :D
The Mighty Boosh series one was vaguely about zookeepers – there’s at least another 2 series which have nothing to do with a zoo.
It is absolutely brilliant – in my opinion – I have all 3 series on DVD.
It’s pure fantasy and – again, my opinion – knocks “The Office” and “Little Britain” into a tin hat.
Incidentally, I think “Boosh” is the Australian Bush here, not Moses’ burning bush.
To all the morons running blame_church.exe
I’m as atheist as atheist can be, but I am tired of the knee jerk reaction that is “Curse you evil conspiring Church for social norms and prejudices that have existed for eons before its founding!”.
Surprise surprise. A lot of militant atheists happen to not agree with same-sex marriages.
@CD.
You mean like marriage in general existed before its founding.
Yes, you’re right, atheists can be morons too.
Speak for yourself: if you’re atheist you know you have no divine right to impose your morality on others.
You’re an oxymoron.
This is a very interesting point.
Many Liberals think they have a right and – worse still – a duty to impose their morality (Liberalism) on others.
Is it really liberal to induce others to be liberal too?
@Gattaldo
What you said was yet another predictable knee-jerk reaction. And typical of knee-jerk reactions it was obviously elicited by no more than three neurons.
Allow me to give you yet another surprise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Rome
“The word matrimonium, the root for our own word for marriage, matrimony, defines the institution’s main function. Involving the mater (mother), it carries with it the implication of the man taking to woman in marriage to have children. It is the idea conventionally shared by Romans as to the purpose of marriage, which would be to produce legitimate children; citizens producing new citizens.”
Out of all the ancient civilizations, the Romans seem to be the only ones to have had a problem with homosexuality (as opposed to the Greeks, Egyptians, Mayans etc), even the Old Testament features a gay love story and a lesbian one.
What happened was that once the Roman Emperor Constantine took the persecuted Christians under his wing, Christianity’s teachings had to meet the Roman Empire propaganda standards i.e. anti-semitism, hatred of homosexuals, the promotion of slavery etc.
Keep in mind that it was the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus for speaking up against its injustices.
http://natgeotv.com.au/programmes/secrets-of-the-cross
The bible is just a hodgepodge of 600BC traditions, lore and religion of neighbouring cultures with a bit of bigotry unique to tribal living in the mountainous backwaters.
The area around Jerusalem back then was little more than the Aspromonte. The inhabitants could only watch invidiously as the neighbours were growing sophisticated societies and sometimes getting gobbled up by larger empires. Sometimes they were hired as mercenaries, a desperate measure to get money and see the world.
The Romans also had slaves, but then things changed. Things change all the time. What is your point exactly?
Plus, the function of marriage as described in your quote has less to do with nature per se, and more to do with regulating a population, creating order in a society so that inheritance and nationality can be defined, not to mention to keep in order who is a citizen and who isn’t. In fact that seemed in your quote to be the the ultimate purpose and not one to do with nature.
So where are you trying to go with this? Are all to use laws that were around during ancient Rome now?
Not only did you underestimate me but you also purposefully misinterpreted what I said (unless, that is, yours is a knee-jerk reaction). My only point was that marriage was not an invention of the Church. I never mentioned its etymology nor of the institution’s history.
Definitions change with time as have the institutions rules and regulations. We hardly still insist on marriage in manum (or not, for that matter). Some might even argue that connubium is these days granted between patricians and plebians. Etymology or history is a poor argument against the right for our relationship to be recognised on par with yours. Might I also volunteer that hiding behind another man’s name (even that of one we both admire) is not very becoming?
To reply to all comments that came my way:-
I am not talking about romantic love being what holds a family together, but there is no one who marries just anyone. Or if there is, it might very well be for the wrong reasons.
[Daphne – Ah, but you or I might consider the wrong reasons are actually the very reasons marriage was devised: money and children. You could as usefully argue that because the purpose of marriage has changed, then there is no longer any need for it. But no – the purpose of marriage has apparently changed only partially, because it is economic union which is at the forefront of the pressures for homosexual marriage (pension rights, property and so on). Is economic union a wrong reason or a right reason?]
Maybe our quest to find Mr/Mrs Right is in a sense making life harder for us, and maybe it is idealistic to expect a relationship that is all highs and no lows. I know that relationships are hard work, but you stick it because you love the person, and can express that love in a physical way. It is the physical that is just as important as the emotional.
[Daphne – Yes, when you’re in your 20s, and especially when you’re a man. But women of any age rank the emotional side higher, and the longer they live, both men and women rank emotional support and care far, far higher in importance than sex. ]
A gay man/woman might find it very difficult if not impossible to express that physical side. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, if the physical side of a relationship is not expressed, and the marriage is not consummated, then the relationship falls to pieces, and the people in the relationship go elsewhere to find what they need. I don’t know of anyone who looks for a relationship that has no physical intimacy in it.
[Daphne – A marriage that is not consummated is null and void. Both the civil court and the ecclesiastical tribunal will declare it as such. Something else: sex is not the only form of physical intimacy. In fact, it ranks pretty low on the list, and is often not a form of intimacy at all. Real expressions of physical intimacy (and if you see these you know everything about a couple’s relationship) are interlocked fingers when holding hands, picking up the other’s hand and pressing it to your cheek, and cradling the other’s head. This is classic body-language stuff. Sex can be totally loveless, as legions of women throughout history can witness. Where do you think the expression ‘Lie back and think of England’ came from? ]
Statistically it is near impossible for a gay man/ woman to be in a heterosexual marriage and remain faithful. It is so for a reason. But many people, when confronted with this fact, tend to stonewall and talk as if gay people think marriage is all fun and games when we don’t. This is not about fighting for our right to play dress up. It is fighting for our right to have what every straight person has. Getting married is a very special day for a person. That is why married people carry photos of their spouses around in their wallets, or have photos of their spouses in their office or study.
[Daphne – Nothing to stop anyone doing the same even if they’re not married. And don’t be fooled by the office photos. Many a pass has been made with just such a photograph looking on. In fact, the less a man loves and respects his wife, the more likely he is to put a very large framed photograph of her in a prominent position in his office. You don’t need to be reminded of the face of somebody you see every day. Wallet-pictures are private. The thing is, Edward, I know exactly what you mean. We differ on just the approach: you try to find reasons to justify gay marriage, and I think there is no need for such reasons, that trying to justify one’s arguments in a situation like this is essentially self-defeating because it colludes with the opponent. I used to become purple with irritation when women used to painstakingly explain why women are equal to men and why the family law making the husband head of the household and sole administrator of communal property should change. Imagine trying to explain why women should have a vote, for instance. It’s up to The Others to explain and justify why you should NOT get married to somebody of the same sex, and not up to you to explain why you should be able to. They are the ones who are obliged to explain themselves, and not the other way round. When you press home for a right, you should not explain why it is due to you. You should give your opponents a lot of space and time to explain why it is not due to you, thereby giving them enough rope to hang themselves.]
Secondly, like I said, the Cstholic Church cannot change everyone’s stance on homophobia, but many politicians and leaders express their reluctance to allow gay marriage because it goes against their morals. At least that’s what they like to say, even though it wouldn’t. If the Catholic Church didn’t condemn it the way it does, then they would not feel guilty about allowing gay marriage.
As for the atheists, I would love to hear what they have against the idea. Never heard of an atheist being against gay marriage. What arguments do they have that we haven’t heard and discredited already?
Ancient Greece (long before Christianity) practically institutionalised homosexuality, Sparta did so, and the Sacred Band of Thebes was formed entirely of homosexual couples.
