Same-sex attraction and same-sex marriage

Revelers participate in a gay pride parade in Taipei, Taiwan.  Same-sex marriage was defeated in the recent referendum. AP PHOTO

Catholic nations like Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Columbia, including Pope Francis’ Argentina, account for half of the states that voted “yes” to the legalization of same-sex marriage. It seems Catholic nations are leading the way in “marriage equality.” Ahhh, the signs of the times!

Seeing studies on how global citizens voted to legalize so-called gay marriage, it’s disturbing to know that more and more Catholic youth with voting power (mostly millennials) are challenging the Catholic doctrine on this matter.

Rainbow flags Down Under and everywhere

In Australia, gay marriage has been legalized after the majority of its citizens (Catholic faculty and students included) put their thumbs up. In two elite Jesuit schools, St. Ignatius’ College in Sydney and Xavier College in Melbourne, where a bunch of their national leaders came from, “there is almost total unanimity amongst the young in favor of same-sex marriage” (Father Chris Middleton, SJ, Rector of Xavier College).

Inclined to side with tolerance, Jesuit Father Ross Jones, Rector of St Ignatius’ College, said that same-sex couples have the right to marry “for the same reasons as their opposite-sex counterparts.”

He also said that, as if challenging the Church on gay marriage, Catholic couples could “in good conscience” engage in sexual relationships for reasons other than procreation.

Catholic Ireland is practically unrecognizable in the new millennium after it legalized abortion, divorce, contraception and same-sex marriage to break away from its Catholic tradition.

With the trendy FreeToLove ads catching the youth’s attention, it may seem that more and more Filipino students (most of them Catholic) find nothing morally wrong with gay marriage, provided there’s real love between the couples.

“There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats,” Elton John once said after marrying his longtime partner.

Clearing cloud of confusion and ambiguity

In a free and frank interview with Dominique Wolton (Politique et societé, 2017), when asked about gay marriage, Pope Francis declared, “Let’s call this ‘civil unions’” but not marriage.

You cannot teach children to choose their gender, the Holy Father said, for it fosters mistakes and misconceptions about the facts of nature. The facts (or Law) of Nature involve sexual complementarity and sexual complementarity naturally leads to fruitfulness.

In “becoming one flesh,” the male supplies the semen and, by common sense and by natural law, only the female receives it and may get pregnant. A male partner cannot get pregnant (by facts of nature) even with the help of state-of-the-art transgender technology.

The best Christian attitude is that of Pope Francis: “Who am I to judge?” Respect gays, yes, and do not discriminate against them, yes. Love them instead and accompany them pastorally. What Christianity cannot condone is the genital act between two persons of the same-sex, say, the practice of MSM (men having sex with men).

The official Catholic stand

Even in the name of mercy and compassion, Christians cannot move from tolerance to vagueness and ambiguity regarding the sinfulness of homosexual acts to an affirmation of nothing-is-wrong-about-it-when-done-with-love argument.

“Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life… Under no circumstances can they be approved” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 2357).

“La famille est souvent menacée par des pressions sociales et culturelles qui tendent à miner sa stabilité,” said the Holy Father. “In some countries, the family is also threatened by legislation which – at times directly – challenge its NATURAL structure… that of a union between a man and a woman,” added His Holiness (Politique et societé, 2017).

The family, Pope Francis also said, “must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man.”

Meanwhile, Taiwan, a nation whose citizens practice Buddhism and Taoism, rejected same-sex marriage in its recent referendum. Taiwan believes that marriage is only between a man and a woman and that the vote against same-sex marriage was a “victory of all people who treasure family values.”

Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano ([email protected]) is the author of The Church Can Handle the Truth (Claretian, 2017) and The Signs of the Times and the Social Doctrine of the Church (Salesiana, 1992).