Courtesy of the Washington Times today,
“At a time when the Republican Party is in trouble with their conservative base, Bill Frist is taking a page straight out of the Karl Rove playbook to distract from the Republican Party’s failed leadership and misplaced priorities by scapegoating LGBT families for political gain, using marriage as a wedge issue,” said Mr. Dean, using the abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. “It is not only morally wrong, it is shameful and reprehensible,” Mr. Dean said.

Personally, I am a fan of Howard Dean talking. The more press he gets, the better it is for parties other than the Democrat Party. Here’s my take. At the civil level, the societal level, marriage is a social contract between a couple and the society that they will generate positive, productive members of society, who will spur that society forward in reaching as great a level as possible. Thus, at the civil level, there’s why a homosexual “marriage” won’t work.

Take this to another level and consider that there’s a great number of heterosexual marriages failing. Why? I argue it is because of the number of heterosexual marriages that are not open to reproduction. Pope Paul VI predicted that both marriages and society would suffer if contraception became widespread. Further, he predicted that if we accepted the divorce of the conjugal act from its natural consequence, we would logically grow to accept other disordered forms of “marriage” – think homosexual marriage, polygamy, rampant sex outside the marriage bond, and so on. These things ultimately represent a breaking of the social contract between the society and the married couple.

Then of course there is the sacramental nature of marriage – a whole other level above the societal level. Much of the same holds true between man and society as between man and God, so I won’t belabor the point here.

In the end, I am opposed to validation of homosexual practices as “normal,” thus I am opposed to homosexuals being allowed to “marry” and obtain all rights and priveleges appertaining therto. However, last week I was listening to EWTN’s Open Line program, with Barbara McGuigan, and a caller pressed her on the Church’s position on homosexuality. He said something like, “I know that religion generally looks down on homosexuality.” McGuigan responded beautifully. I quote her in part here:
“Well, first of all, we don’t want to define people by their sexuality…we define them as children of God with a disorder…we’re all dancing on broken legs, we all have something we need to work on, and work toward to try to overcome our disorders…they must be accepted, our Catechism says, with love and compassion…we’re all called to chastity, and so homosexuals are also called to chastity…”
Hear the whole conversation here -fast forward in about 46 minutes.

I grew up in a church where comments were regularly made about homosexuals and essentially how bad they were. A revival preacher even said, “you might get AIDS, even if you’re not a homo.” Come down to brass tacks, I’d hear the tired old “hate the sin love the sinner” line, which was good on paper but was not the real attitude of the person saying it. I find the Roman Catholic Church’s position easier to handle – we are all called to chastity; understanding that the dictates of our faith define properly ordered sexuality, we are called to avoid disordered expressions of sexuality. I have told people who pressed me on it that I would have no problem finding out that my priest was gay, so long as he wasn’t practicing homosexual activities; my priest was called to a specific discipline of celibacy, so he shouldn’t be having sex with anyone! Likewise, if I had a friend tell me that he had a homosexual impulse or desire, but he recognized the moral problem with acting on that impulse, I would have no problem seeing him take Holy Communion. The same goes for the non-practicing murderer, the non-practicing thief, etc.