This is the first of two articles on understanding the Catholic opposition to Same-Sex Marriage. Find Part I here.
In Part I, I examined McDonough’s implicit assumption that marriage is required in order to live a good life. I pointed out that the Christian life must always seek man’s fulfillment in God and that to ask for fulfillment from another person, even a spouse, is too much to ask. No human being could ever deliver our personal happiness. As Michael Hannon eloquently put it on the First Things blog, “Chaste Christian friendship is an even nobler relationship than the sexual union that finds its proper place in marriage, for such friendships are united by our highest common good, namely God.”
What, then, is the purpose or meaning of marriage? We certainly act as though marriage is necessary for happiness, and it is indeed a path to flourishing for many people. Taking up traditional Catholic teaching, I argue that marriage must have the primary end of raising children, which is why sexuality finds its uniquely right expression between one man and one woman. Marriage is about children, about continuing the human family and the sexual organs are the biological (dare I say “natural”?) means of doing this. Therefore, sexuality and its fruit, children, are what primarily define marriage as opposed to close bonds of friendship, which the married couple does enjoy as a secondary end.
Ironically, McDonough does recognize both the unique place of sexuality in marriage and the importance of biology for understanding human action, goodness and the natural law. He does not, however, bring these two ideas together, which both form the Catholic teaching about marriage. He even notes the shift MacIntyre makes in adding a “biologically grounded” metaphysics, which is the basis of natural law, from a purely “sociologically grounded” account of virtue and morality, which is narrative ethics (195). He agrees with MacIntyre that biology is necessary because it provides a “culturally neutral” account of human functioning. However, in the bulk of the essay, McDonough ignores the all-important biological reality of sexuality, which is that the sexual organs function to generate new human life.
McDonough says “sexual love is seen to be the essence of marriage” and that sexual love becomes “sacramental” (202). But then he ignores the bodily act itself and how that relates to marriage. Instead, McDonough argues that marriage is the appropriate outlet and setting for sexuality because “an adequate theology of sexuality will talk of the two mutually dependent and mutually enhancing characteristics of authentic love: love lets be, and it enables the partners (and others) to be” (203). This reference to the peace of love sounds pleasant, but it is also hopelessly abstract.
In Catholic moral theology, actions are defined by the physical act which is actually performed; intention can alter it, but intention can never render an intrinsically disordered action into a good action. Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II’s encyclical on moral theology explains that the body is necessary in understanding human action and human goods: “The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts” (48). McDonough’s “love lets be and enables to be,” is too loose to provide a meaningful moral compass for sexuality apart from the bodily action itself.
With only a loose standard of “love lets be,” to defend sexual stimulation outside of the procreative act, McDonough inadvertently does himself in. As mentioned before, the fruitfulness of sex is inherent only the male/female act. And if we exclude that and say that love merely includes others, why not three participants or four or orgies then? Only the biological reality of the male/female act gives a reason to limit it to two alone: only one man and one woman can make a baby.
Now, it is of course true that some heterosexual couples are sterile. This is why Gaudium et Spes includes sterile couples in its discussion of marriage. McDonough takes this as an opening to include same-sex genital activity as fruitful. But that is an almost-intentional misreading of Gaudium et Spes, which does say “Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation (GS 50),” but also says:
“Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. … Hence, while not making the other purposes of matrimony of less account, the true practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which results from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior (50).”
In short, although sex and offspring are not the only legitimate ends of marriage, they are still definitive of it in a way that provides the definition and uniqueness of the married state, even if children are lacking, through no fault of the couple. This idea is common in natural law thinking. Cases of faultless imperfection exist and are acknowledged, but that does not make them normative. For instance, many people are blind, and blind people of course retain the imago Dei, the image of the Creator. Nevertheless, their objectively imperfect state is not normative, which means that it does not create a moral standard. It would still be unacceptable to intentionally blind oneself for the sake of it even though blind people are obviously fully human and fully valuable.
This is the same approach taken to same-sex relationships. It is true that some married couples do not naturally beget children, but their relationship is still defined by the conjugal act. It is unacceptable to intentionally exclude the fruitful type of act from sexual expression simply for the sake of desire. This is why contraception and homosexual acts are opposite sides of the same coin. Sexuality, in a very common sense, biological way, is ordered to procreation. To phrase it simply: babies, who are necessary for the continuance of human society, only get made through one type of human action.
This is not to be hateful or unreasonably exclusionary to others. It is simply how human beings operate on both a biological and spiritual dimension. Marriage is reserved to one man and one woman because of the unique place of raising children, which is the natural product of human sexuality. In turn, McDonough argues that homosexual couples can be open to life by way of adoption and that love need not be expressed in child-rearing. He says “just generosity’s three patterns of affective relationship, hospitality and openness to urgent need do not only manifest themselves in raising children.” He argues that lifelong same-sex partnerships can do this too. “In claiming that partnerships are where gay persons can move towards ‘human love and self-realization’ and away from ‘solitary eccentricity, frustrating bitterness, and incapacitating anxiety’, Andrew Sullivan is making a natural law case for the just generosity of same-sex relationships.”
I actually agree that strong lifelong relationships can engender much love and heal many of the sufferings and hardships inherent to human life. I disagree, as argued in Part I, that sexuality must be included in such relationships. Friendships can provide this type of mutual growth. Ending “anxiety” is indeed a profound good, but still it puts too much on the other person to demand that another human being grant us peace and quell all our fears. Only God can do that. It is true that the qualities of agape can be met without child-rearing, but child-rearing is the express domain of marriage, and all non-sexual benefits of marriage can also be derived from virtuous friendships.
In this regard, I am in agreement with Michael Hannon as mentioned earlier, Eve Tushnet and others of those who Austen Ruse dubbed “The New Homophiles,” that focusing on forming close, chaste friendships is a worthy good. In general however, I disagree with a so-called “gay exceptionalism.” We can respect a person’s experiences, recognizing that each person’s unique cross brings him or her closer to Christ, if taken up. We are all sinful humans striving on our own path towards the light of God.
Overall, McDonough wants to take up MacIntyre’s theories in Dependent Rational Animals in order to create a framework of love and marriage that could include same-sex couples. But in applying this framework of peacefulness and receptiveness, McDonough avoids the question of the physical actions committed and their acceptability. Using “love” too-loosely, without concrete application to reality has been all-too-common in the gay-marriage debate and McDonough does this too. Without reference to actual reality, there is no grounding for truth or goodness whatsoever. So if we are going to take truth or goodness or any ethic seriously, we must have recourse to biology and the natural law proceeding from it. That does not mean that we ignore or reject the subjective experience of individuals. The Catholic tradition embraces all individuals but always clings to the truth that ultimate fulfillment and peace come from God alone.
Stephanie Pacheco is a freelance writer and convert from Northern Virginia. She earned a M.A. in Theological Studies, summa cum laude, from Christendom College and holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia in Religious Studies with a minor in Government and Political Theory. Her work has been featured in America Magazine, Crisis Magazine, Soul Gardening Journal and syndicated by EWTN and Zenit. She blogs about making sense of the Catholic Faith in modern life at theoress.wordpress.com and lives with her husband and two young children.
