Isn't it quite insulting to heterosexual married couples to reduce their affirming commitment through marriage of their relationship to a simple biological act? If marriage is merely for reproductive purposes, why do they insist on trying to defend it as sacred? Is reproduction more sacred than love? Not in the New Testament it's not! Now I look at it like that, aren't they a load of silly billies?
One of the more offensive aspects of the Vatican teaching on homoerotic relationships is the way in which everything is reduced to "genital acts" (which are dismissed as mere gratuitous self-gratification). As anyone who has lived in a committed, long-term relationship can testify, it's about far more than mere sex. It's also about mutual caring and support, for each other and for family members, aging parents and growing children (even for animals).
It's shared pleasures, at the movies, in music or art, or dining with friends. It's about shared domestic duties, and joint participation in neighbourhood, community (and parish) concerns. Sex itself is far more than mere genital acts: it's also about caresses, hugs, and kisses. Especially as we age, "genital acts" are of diminishing interest.
It hadn't occurred to me, but Jennifer is right. By focussing their opposition to marriage equality so obsessively on the capacity to create (not nurture) children, some Catholic bishops and organisations are similarly reducing heterosexual marriage to a series of mere genital acts. This is not only insulting to the LGBT community, it is also insulting to all loving couples.
Related articles
- Catholic Bishops Divided on Civil Unions (queeringthechurch.com)
- Catholic Bishops, Gay Marriage: "the Outer Fringes of Crazy Town" (queeringthechurch.com)
- Italian Bishop Advocates Civil Unions (commonwealmagazine.org)
- The "Gay Civil Unions" Approach of Some Within the Catholic Hierarchy: Too Little, Too Late (thewildreed.blogspot.com)
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