In Sparta every Spartan HAD to have passed through this ritual, as otherwise they were considered incomplete.
Spartan husbands never stayed at home (until they retired) and only went to their wives to produce more Spartans, as they lived with their fellow soldiers. They had to marry by law to produce more Spartans!
The two kings and the ephors were not exempt from this!
Still, people of the same sex were still not allowed to marry because marriage was to produce children only!
Still, despite homosexuality being part of the culture, men were still not allowed to marry each other.
Good decision in my view. I cannot see how a same-sex relationship, could ever be termed as “marriage”. It deserves to be recognised as a form of legal partnership with respective rights and duties, but it can never equate with marriage, which is infinitely much more than that. Keeping religion out of it, you cannot just simply ignore nature and the primary purpose of any union between a man and a woman (i.e. procreation). The fact that some couples have problems with infertility or the lack of intention (of either or both parties) to procreate does not justify that same-sex relationships can have the same status as marriage.
I don’t get it. You say that gay marriage does not equate with marriage and yet you don’t actually give a reason. What is your reason. Why is it less when the same chemicals are at work, the same feelings are involved, the same problems arise, the same type of compromises have to be reached, the hurdles are encountered and the same promise is made? It s all the same. What is so different?
With the sincere honesty of not being sarcastic, condescending or prejudicial, all I have to say is ‘yawn’ to this blog-post and the subsequent debate.
I find it astonishing that we (myself included) have the genuine capability of really understanding and discussing such conundrums, while living in a country where there is no divorce for heterosexual separated couples who wish to remarry and simply can’t.
Laqwa li gejja (suppost) il-cohabitation law hawn Malta. Kemm ahna avvanzati hux?
Talk about running when we can’t even crawl, yet alone walk.
I adopted long ago the ‘I careth not for thy predicament, I’m doing nicely thank you, Jack’ attitude towards the local scenario.
It’s all become so rhetorical, that all I can do is yawn. My willingness to debate or discuss these issues has long since dwindled away.
There was another blog-post discussion somewhere where Daphne said that two people who really want the same rights as married couples (be they homosexual or separated heterosexual couples) can do so by use of a notary.
How true.
Anybody who wants to marry or bust is just after the ‘prestige’ of the word.
[Daphne – That’s right: and by using a notary, you can also dissolve all the rights of marriage while still being married. Notaries are king. Marriage is for public declaration of the status of a relationship or for those who don’t trust their partners not to run off with the cash and property. Cynical, but true.]
Well done, Alan. I am baffled why these people want a formal marriage when even heterosexual couples are shying away to tie the knot. The only reason I would object to accept gay marriage is the right to adopt children. I stand to be corrected but I think Spain is using this model.
Introducing gay marriage will also open a floodgate for pensions and other social security ‘rights’ which were never considered when our social security law was enacted. I can already see marriages of convenience to get the “widow’s pension” of some bachelor at the point of his death.
One thing that cannot be achieved through a notary are social security rights for cohabiting couples who wish to marry but can’t. Now here I expand on my original opinion.
I think it is highly unfair that if one of a couple (same or different sex) who have lived together for eons, dies, then the other has nothing to fall on. In a marriage, if one of the couple dies, the other can get pension rights etc.
[Daphne – This is a problem only because we live in a crazy island where women fully expect to live off their man and get his pension at the end of it. If you want a pension, you work. It’s as simple as that. In the Czech Republic, for instance, pension rights are non-transferable. There’s no need for them to be transferable because all the women work and they have their own pension. It’s a virtuous cycle: they are spurred to work because that’s the only way they will get that pension. I’m sorry, but I have no patience for the ‘pension rights’ argument. If a woman is lazy and silly enough to sit around without earning money while living with a man to whom she is not married, then she deserves everything that’s coming to her. The brutal truth – the one from which everyone wishes to escape – is that barring rotten bad luck and fatal accidents, we make our own beds. Exactly why, pray explain, should women who have worked hard all their lives see their national insurance contributions going to sustain women who have never worked because they couldn’t be fagged to do so?]
If the cohabitation-law-in-the-making gives the surviving partner that right, then I am all for it, for that reason alone.
John, what you are not taking into consideration is that pension rights etc come from making social security contributions throughtout a lifetime in the first place. When the contributer dies, the pension rights available to married couples should also be made available to the surviving partner of a cohabiting couple.
Of course, this does not vary my view that Malta should introduce divorce first, before whizzing off like a jack-rabbit on crack with cohabitation laws, and creating yet another oh-so-unique situation that we seem to love seeing in headline news world-wide.
Talk of a referendum for divorce ? What a load of nonsense. Just amend the civil code to allow the right to remarry for separated couples.
Didn’t hear any call for a referendum for cohabitation law, did we ?
Kollox bil maqlub ahna.
Alan , I am stating what the situation is – consider me as a reporter. I’m contributing ONE TENTH of my wage and the employer is contributing another ONE TENTH in my name.
I know that I’m going to be crude but we’re expected to fork out contributions to the stay home mother of a 12 year old and now we have to make good for the surviving spouse of a homosexual marriage.
When the pension system was introduced families had five or more children, nowadays a couple would have one or two children.
Homosexuals can do whatever they like but should not expect pension rights, because as Daphne rightly pointed out, not even the surviving spouse should expect to get a pension just because the other spouse died.
[Daphne – That’s right. That law was expressly for widows and not for widowers and was conceived in the days when married women did not work, and so would have needed their husband’s pension to survive. Now, when women can and do work, that system needs finetuning to stop women thinking of it as the default position, a system designed to absolve them from the need to think of pensions.]
I respect the right of homosexuals to get married, but let’s stop there – no frills from our overburdened social security system please, or perceived rights of adoption.
[Daphne – I think that people who argue that homosexuals need marriage because of transferable pension rights are missing the point that pension rights are only transferable in Malta when the other person does not have a pension of his or her own. So what are we saying here – that homosexual couples are planning to reproduce in marriage the 1950s model (2010 in Malta’s case) of breadwinner and housewife? If they’re both working, there are no transferable pension rights.]
Governments should encourage couples who can have children; we can’t afford watering and nurturing ornamental trees which can never bear fruit. I know I’m sounding crude and businesslike but this is what our politicians and economists discuss behind closed doors.
No matter how much icing we put on the bitter pill but financial realities must always be taken into account. There’s a limit to how much our finances can be stretched.
“Didn’t hear any call for a referendum for cohabitation law, did we?”
Cohabitation law was one of the electoral promises of GonziPN.
No one promised anything about divorce; it was avoided like the plague by both political parties in the last election. Only the co-opted Dr Joseph had some ‘courage’ to feebly attempt to present a private member’s bill in parliament on divorce, only to stealthily retreat it some months later.
As a citizen I can see divorce as the solution of some broken marriages, but like all so called solutions I find that this ultimate solution creates more problems than solve them.
Daphne, that is not true. If it were then no one would get married. Everyone knows marriage is hard. But there is no way anyone can deny that it is more than just to tie someone down.
[Daphne – I never mentioned tying anyone down, Edward. That is quite impossible. It was just a gentle reminder that the way people feel in their 20s is not the way they feel 20, 30 or 40 years later. It’s the men and women who, in their 40s and 50s, have the same expectations they had in their 20s who end up in trouble, ripping apart the lives of those around them. Marriage isn’t hard; it’s actually a comfort. If it were hard, nobody would do it. And when I say marriage, I don’t actually mean marriage, but a relationship of that nature. Marriage is just a formal contract. You can have the relationship without it.]
Mr Alan:
I careth not for thy predicament, I’m doing nicely thank you, Jack’
[Daphne – I’m not the one who said that. It was somebody else. I’m really not the sort to take that attitude, not at all.]
