The Catholic Church is being criticized for its recent announcement that it will not bless same-sex unions. I’ve written previously about the problems I see in modern marriage, but that is not what I want to talk about here. The argument I’m making in this article is that the Catholic Church’s stance toward marriage is pro-woman. My focus is not the same as the Church’s focus. My concern is the impact of the legalization of same-sex marriage on a woman’s place in marriage and, through marriage, in society.
Conflicting Views of Reality
Since same-sex marriage is already the law of the land, I am hopeful that this discussion will not be overly threatening to same-sex partners. I’ll start with this: it seems to me that the gay lobby’s insistence that the Church bless same-sex unions is a challenge to the Church’s definition of marriage, more than an attempt to advance gay rights. And as a claim about reality its influence may be all out of proportion to the number of same-sex marriages. I believe it is intended to be a challenge to the definition of marriage because the Gay lobby has already won the right for same-sex couples to marry, and yet they choose to engage the Church publicly. Also gay people represent a small percentage of the population, and a small percentage of that small percentage will be Catholic and/or choose to marry.
The Church’s refusal to bless same-sex unions is also a statement about reality. This reality was defined by the church’s sacrament of marriage long before this issue arose. I hope this discussion will help women see the importance of this debate in their own lives.
True love and same-sex marriage
I wrote an article about same-sex marriage when it was first legalized. I said that the only criterion left in our society for heterosexual marriage is true love. Since it is impossible to argue that same-sex couples are not as capable of true love as heterosexual couples, denying marriage to same-sex couples would be discriminatory. This was meant as a criticism of our casual approach to marriage rather than a defense of same-sex marriage. I’m writing this now because I think there is potential for injustice in the direction we are headed . I think it is important to consider the implications of same-sex marriage for a woman’s place in society.
What does same-sex marriage say about the place of women?
At some point, LGBTQ rights always seem to challenge the place of women. This happens with trans-women in sports, and it happens when the gay lobby challenges the definition of marriage. The Church defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the purpose of creating children. This is as close as it gets in our society to acknowledging a woman’s place in society. So I argue that in the context of the same-sex marriage debate, the Church’s definition of marriage protects a woman’s place in marriage, and in society.
Most women have trouble imagining how the marriage of same-sex partners can be a threat to heterosexual marriage. Perhaps the main threat is not to marriage but to women. It seems to me that the gay lobby’s demand for the Catholic Church to bless same-sex unions is a renewed attack on a woman’s place in marriage and in society.
Female Same-Sex Families Are Still Vulnerable to Misogyny
But what about female same-sex partners you ask? Don’t they benefit? I would argue that they don’t in the same degree. There are twice as many gay men as gay women. In addition, half of gay women identify as bi-sexual and many of them are already in heterosexual marriages. So for the most part we are talking about male same-sex partners.
Another reason I focus on male same-sex partners is that female same-sex couples remain more vulnerable to harassment than male same-sex couples. At the same time a judge in Utah threatened to remove a foster child from the home of a lesbian same-sex couple, male same-sex couples living in Utah were not threatened.
Worse-case scenario for a woman’s place
Even though gay people make up a minority of the population, the view of marriage the gay lobby espouses, and the way the media amplifies this view, has the potential to make women even less important than they are. When you include the fact that male same-sex partners may adopt children, it becomes clear that same-sex marriage actually makes the presence of women optional in the families they create. But again, this all seems to make sense because of our current understanding of marriage.
The Status of a Woman’s Child-bearing Role Was Already in Question
There is a precedent for the diminished status of women in their role of bearing children. Women are relegated to a peripheral position every time a baby is taken from a single mother and given to a heterosexual couple. In other words, it is generally accepted that a woman can lose her baby by default. This practice may have added legitimacy to the adoption of children by male same-sex couples.
Conclusion
A remedy might be to ask how we can encourage the Church’s definition and protections of marriage for women and at the same time deal humanely with the way people actually live. One way this has been dealt with in the past is to impose sanctions on people who don’t fit the mold. This seems to have had destructive consequences.
These are very old questions and no society has answered them in a satisfactory way. But in the context of the same-sex marriage debate, the Church’s definition of marriage is pro-woman. Our incomplete understanding of marriage is to blame for the fact that we have failed to examine the connection between same-sex marriage and a woman’s place.
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