(The Furrow, March 2005, pp.142-145)
In this article, I use the word “homosexual” in its original sense, that is, as equally applicable to women as to men.
Background
In 1986, a referendum was held in the Irish Republic on removing the constitutional prohibition on divorce (in Article 41.3.2). It was defeated by a majority of nearly two to one. Many believed that the proposal lost because other issues, mainly relating to property and inheritance, clouded the central question. For instance, if a farming couple divorced, would that mean the farm would be divided between them, leaving each with a non-viable half a farm? That is an example of the type of secondary, but important, question that clouded the central issue.
In the years which followed, new legislation dealt with many of the secondary issues that had muddied the public debate before the first referendum. That enabled a debate on the single issue of divorce. A second referendum was held, and the proposed amendment was adopted.
Recently, there has been a public debate about the legalization of homosexual unions. It also has been clouded by issues of property, inheritance, taxation, and status as next of kin. (Some of these issues are of concern also to heterosexuals such as an unmarried brother and sister living together.) So, for the moment at least, the possibility of legislation allowing for State recognition of homosexual unions seems unlikely. Where there are overlapping debates a clear consensus can hardly emerge.
It is possible, perhaps likely, that the secondary issues in this debate will be dealt with by legislation in the coming years. There may be domestic pressure on the Oireachtas (legislature) to do so, or from the European Union, or from civil action in the courts. Some of them need to be addressed anyway, as a matter of simple justice. If that happens, it should then be possible to have a clear-cut public debate on the single issue of whether to give civil recognition to homosexual unions.
Five options
Let us consider some of the possibilities that are open to homosexual persons (as they are, with adaptation, for heterosexuals). I can think of five:
Firstly, they can enter into serial casual relationships or one-night stands. That leads to hurt, anger, jealousy, fights, and, in extreme cases, to suicide or murder, along with an increased risk of infection with a sexually-transmitted disease. That way is destructive: it separates physical intimacy from personal, psychological and emotional intimacy, without which it is meaningless.
A second option is to say to a homosexual, ‘Forget this idea of being homosexual. Don’t even think about it. Marry. Do your best to live a normal life. Have children. Everything will turn out fine in the end’. To my mind, to say that is irresponsible. It is likely to lead to injustice to the other partner, and to dysfunctional relationships in the family. Good human relationships can never be based on denial or untruth. This option is a denial and should be rejected.
A third approach is to say to a homosexual, ‘There is nothing morally wrong, in itself, with having a homosexual orientation. It is not sinful. But that does not mean that this orientation can express itself in genital sexual activity. To do so would be seriously sinful’. That seems to say that a homosexual orientation constitutes a vocation to lifelong celibacy. That seems to me to be a bridge too far, too large and long a conclusion to reach from its starting-point. It doesn’t seem sustainable.
A fourth option is for a couple to live together privately in a union, or partnership. This would be analogous to a heterosexual couple who live together in a common law marriage. It might sound like an ideal “free” arrangement, whereby either partner may walk away any time they wish, but it lacks commitment or a sense of belonging. The statistical record of breakdown in common law partnerships is substantially higher than in marriages, whether religious or civil.
A fifth option is for a homosexual couple to enter into a recognized partnership, analogous to marriage. That is something which is qualitatively different from merely living together. When a couple formally and publicly, in the presence of witnesses, declare their love for each other, and their intention to live in mutual fidelity until death, that is something deeper, more committed and, likely, more long-lasting than merely living together.
Which of these options is best? If we say there is only one option, the third, and the fifth is always to be excluded, are we not making the best the enemy of the good? An all or nothing attitude more often leads to nothing than to all.
Homosexual “marriage”
I am not speaking here of homosexual “marriage”. The word marriage has traditionally been seen, in Christian, pre-Christian and non-Christian societies alike, as a union of people of opposite sexes. I believe it is important for it to retain that meaning. To extend the meaning of the word marriage to embrace homosexual relationships is an abuse of language. If we undermine language, it takes its revenge, when we find that words have lost their meaning. This has already happened with words like good and bad, true and false, beautiful and ugly, and it has become difficult to use them without getting into semantic tangles. Playing games with words stores up problems for the future. Words matter. As Saint Augustine said, ‘Words are precious cups of meaning.’ (Confessions, 1.16) A word like “love”, for instance, has become devalued through misuse so that it has lost much of its content. Let marriage remain marriage.
Homosexual unions and the church
There are factors in society at present that work against the stability of marriage. I don’t think homosexual unions are one of them. If a homosexual couple pledge themselves to each other publicly for life, if they live in mutual fidelity and work their way through the difficulties that arise, does that undermine marriage? I find it hard to see that it would cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage. How are the institutions of marriage, the family, or society diminished by homosexuals aspiring to the same kind of mutual commitment that marriage involves, and the social recognition that it brings? If homosexuals move from transient and disposable relationships to commitment and fidelity, is that not a step in the right direction?
The church is concerned to protect marriage. It wants to maintain the link between sexuality and procreation. Well and good.
In taking up a position of hostility to homosexual unions, such as in the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of 3 June 2003, are we not perhaps making the (common Catholic) mistake of starting with an ideal that is good, making an absolute of it, and then going on to state that to do otherwise is sinful?
Values, even when they have deep human significance, should not necessarily lead to laws. Nor does it necessarily follow, where there is agreement on values, that this should or will point to agreed conclusions deriving from them. In the church, we still retain the desire to reduce ideals to laws, including civil laws. This is an echo of the “handing over to the secular arm” approach of an earlier period of history, and it diminishes law and ideals. It is an approach which seems out of character with Jesus in the desert three times rejecting the temptation to use the way of power in order to achieve good ends.
Anglicans are in difficulty over issues around homosexuality. Seeing that situation, we can try to steer clear of it. But one thing Anglicans have done, however imperfectly, is to face the issue. What we have done is to draw a veil over it, hoping it will go away. But it will most likely return, if and when the distraction of secondary related issues has been dealt with. Are we burying this issue, like a landmine in the garden, hoping it won’t blow up under our feet sooner or later?
Would it be true to say that where attitudes towards homosexuality are concerned, the real dividing line is not between liberals and conservatives, but between those who do, and those who don’t, have in their family someone who is homosexual?
In all of this, where is the Good News for homosexuals? Is it in Wisdom, ‘You [God] love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, O Lord, you who love the living. For your immortal spirit is in all things’. (11.24-12.1, NRSV)
What did Jesus in the gospels say about this? Nothing. Perhaps we should do as Christ did.