That is the most selfish attitude to take. Everything is fine as long as you are high and dry. And is that supposed to make the gay community go quiet on the subject? Just because you don t care? It won’t. No one is going to remain quiet on the subject just because you don’t care.
Daphne, I am always confused when having these type of discussions with you. You are not homophobic, and you claim to be in favour of allowing gay marriage, I believe you have expressed such opinions a few times before.
[Daphne – That’s right. But I also have an eye to the political and historical perspective, and can’t and won’t assess the issue in a vacuum, or see it simply as one of the Catholic Church versus homosexuals, because it isn’t that, at all.
Also, as a woman with a definite interest in attitudes towards women, misogyny, rights for women and the rest, I am hyper-aware of the issues at play here. I’ve said it before, several times, but it bears repeating yet again: homosexual men may be homosexual, but they are, above all, men, and that is what the law always saw first: the gender, rather than the sexuality.
Throughout history, men – regardless of sexuality – have had rights and autonomy of which women were deprived. The fact that homosexual men make such a damn fuss about not being allowed to marry is, essentially, because this is the first time ever they have had a head-on personal encounter with gross unfairness in the law and with being treated as less equal than others. Women of my age and upwards lived gross injustice as a way of life on all fronts. It was normalised. And far from viewing marriage as a right, marriage was something which actually deprived us further of rights, rather than adding to them.
To give you one example: the laws removing the power of married men to dispose of property jointly owned with their wife without her consent and even without informing her were introduced as late as 1993. Before that, a married woman could wake up one morning to find that she no longer had a roof over her head because her husband had sold the marital home which was jointly owned by the two of them, or that he had put it up as security to the bank for a loan and now the bank had foreclosed and a public auction was looming. I know of women who learned from advertisements in The Times that they were about to lose their home.
For the first years of my married life, I required my husband’s signature for every transaction that wasn’t cash. He did not similarly require my signature. I am 45, not 85. This is not the dark ages we are talking about, but the late 1980s and early 1990s. Women who lived through that are obviously going to bemused at the impatience of homosexual men who find their natural-born male sense of entitlement confounded for the first time. Haven’t you noticed that homosexual men are making more fuss about this than homosexual women? Homosexual women, at least those of my age and older, know what REAL discrimination is – because they are women, and not because they are homosexual.
There are women living in Malta today – yes, that generation is still alive – who had no vote. They lived as adults in a system which denied them a say in the choice of government and in how the country was run – because they are women. When homosexual men had a vote and full autonomy, women did not.
This is not to say that two wrongs make a right, but just to point out that the wrongs done to women were immeasurably more serious, and within the last two decades too, than the wrongs done to homosexual men. To put it bluntly, you can’t expect somebody who spent a year in traction with every bone broken to get worked up about somebody’s broken fingernail.]
But any effort to achieve those aims seem to be something to ridicule or belittle. You are in favour of the motion, but try and make fun of anyone fighting for it. It would be great if you would clarify what your stance on the matter is exactly.
[Daphne – Where have I mocked? I think you might be confusing my comments with those of somebody else. I do not think it is funny at all. Nobody is more likely to empathise with discrimination than somebody who experienced normalised discrimination against women and was expected to take it for granted. My point is that, because I experienced far worse discrimination than a denial of the ability to marry, I take a calmer approach. Let me just repeat it again, because obviously, younger people are not aware of this: when women married in Malta before 1993, we were deprived of more rights than we acquired. We actually lost our autonomy. How serious is that?]
Edward, I didn’t explain myself in my original post. I was not being selfish when I said I’m OK so f**k you Jack. You see, I speak from direct experience, having gotten around the idiotic local situation many, many years ago using a notary.
So can everybody else who wants to.
Ergo, I really can’t ‘tolerate’ the moaning from those who want marriage or bust with the sole excuse of obtaining the ‘rights’ that go with it.
Of course, everyone is free to ‘campaign’ for what they wish, but believe me, a more tranquil life is possible by DOING something concrete about it.
well said Alan, my thoughts exactly!
“The belief that there is such a thing as Mr or Ms Right is the root source of much misery in the contemporary developed world.”
Oh shit. I’ve been so blind. Then again, how can I force myself to accept Mrs So-Obviously-Not-Right? At the moment I’m more likely to find Mrs “right” in some impoverished village in Waziristan, wearing a burqa grateful for any man who thinks of her more highly than his donkey.
Life is a process of lowering one’s expectations. Once you’ve lowered them enough, it’s time to die, and it’ll be too late. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
[Daphne – Oh, you’ve got it at last, Baxxter! Congratulations. You know how they say that life isn’t a rehearsal? The moral of the story: GET ON WITH IT.]
Very true! Your comments reminded me of a rock band’s lyrics (Helloween):
“Life’s too short to cry, long enough to try”
Stefan Vella: ‘time flies, you have to be the navigator’.
I wish that we could stop referring to people who seek same-sex company by using ‘titles’. They are normal people and we should not be so selfish and hypocritical. Two of my best friends are of the same sex and they’ve been living together for over seven years and they’re the nicest couple I’ve ever met. My wife and I look at them as just another couple and going out and sharing life with them is just pure joy.
Min Weber: ”In morality, it is called incest. So, morality and biology seem to concur, etc, etc,”.
Marriage between siblings, is immoral, only because of the negative biological result of incest, that is why, they do in fact, concur, hence there exist limits, as to what two consenting adults may do.
There have been many instances when progeny of inbreeding were positive (siblings/mother-son) when animals, such as, dogs, cats or cattle. The latter, for example, achieved higher milk yields when it was known after repeat matings that one or both the parents produced true-to-type phenotypes. So there are many cases, when inbreeding has proved, time and time again, to be recommended. It is because, so far, it is not considered immoral, to a certain extenct, that such breeding may take place. Hence. there exist no limits, as to what animals may do, in this context.
It seems unusual, though not unheard of, for closely related members of a family to enjoy sex or with one another.
However, I think it is, only for biological reasons and because it seems perverse, and because of our beliefs, that it is so.
I couldn’t understand how, your conclusion, ”It follows that the “two consenting adults” rhetoric of homosexuals is not based on strong foundations” is related to the subject matter, especially because, incest or no incest, nothing is produced between, same sex couples.
Like you, I stand to be corrected, too.
I read an article, years ago where fertility doctors were warning people who wanted children to forget waiting for Mr Right and to settle for Mr Good Enough
Talking of today’s newspapers: isn’t it a shame what’s happening at the President’s Office? Would you have ever thought that there would be such a mess and irresponsibility in public funds? Is this the reason why there has been no conclusive decision about the behaviour of Magistrate Scerri Herrera?
Comic relief – mur arah fuq l-iskrivanija to Borg Olivier … http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100627/local/collectors-bid-for-late-prime-ministers-belongings
http://www.pn.org.mt/content/images/anton%20refalo.jpg
My point about the Romans and marriage was misunderstood. I just want to clarify that all I wanted to say was that marriage actually did exist before Christianity, so much so that the word for marriage is rooted in an ancient Roman one.
And for the proponents of same-sex “marriage” defending their views with the common knowledge that homosexuality was a social norm for ancient Greeks, it must be said that there were no same-sex “marriages” in ancient Greece.
The significance of this for the same-sex “marriage” debate? Null. As void as the fact that homosexuality was a acceptable behaviour for ancient Greeks. So it’s useless bringing it up.
Very interesting post.
For those of us who believe in non-discrimination, this judgment is wrong and I hope it is reversed on appeal (if it is appealed).
I hope so because, in Malta, only a decision by the ECHR can force government (any government) to introduce same-sex marriage in a country whose population is dead set against widening the right to marry to same-sex couples.
In Malta at present, even a woman who has changed her sex (from male to female) is not being allowed to marry her male partner, let alone same-sex couples.
One must also bear in mind that there is still substantial discrimination against, and stigma attached to, LGBT persons that, unfortunately, same-sex marriage is practically a moot point locally.
Energy and resources should be used to fight the widespread bullying in schools based on the (presumed) sexual orientation of students.
Same applies to youth clubs and organisations, even though in such organisations a bullied youth can leave. We also need to have an eye on the ‘values’ being transmitted to youngsters in so-called ‘religious’ voluntary organisations.
Europe-wide studies have shown that Maltese teenagers suffer most from bullying in schools and bullying is mostly based on sexual orientation.
Same-sex marriage (and divorce, presumably) is a noble goal, but we also urgently need practical measures for reachable goals such as convincing a good chunk of the population and of teenagers that being attracted to your own sex is not a choice and is normal for 5-10% of the population just like having green eyes.
@ Min Weber
“This teaching is also the Church’s teaching: salvation is achieved only through the Catholic Church.”
Actually, the “Church’s teaching” is that “salvation is achieved only through Jesus Christ” (for example, try reading Paul’s letter to the Romans 5:17).
Besides the “Catholic Church,” there are quite a number of other baptized Christians; and the ecumenism of the “Catholic Church” extends to all “faiths” and peoples, including agnostics and atheists. Even the Cistercian Thomas Merton, as a “Christian” monk, was renown for his rapport with Buddhism.
I am joining this conversation several days late. What Jesus Christ himself says is, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit” (John 10:1). While Jesus is the “gate,” he did not say that thieves and bandits could not climb in by another way: only, those who climbed in by another way were thieves and bandits.
We shouldn’t be too judgmental about who may be or may not be “saved.” Certainly, the Catholic Church does not teach that “salvation” only comes through “it.”
Of course, if you don’t “believe” in a God, or an afterlife, or the possibility of being saved from “sin,” then whatever impression you may have of religion or the “Catholic Church,” or the meaning of salvation, may not hold any particular value for you.
Apparently, you give some value to “psychoanalysis,” which has its own value [and as a psychologist, I appreciate both its contributions and its limitations], but I doubt that you understand psychoanalysis (or its many schools) anymore than the little you think you know about Christianity.
However, I also appreciate, given the variety of human circumstances, that people can be “put off” or “hurt” by what they perceive to be (or have experienced to be) the institutional Church or various other expressions of religious faith. You may or may not find “dialogue” with the church to be an acceptable path for yourself.
In general, I subscribe to the position that true religious faith and its practice is genuinely supported by rationality and reason. These are not hostile positions to be taken by rational people in a secularized world–even more so when secularism sometimes becomes dogmatic, uncritically intolerant of “religious faith” in principle. Truth is the highest value, especially if one is misguided.
@EC
Your gratuituous statement about my knowledge is belied by the axiom: extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
This is the official position of the both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.
This link might prove useful to a better understanding: http://catholicism.org/doctrinalsummary.html#3%29%20The%20Necessity%20of%20the%20Church
Going directly to biblical texts without the intermediation of a Church is a Protestant position (sola scriptura), possibly even a Christian fundamentalist one. The orthodox position is that the Holy Books plus Tradition together are the spiritual guide of the Christian.
You are either unaware of this or comfortable in “heretic” positions.
Which is fine by me. What is not fine by me is that you make a gratuitous statement without substantiating it.
WIth regard to psychoanalysis, all I can tell you is that it is a tool to find harmony within oneself – or so Freud taught. It might help homosexuals too to find harmony within themselves.
When the gay pride parade was being organized in Turin, in 2005, the Archbishop of that city had said that perhaps less “pride” might help… http://www.gaynews.it/view.php?ID=32874 To my knowledge, he was the first Church Prelate ever to give an audience to official Gay Pride representatives.
My scriptural observations are not gratuitous, but your original mis-statements about salvation through the church still stands.
Perhaps this link to John Paul II’s General Audience of 31 May 1995 will help: “All Salvation Comes through Christ.”
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19950531en.html
Yes, the axiom “extra ecclesium nulla salus” stated by St. Cyprian belongs to the Christian tradition. However, as the Holy Father notes, “It is important to stress that the way of salvation taken by those who do not know the Gospel is not a way apart from Christ and the Church. The universal salvific will is linked to the one mediation of Christ.”
I never suggested “going to biblical texts without the intermediation of a Church.” My statement was more precisely equivalent to the Holy Father’s topic: All salvation comes through Christ.
However, I referred to a scriptural argument, not because that seems the “Protestant” or even “fundamentalist” thing to do. Rather, the scriptures also point the way towards a broader inclusion than “Catholic Church” of what precisely is the “gate” of our salvation and the meaning of “church.” Certainly, the Church exercises an “implicit mediation also with those who do not know the Gospel.”
@EC
I think you are misquoting John Paul II. He was referring to: “And, in admitting that it is concretely impossible for many people to have access to the Gospel message, I added: “Many people do not have the opportunity to come to know or accept the Gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions” (RM 10).”
He is referring to people who live in non-Catholic communities. So your comment is ab initio irrelevant to the Maltese context.
John Paul II specifically mentions “social and cultural conditions” not “personal convictions.”
Your argument that the Pope said that there is salvation even outside the Church, through the mediation of Christ, is not valid because it is taken out of context.
John Paul II was referring to people who cannot physically be part of the Church because the Church is not present in their surroundings – due to social or cultural reasons.
In Malta, this is certainly not the case.
In Malta, it is actually the other way round. For social and cultural reasons the Church is perhaps too present in our lives – thereby not giving us the real choice.
This is where Daphne is 1000% correct: when she argues that people want an a la carte Church membership. Those who cannot accept Church teachings, should not try to mould it to their liking, but just leave.
On the other hand, there are those who want society to de-Christianize itself because they believe that their particular predicament cannot be solved because of the anthropological Christianization of their society. E.g., the homosexuals think that States do not enact laws to regulate homosexual marriages because of Christianity. This argument is patently invalid, as many non-Christians (including atheists and agnostics) do not wish to have laws enacted to regulate homosexual marriage – as they consider such a union as being outside the definition of marriage.
On the other hand, homosexuals might want to approach the Church and try to learn from her teachings – showing less pride, and projecting less their Oedipux complex on God the Father through God the Son, thereby confirming what John Paul II said namely that salvation comes through Christ, the Son.
@Min Weber
“With regard to psychoanalysis, all I can tell you is that it is a tool to find harmony within oneself – or so Freud taught. It might help homosexuals too to find harmony within themselves.”
I am returning to this second issue, which I also feel that I must address. My concern is not to take up whether or not psychoanalysis itself is useful or not for anyone to “find harmony within oneself.”
Rather, more central to issues raised throughout the ongoing discussion, whether by yourself or by others within this section of the blog, pertains to homosexuals finding harmony within themselves in relation to the Catholic Church, which seems to me to be a source of tension and pain for many homosexuals, who may feel estranged from the Church, let alone from a great number of society that calls itself “Christian.”
No where does Christ ever condemn or criticise homosexuality (although St. Paul writes against it in his letters from his cultural perspective). But, most centrally for this topic, Christ provides us with this statement: “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can” (Matthew 19:12).
Homosexuality is not a disorder, but a biological condition, and a minority condition in the population not well respected or understood by many a heterosexual majority, Christians or not. Christ admits that “there are eunuchs who have been so from birth,” and, in my personal and professional opinion, that includes a great majority of homosexuals. One’s biological condition regarding sexual orientation in itself is not a sin or a disorder, nor is it to be condemned, anymore than skin colour or eye colour or handedness.
As for finding harmony within oneself, that is an intrinsic tasks for everyone, whoever each individual person is, including whatever traits may distinguish, and sometimes separate us from others who may be less tolerant of certain differences, homosexuality among them. In this regard, psychoanalysis may or may not be useful for anyone, or any other type of “insight therapy,” without any suggestion of disorder or deviance implied for “homosexuals” or others.
As for the Church and homosexuality, Christ himself never condemned it, nor did it ever figure among his miracles and cures. For obvious reasons, it seems to me. It seems (in my opinion), that instead Christ was clearly very welcoming and accepting of homosexuals, along with the other classes of “eunuchs” he mentions.
On a personal note, I am not homosexual; but one of my fours sons is, and from his experience I am acutely aware of the societal and personal issues he faces. We all have our own issues of self-acceptance; but from the perspective of Christ, it seems Christ already has accepted homosexuals before many homosexuals have yet to accept themselves.
It is too bad that much of society is often less accepting; and the human Church sometimes is part of that less-accepting society. But society, along with the Church as it strives to do, should make their attitude one with Christ.
According to my scriptural argument, homosexuals are equally welcomed by Christ, along with the rest of us; and everyone of us has sinned. But no one sins because one is homosexual, whether born that way (biological argument) or made that way by others (social argument). It would also seem, by reference to the same scripture above, that Christ was providing reasons for persons not to marry, including homosexuals (“eunuchs”).
@ EC
I think your view would qualify as “heretic”; also you are misquoting.
1. Christianity – for many reasons which we need not enter into here – is not based only on what the four synoptic Gospels say. It is based on other traditions, including what Paul wrote (or is attributed to him). Therefore, quoting only the Gospels is almost “heretic.” Surely, it is not a complete approach.
2. You are misquoting Jesus. Jesus says “eunuchs” not “homosexuals.” “Eunuchs” are men who are either castrated or incapable of reproduction. Homosexuals are usually neither. Therefore, your argument that homosexuals = eunuchs, therefore Christ is exhalting homosexuality, is invalid.
3. Admittedly, however, there is a strange passage in Mark 14:51-52 which some have interpreted as a reference to homosexuality, while others as the fulfilment of a prophecy found in Amos (2:16). Be that as it may, it is clear from the Genesis story, that intimate companionship was meant for Man and Woman. This has been the living Judeo-Christian tradition. This would also be the context of Jesus’ reference to “eunuchs” – men who could not really enjoy the company of women, not because they are homosexual but because they cannot perform or impregnate. However, the passage you quote is very controversial. Some see it as evidence that Jesus was an Essene. But we can say what it is not. That passage – unlike the one I’ve just mentioned – is certainly not approving homosexual behaviour. Rather it would seem to approve non-sexual behaviour.
4. Now I am realizing that perhaps you do not understand Italian. In the link I indicated above, which connects you to a gay website, there is a quotation from the Archbishop of Turin who insisted on the respect the Church shows individuals, and on the Church’s concomitant condemnation of the ostentation of a certain type of behaviour. To be sure, the Church does not condemn only homosexual practices as sin, but many other behaviours too. Still, the Church obeys (or in theory should obey) Christ’s order to forgive endlessly, on condition that the sinner repents. That is the code of the Church – those who do not like it, may leave.
5. The biology-psychology debate as the origin of homosexuality is growing old. I would tend to agree with the evolutionary psychologists that the basis of homosexuality is not biological. But of course, we do not as yet know for sure, and it is only presumptuous to think that we know everything.
6. Your son’s sexual orientation makes your position uncomfortable, and that I can fully understand. My own son is still very young, so I do not know what her future holds in store – but I can understand your feelings as a parent. Still, personal feelings should not obfuscate the understanding of the rules of general morality.
Let me give an example by hyperbole. The father of a murderer cannot claim that murder is fine, just because his son is a murderer. Now I do realize that the example is strong – and I am not implying (actually I am against) that homosexual practices should be criminalized again. I am referring to attitudes. You are an intelligent man and you understand what I mean.
Of course, I cannot but respect you for your honesty. Despite my respect, I cannot however agree with you on your interpretation of Christianity.
7. Where I can and do strongly agree with you is that true Christians should not hurt others, whether they are sinners or not: John 7:53 – 8:11 comes to mind. Here the Church has a lot to answer for. When the Church held temporal power, it abused of it and literally burnt at the stake those whom she considered sinners. Later, she carried out social obliteration of such people. To my understanding, in this the Church failed the twin commandments of her founder: to forgive and to love.
8. In conclusion. I’m sorry, but I cannot ever be convinced that gays should be allowed to marry. They can be allowed to live their orientation if they do not want to try and evolve it to heterosexuality – it’s their choice, and I respect it. But their choice cannot be imposed on others who do not want the heterosexual basis of the institute of marriage to be changed or “polluted” – be it for religious or other reasons. For sure, gays should not be punished for being gays. They should be encouraged to evolve. Above all, they should be loved – like everybody else, after all.
The idea, however, that whatever feels good for you should be fine for everybody is a very perverted idea, which draws general rules from the particular. It’s like saying that because all mice are animals, then all animals are or should be mice. This is not only a fallacy, but a very dangerous reasoning. It is akin to reasoning such as: all Christians are people, therefore all people should be Christians. Very, very fascistic, to my mind. The alternative is more humane (and therefore more Christian!): all Christians are people, all people may be Christians (if they want to).
Actually, no logical reasoning can ever lead to any other conclusion but the one I am advocating: namely marriage can only be heterosexual. Because this is a contingency, that is, a matter which can only be determined by reference to facts. It is a fact that two men cannot reproduce. Therefore, two men cannot marry – as marriage is an institute (whether human or divine, that’s another story) aimed at the reproduction of the species.
(This is the Catholic view, among others. It is only coherent that the Catholic Church does not allow divorce. If companionship were a priority on reproduction, then the Church would allow it; given that reproduction is a priority on companionship, it does not.)
Homosexual practices allow the gratification of the reproductive instinct without allowing it to bear fruits. Not because the “sperm donor” cannot donate his seed (like the eunuch), but because the “sperm receiver” does not have the apparatus necessary to allow the seed to achieve its finality. (We are not saying here that the apparatus is faulty – to address those who compare homosexual couples to infertile heterosexual ones – but to the absence of an adequate reproductive organ on the receiving end.) Whereas the gratification can be allowed, it cannot be legitimized, as legitimization of such gratification comes from the ethic of reproduction. You can enjoy sex because it leads to reproduction. This is not from a Catholic source, but from a book on evolution!
Now, evolutionists tend to say God does not exist! There I start to lose track.
@Min Weber
Returning to our original issue, you stated: ““This teaching is also the Church’s teaching: salvation is achieved only through the Catholic Church.”
Clearly, you are mis-stating the Catholic position, let alone the “Christian” position, which admits that the mediation of all salvation is through Christ. Yes, the mediation of “Christ” and “church” goes hand in hand with salvation. But it is pattenly false to equate “church” with the “Catholic Church,” as you do.
The idea of the Pope’s linking statement between salvation through “Christ” and “church” is that “Christ brings about salvation through his Mystical Body, which is the Church.” The Mystical Body of Christ is a spiritual union and it cannot be equivalent solely to the institutional “Catholic Church.”
The Mystical Body of Christ certainly extends to “non-Catholic” Christian communities, even those in Malta. Nor is this matter of “non-Catholic” communities irrelevant “in the Maltese context,” just because of Malta’s largely socio-cultural Catholic influence, accessibility, or hegemony.
For example, are we excluding Anglican and Baptist communities from union with Christ? Do we make such judgments as “all-or-none” or according to “degrees of Christian separation” from the “Catholic Church”?
Then, in Malta, besides other religious cultural minorities: Buddhists, Moslems, Seventh Day Adventists; or in larger numbers there are secularists, atheists, or nominal (cultural) Catholics, or those feel estranged from the church. Who is or is not in Christ, according to what actually is the “Mystical Body” of Christ?
John Paul II states, “the gift of salvation cannot be limited to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church.” At the same time, also true, John Paul II denies the relativitic position: “that a way of salvation can be found in any religion, even independently of faith in Christ the Redeemer.”
I have never adopted the so-called relativistic position, but your notion of “church” as “Roman Catholic” is limited. The Pontiff does distinguish between: (1) those who have not received the Gospel proclamation, and (2) “those who are not ignorant of the fact that the Church has been established as necessary by God through Jesus Christ.” You presume Malta to fall into the latter category, because of its Catholic cultural hegemony.
But the overriding issue is the relationship between “Christ” and “church,” and I have known some very vehemently “anti-Catholic” Protestants, secularists, and atheists, who none-the-less may reflect (in my view, and perhaps in Christ) the values of Christ, sometimes only too well to be regarded as beyond the “Mystical Body” just because they may not visibly belong to the “Catholic Church.”
I think John Paul II’s statement for the link I had provided in his first paragraph (not to the exclusion of its total context) supports my general position regarding this mystery of salvation:
“We have not been given the possibility to discern the mystery of God’s action in minds and hearts, in order to assess the power of Christ’s grace as he takes possession, in life and in death, of all that ‘the Father gives him,’ and which he himself proclaims he does not want to ‘lose.'”
@EC
John Paul II was a very intelligent man. And his intelligence had the constant aid of another brilliant man – Cardinal Ratzinger, now his successor.
His words therefore admit of many levels of interpretation.
To my understanding, John Paul was excluding any limitation on God’s grace and powers. If God’s grace were to be limited by the Church, then God would not be omnipotent and therefore not God. (To put it in a very simplistic way.)
So, John Paul’s words can mean that – wittingly or unwittingly – non-Catholics can live God’s law even if they are do not members to the Church.
But the point is not whether the active, conscious membership of the Church is the pre-requisite to attain God’s grace. Once again, if membership of the Church were to be a pre-requisite to attain God’s grace, then God would be subservient to the membership of the Church, and that too is untenable.
The point therefore, is not of the Church being the ticket booth to Paradise, but the Church being the interpreter of the laws of God.
And here, I think I am correct when I say that it is only the Catholic Church which – for Catholics – can give the correct interpretation of the laws of God.
Catholics cannot accept that non-Catholics can be correct interpreters of the laws of God. This doctrine finds its apogee in the highly controversial ex cathedra dogma, into which we need not enter here and now.
John Paul could not therefore have been saying that salvation can be achieved by accepting the interpretation of God’s laws given by institutions other than the Catholic Church. What he meant was that non-members of the Catholic Church who, however, live their lives in conformity with the rules which emanate from the Catholic Church’s interpretation of God’s laws can achieve salvation (through Christ) despite their non-membership of the Church. Need that conformity be conscious? Probably not.
The Church, as mater et magister, is she how nurtures her sons and daughters and teaches them the way. This the reason why the Gospels by themselves do not suffice to find the way – because the Gospels are mere renditions of some of the many traditions of Early Christianity. The orthodox traditions were sifted by the Church, and those traditions were presented as the basis on which the Christian way of life can be constructed.
However, the Church realized that Man’s relationship with God is ongoing – it is a living relationship. The Church believes that God’s laws can be discovered and interpreted with the passage of time.
This is not to say that the laws of God are not immutable – they are immutable and eternal, but they are discovered by Man – either through revelation or through observation or through other means – little by little, and when fact-situations bring forth the necessity to find new norms which try to approach as much as possible God’s eternal, immutable Laws.
Therefore, I think I have to repeat that the position you are taking is, in the eyes of every real Catholic, heretic.
Salvation lies only with the Catholic Church, not in membership per se, but in adopting a lifestyle inspired by or in conformity with the teachings of the Church which attempt to bring Man as close as possible to God.
If I may return to psychology, one might here quote Jung and his description of Christ as the Archetypal Man.
@Min Weber: Monday, 5 July at 0119hrs
I thought that I better specify which post this is a reply to, as some readers may start to need a road map, and my 4 July at 1939 hrs follows this series, to which it applies. In my last post, I had returned to our original issue for the second time, regarding the theological problem of your equating salvation through “Christ” and “church,” with “the Catholic Church,” and not the “Mystical Body” of Christ, which is a broader configuration inclusive of “Non-Catholics” who may or may not be Christian, and who are not obviously members of the “Catholic Church.” My view is articulated by Pope John Paul II.
Now, in this post, I am returning for the second time to the second issue between us, regarding my scriptural observations regarding what I claim to be a positive attitude of Christ regarding homosexual persons. I don’t know, from your general claim, where you find me “misquoting.” And if you consider me to be a “heretic,” I don’t mind the charge, if you also keep in mind that the Pharisees and scribes leveled the same charge at Christ, without understanding him. Christ just kept on explaining, and eventually dying.
For practical purposes, since you have adopted something of a point form in your post, I will respond according to your post by your section numbers, although I hope to be concise and efficient; your enthusiasm is amply displayed by your long rebutals.
1. There are three synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke), not four; while John’s is the fourth gospel. I have not dismissed Paul (or ignored him, but I have set him apart momentarily, and for now). Given the evangelization by Paul and his close collaborations with Mark, Luke, and John, Paul’s theologies are so profound and similar to Luke and John, that Paul’s letters (or commentaries and elaborations) on the gospel (as there is only one Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ), are as if Paul may be considered a fifth evangelist.
The New Testament is not complete without all its books (that’s why they are there); and we do have tradition. But we also have an evolution in our Christian understandings, or else why have a Holy Spirit? Christianity is not frozen, but it is a dynamic living “Body of Christ,” whose salvation for us is an action towards a “New Creation.” While salvation has been accomplished by Christ, its action in us is still evolving.
2. I am not misquoting Jesus. The verse (Matthew 19:12) is the New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition. Yes, Christ did not say “homosexuals” where it is written “eunuchs.” But the application is made metaphorically, and specifically to reasons why some do not marry, in the context of the Lord’s discussion about divorce. I never said Christ was exualting homosexuality–which is a matter of sexual orientation and sexual preference. What I said was implied by Christ’s statement is: that Christ implicitly acknowledged “homosexuals,” the persons (who were born that way); and he accepted them; he did not try, nor would want to change them; but he encouraged them to accept who they are by nature’s design by God, and to live their lives according to his gospel; for there are a variety of “eunuchs,” including those we recognize as celibate.
3. I did not say Christ was approving or disapproving of homosexual behavior; what I precisely said was, Christ seems to be approving of homosexual persons, even welcoming them, I would add towards the Kingdom of heaven. Christ is making an explicit approval of non-sexual behavior, for those who can accept it. Even St. Paul approved, but Paul also says (1 Corinthians 7:36) regarding a heterosexual couple: “If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his fiancee, if his passions are strong, and so it has to be, let him marry as he wishes; it is no sin. Let them marry.” In logical terms, the same problem may exist for a homosexual couple; and some of us might assert logically, and rightly by logic, that homosexuals ought to be entitled to the same privilege of their respective biologically determined sexual orientations.
4. I don’t have a problem with my Italian; I don’t speak it, but I understand it and follow Italian TV; I have five years of Latin, and four years of Spanish, and a bit of German, all at university level, with secondary level French. My wife lived in Spain; we both travel in Italy; and when my wife is guiding tourists in Spanish (and understanding Portuguese), French, Italian, and English–and we use Maltese at home–I understand all of my wife’s tours. No, the problem (?) in this case, is that I didn’t bother to read the Bishop of Turin post, because it was unnecessary at that time. Given your exclusionary position about “code of the church” and “those who don’t like it may leave,” I would suggest that your position is more dogmatic than compassionate or understanding. Unfortunately, many have left the church when they have not found the compassion of Christ; on the other hand, I have also found some Christian and Catholic communities to be very receptive of “Gays.”
5. The “biology-psychology debate” is only “growing old” depending upon your perspective. I can provide research by John Money and others who show the biological position to be a strong theory, not a weak hypothesis; and this in contrast to psychoanalytic theories, among others, that attempt to give primacy to environments. I have taught developmental psychology at university level for twenty years, not to mention other relevant courses.
6. You have no idea how I actually feel about my homosexual son: it is not “uncomfortable,” as you suggest. Quite the contrary, when he told me, everything finally made sense–it always had been there, but I had dismissed it. He is one of the most sensitive, socially-perceptive, insightful, artistic, spontaneous, and meticulous persons I have known, ever since he amazed me even at three years-of-age; today he is thirty-two. His three brothers understood him before I ever did. If anything, I have always been honest; the last thing I would want to be would be a hypocrite.
7. The question here is, who is forgiving and loving whom. We all need forgiveness and love. But homosexuals do not need to be “forgiven” for how God made them. We do need to be forgiving and loving towards all those whom we may not understand, and whom we may hurt, intentionally and unintentionally.
8. My ideas are not based upon my feelings, although they are not without feeling. I am a very rational and analytical person, some would say too much so (in my previous marriage). My second wife and I were married in the church less than two years ago, after a civil marriage of twelve years. When we were married in the church, there was no issue, or requirement, for primacy for “children” between us as a couple; we were long past child-bearing years. People get married for companionship and legal reasons. The primary reason people get married–not the ideal reason according to the romantic concept of marriage–or the child-bearing concept of marriage–is economics. Hopefully, those who marry in the church also do so as a commitment to their covenant with each other. I am also supportive of gay-marriage, but not from a religious standpoint; but from the position of human dignity.
@ EC
I must tell you it is a privilege to exchange opinions with someone like yourself, even though I disagree with much of what you say. Also, I would like to thank Daphne for being kind enough to allow and actually host this epistolary exchange of sorts. It does her a lot of credit – particularly considering there is a site elsewhere aimed at inciting hate toward her.
I shall react to your post 5 July 2047 HRS, point by point:
1. With regard to John Paul II, I think we are saying basically the same thing – i.e., the Mystical Body of Christ is made of Catholics and non-Catholics. Where we seem to disagree is on the “monopoly” the Catholic Church holds on the interpretation of God’s law, for Catholics. You cannot – by definition – be a Catholic and consider non-Catholic interpretations of God’s law as binding.
2. I consider you a “heretic” from the Catholic point of view – just like Luther, and all the others. Your views are – to my understanding – not orthodox; therefore, by definition, heretic.
3. You are right: there are THREE SYNOPTIC gospels – I meant to say the FOUR CANONICAL gospels (as opposed to apocrypha: lapsus due to the hour of writing… I should be sleeping in the wee small hours of the morning, but there I was instead, and still am, pontificating on the Gospels!
“The evolution in our Christian understanding” (as you rightly put it) is the living tradition – this is the Catholic position. On this too we agree.
4. I still would not agree with you on Matthew 9:12. I think you are imposing a meaning on the word “eunuch” which it cannot bear. Do you really think Christ is there saying that eunuchs should not marry but still engage in sexual relations? I think that Christ is there talking about celibacy. Sexual orientation has really nothing to do with this passage – it is sexual activity which is being targeted here. There might be a hidden logic in the sense that reproduction seems to be the result of Death having been introduced into humanity’s existence by disobedience – it is doubtful whether without Death there would have been the need to procreate. Procreation seems to be a temporary way of cheating Death. (The permanent way is through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection leading to Eternal Life at the end of times.) Thus celibacy might be seen as a return to Innocence before the Fall – so much so that a couple of lines further down, Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven belonging to children. There was among the Fathers of the Church an argument saying that Adam and Eve were like children.
I am sure Jesus accepts homosexuals, as he accepts heterosexuals and all those who exhibit different types of sexuality. What he does not accept is the sinful living of one’s sexuality. Given that sex is for procreation, homosexual practices are sinful. Being homosexual is not sinful in itself; giving vent to that orientation, is. Christianity is a faith based on self-sacrifice. Forgiveness is one of the hardest sacrifices one can impose on oneself: when someone hurts you, you would want to pay them back, and their family till the seventh generation, with interest to boot. Jesus tells you to forgive: in other words, to overcome your impulses. The same holds for homosexuality, and a myriad other behaviours.
5. Your argument in point 3 begins from the conclusion and moves on to the premise. The closing limb of the last sentence should have been the opening phrase, as it serves as premise to your argument. Once again, this sentence is a contingency, and therefore the rest of the argument is invalid, as you still have not proven the veracity of what you claim to be a fact and which serves as the real premise of your argument.
6. To be fair, you do try to prove this factual veracity in point 5, but you fail to attain your goal, not because you have argued invalidly, but because you did not present any relevant facts! The only fact you present is that you have taught developmental psychology for 20 years. Whereas that might be true (there is no reason to doubt your word), it is completely irrelevant: there is no nexus between your 20 years teaching career and the strength of the biology theory. In his The Remarkable Rocket, Oscar Wilde writes about the Catherine Wheel who believes that by repeating the same thing over and over again, that thing becomes true!
To my mind – but these are all opinions, and nobody will know the truth till the end of the world! – psychoanalysis is stronger than so-called biology because it is in tune with evolutionary thought. It simply does not make evolutionary sense to have homosexuals. At least, I have never met anyone who came up with such an argument. I might – for argument’s sake – make such a proposition myself: homoeroticism might help in times of physical attack, when same-sex love would instigate taking risks which cost one’s life. Thus humans might have evolved homosexuality for better warfare. But I have never – so far – encountered any such argument, except indirectly when Bill Clinton (if I am not mistaken) was on his way to allow homosexual recruits to join the US army.
7. With regard to your Italian – ok now I understand – couldn’t have known before, obviously. It was however necessary to read what the Archbishop had said, as he said very clearly that the Church accepts homosexuals (but not homosexual behaviour).
There is compassion in the Church’s position, and in mine. I do not want homosexuals to go to prison for being homosexuals or for engaging in homosexual behaviour. Or worse still, to be eliminated (as the Nazis tried to achieve). Or even to be simply beaten up, for being queer. I am strongly against such attitudes – and actually decry them. Those who lack compassion are the homophobes. I am not a homophobe. But I am not pro-same-sex marriage, either. The world is not black vs white (homophobes vs same-sex marriage enthusiasts). There is always a third way: tolerance. I tolerate homosexuals but I don‘t think they should get married. I think the majority is of this opinion. To my understanding, it is an enlightened majority opinion. Up till the 70s, homosexual conduct lead to imprisonment (if found guilty). A 100 years ago, the spirit of one of the brightest and more agile minds in Britain was broken by a two-year stay at Reading Goal.
8. I must admit I am struck by paragraph 6. And I will tell you why. Many years back, I attended a course at The Hague and rented a room in an old woman’s house. I used to spend the first part of my evenings talking to her in her sitting room, before retiring to my room to study. She once told me how she came to terms with her father’s sexual abuse and with her son’s homosexuality. Her words still ring in my ears, as if she were talking to me now: “I phoned-in on a radio programme and told them my story,” she said. She told me she had always suspected her son was homosexual – ever since he was three! She told me he was so delicate, so precise, so artistic, so girlish. He is now an accomplished violin-player with an important orchestra, who plays sonatas and other pieces with soul-touching virtuosity and graciousness. Needless to say, I am struck due to the similarity with what you have related.
But, then again: at which age does the Oedipus Complex take place according to Freud? Of course, you can present a counterargument based on causality, and I would appreciate that position – though I would not be convinced.
9. We all need love and forgiveness. Yours truly, for instance, needs loads of forgiveness for the harm he has caused others, often times, but not always, unwittingly.
Homosexuals who engage in homosexual carnal relations need forgiveness, like the adulteress, the husband who cheats, the womanizer, the gigolo… and the rest of humanity, yours truly included. Homosexuals are not special; they are humans like the rest of us.
10. Human dignity has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. Marriage – as someone else pointed out in this blog – is the institute for child-bearing: MATRI-monium. People get married to have children. Economically, I do not really think marriage makes sense: it entails a lot of investment, moneywise and emotionally. On the other hand, divorce does not make too much economic sense, either. Actually and in a weird sort of way, Paul is right: if you’re married when you read this letter of his, do not divorce; if you’re unmarried, stay that way! It makes a lot of economic sense not to change your civil status. You change it (by contracting marriage) because you want to procreate. (With the breakdown of families brought about by the atomization of society, people want to procreate without marrying. Still, they want to regulate their non-matrimonial marriage!! Why? Because of the heavy investment involved in bearing and rearing children. Once again, this is evolutionary science, not religion!)
Denying two people of the same sex the legal vehicle to enter into a contract whose main feature is child-bearing, does not in the least diminsh their human dignity. As much as not allowing me to inherit George Soros or Silvio Berlusconi does not dimish my human dignity. Short of an express mention in their respective wills, there is no reasonable argument on which I can base my claim to inherit those two people; similarly, homosexuals have no reasonable argument on which to base their claim to marriage (i.e. a child-bearing contract). Human dignity is diminished when you are denied something you are reasonably entitled to. I can inherit neither Soros nor Berlusconi because I am not their offspring or relative (a fact); gays cannot marry because they are not of different sexes and cannot therefore reproduce (a fact).
This argument is similar to the argument used in the United States to deny judicial review to would-be migrants whose visa applications are turned down. The argument runs that no right of the would-be migrant has been trampled upon, since ab initio would-be migrants have no right to enter the United States. (There is a technical argument on the nature of visa decisions which we need not enter into here.) The analogy holds to my understanding: marriage being for child-bearing automatically excludes persons of the same sex to marry. They may cohabit, but they may not have the same legal situation as people who have the complementary physical organs necessary to procreate (whether in or out of order). Since you informed us of your knowledge of Italian, you might wish to watch a movie with Paolo Villaggio and Renato Pozzetto in which the two comedians – tactfully, neatly but incisively – portray a homosexual couple who realizes they don’t have what it takes to adopt a child.
11. That marriage is not for companionship but for child-bearing is proven by the fact that if you go round our towns and villages, you will find kazini and band-clubs full of men drinking beer and discussing football, politics, women, as well as gossiping on the Mayor, the Parish Priest, and the local MP. (The Casino Maltese – Valletta and Sliema branches – are likewise the refuge of men from their wives.) You will also find men staying up late in their garages fiddling with the car, or watching TV without talking to their wives. You will find women in kitchens cooking or supervising their children’s homeworks, or watching soap operas on TV, or on the phone with their mothers. Wenzu u Rozi is the typical husband-wife relationship: Wenzu spent more time with Kurun than with Rozi.
Only a small fraction of marriages are based on a real friendship between man and wife; many marriages are based on mere sexual attraction – despite the Cana Movement obligatory courses which are taken seriously only by the very few.
On the other hand, if we take Margaret Mead’s observations as accurate, one’s third coupling would be for friendship. It would seem that in old age, man and woman get closer on the hormonal level: men have less testosterone and woman more (they start growing light moustaches).
12. I am deliberately avoiding to address the latent (I use the word deliberately) connotations of “my enthusiasm” as at best they would betray a contradictory position on your part, and at worst, being a Southern European, I would consider them highly offensive.
@Min Weber
As we conclude this exchange, I have only two (three) quick points.
The first, pertaining to your first paragraph of point 10. I believe that same-sex marriage has everything to do with human dignity, and that’s why I fully support it. Also, (second), the economic argument against divorce as a rationale for support of marriage can never be supported by evolutionary science. When one gets divorced (or should I say, when a man gets divorced and the ex-spouse gets her “half” or “whole” of what the man formerly had economically), it is, from an economic point of view, evolutionary nonsense. I’ve been there, done that. However, divorce makes total sense (from the Gospel’s radical point of view on posessions when you give them away: there is no security in them) when personal well-being and the ultimate well-being of the family requires it. Been there, done that. So, I entire support civil divorce for Malta.
And lastly, regarding your point 11. Your argument against companionship, but for marriage as essentially for child-bearing, is entirely without foundation in any reality or logic. If so, marriages would be equivalent to baby-factories, and the “better” marriages would resemble the woman who lived in a shoe.
Yes, unfortunately, the traditional separation of men and wives as observed in the typical Maltese scene occurs all the time. Fortunately, I can say my own (second) marriage is based upon real friendship and respect, and my wife and I entirely exclude that “traditional” social separation, and our individual responsibilities is not governed by traditional gender roles. We give absolute priority to our “everything as a couple” and full support to our “individual and mutual requirements.” Obviously, when there are children, parents have to give them their priorities, where everyone (children and parents) should be respected.
I would suggest for every Cana class: that is the kind of dedication every married couple should have for one another. Unfortunately, it is not the case; and there, perhaps, we have the core reason for the individual and social “breakdown” of marriages. Individuals and society itself often are intrinsically non-supportive of marriage.
Well, I tried; but my two (then three) points is growing….growing…yes, there is another last point, regarding your point 12. My wife can explain to me your point; she is Mediterranean.
But, as for “contradictions,” an analysis of my thought would provide its many apparently irreconcilable “logical” contradictions. Human beings who try to create logical systems to apprehend reality or cling to their primary beliefs–so as not to have them contradicted–will ultimately resist truth. Religion is not a logical system (but there is faith). The core of my thought is the “integrity” of the person, which “Truth” respects, and truth is not always logical; in fact, the way of truth often contradicts the most utilitarian logic.
One last comment from my side, just to hear the other bell (pardon the calque) on some new points.
1. I don’t think I said divorce makes evolutionary sense.
2. You are right that not all that is logical is reasonable, and not all that is illogical is unreasonable. Still, St Thomas Aquinas used logic to prove many things which seem, at first blush, unreasonable or outright irrational – the existence of God.
Elsewhere, on another blog, someone quoted Jung saying that patients go to him who had lost their religion.
There is a hidden logic. But perhaps – as St Augustine said – it’s too complex to be understood by the human mind, who like a child tries to put all the ocean in a small pool on the beach.
God put man and woman together-that is the order of things Divinely and also, biologically…….sorry, but that is the way it is!!