Responding to Archbishop Dolan on Marriage

With all the hoopla about marriage equality finally getting close to a vote in the New York State Senate, New York Roman Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan writes (or rather, lies) in his blog about “The True Meaning of Marriage” as a last-ditch effort to try to stop the law from being enacted – and as has been typical and usual with Roman Catholic hierarchs in the United States, he advocates for moral injustice, using lies and misrepresentations as his methodology.
http://blog.archny.org/?p=1247

He commences his diatribe with:

“The stampede is on. Our elected senators who have stood courageous in their refusal to capitulate on the state’s presumption to redefine marriage are reporting unrelenting pressure to cave-in.”

Hmmm. “Redefine Marriage” is a stock phrase used by the opponents of the New York marriage bill. The impression is that marriage has lasted for thousands of years without change, and now some people want to “redefine” it so that men and women can’t marry each other.

The fact is that passing the marriage bill will not change a single thing about opposite-sex marriages and the families of people in opposite-sex marriages. Their marriages will not be redefined.

Not only that, but civil marriage gets “redefined” all the time. In ancient Rome, there were several different forms of marriage, and marriage has historically included various forms of polygamy, including both polygyny and (sometimes) polyandry. The Bible indicates that polygyny was one of the earlier forms of marriage – one husband with more than one wife. Indeed, even same-sex marriage was allowed, in some cases. In 1 Samuel 18:3 we see King Saul’s son Jonathan marrying the future King David, and then later in the chapter we see David also marryins Saul’s daughter Michal, thus becoming Saul’s “son-in-law a second time.” (See Darby or ASV, not the Vulgate or translations based on the Vulgate, because Jerome intentionally fudged the applicable verse). In Rome, the Emperor Nero, after killing his pregnant wife Poppaea, later married Sporus, a young man who resembled his dead wife.

In the early Christian Church, as Boswell points out, same-sex unions were actually blessed by Christians. (Indeed, in Christ Jesus, according to Paul, we are “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.”)


Also, according to Paul, marriage for Christians has nothing to do with procreation, but is for the sole purpose of allowing those with a strong libido an opportunity to have licit sex. See 1 Cor. 7:8-9.

But let’s look at the law as it evolved in New York – not an unchanging tradition spanning thousands of years – but a matter of civil law that has evolved over time.

After the English took over from the Dutch, New York was subject to the English common law, which developed over centuries. Marriage under the common law created a single legal person – “the two shall become one” – and then, as Blackstone (or Lord Coke) notes in a corollary, the married woman essentially suffers from a disability that is the equivalent of civil death for a prison inmate – “and that one is the husband.”

This was the barbaric traditional form of marriage for enough hundreds of years to be part of the common law that was the common law of New York State as well.

In 1836, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ernestine Rose started petitioning for a “Married Women’s Property Act” that would allow married women the right to inheritances – until then, being that “the two are one, and that one is the husband,” the husband had control of inheritances – and would often enough spend it on liquor in taverns while leaving his wife and children destitute.

The religious leaders of the day, like Archbishop Dolan, were appalled – to change the civil law relating to marriage would destroy the institution! And the state senate took 12 years, until 1848, to actually pass the law – and then only because some senators realized that the inheritances that should go to their daughters and grandchildren were likely to end up in a tavernkeeper’s hands if they did not pass the bill.

It took another twelve years to push a bill through the legislature in 1860 “redefining marriage” again, to allow working women the right to their own wages – until then, husbands had control over those as well, and they were just as likely to spend their wife’s wages on strong drink as they were to spend their inheritances.

So many other changes have been made in the years since 1848 and 1860 – “redefining” marriage again and again . . .and again.

So, what’s all the ruckus from Archbishop Dolan about this particular proposed change?

The answer is a combination of moral error and conflict in the Church’s catechism that leads to a nearly schizophrenic response whenever the idea of “gay” is broached.

Archbishop Dolan continues:

“The media, mainly sympathetic to this rush to tamper with a definition as old as human reason and ordered good, reports annoyance on the part of some senators that those in defense of traditional marriage just don’t see the light, as we persist in opposing this enlightened, progressive, cause.”

Tamper? No. The arc of history bends toward justice, and the proposed amendment to make marriage laws gender-neutral is just, fair, and right. Tamperis a loaded word – improve would be better and more accurate.

As we have already noted, the “definition as old as human reason” is a fiction invented by Archbishop Dolan to cover his apparent ignorance of the fact that the definition of marriage has been amended many times in the past couple hundred years, and has changed over time as humanity has become more civilized.

Those “in defense of traditional marriage” should be honored to vote for the marriage bill – it makes no changes whatsoever to traditional marriage. All it does is expand the definition to include marriages that are gender neutral as well as those between opposite-sex individuals.

Dolan continues:

“But, really, shouldn’t we be more upset – and worried – about this perilous presumption of the state to re-invent the very definition of an undeniable truth – one man, one woman, united in lifelong love and fidelity, hoping for children – that has served as the very cornerstone of civilization and culture from the start?”

The archbishop apparently has little knowledge or understanding of civil law – and even of the law of his own Church. My own Roman Catholic marriage was ended by civil divorce more than 10 years ago (I didn’t start the proceedings), and then annulled by a Church tribunal of his diocese (though I admit it precedes his elevation to the archbishopric in New York). Is Dolan even aware that New York “tampered” with the whole “lifelong” thing a long time ago? That the grounds for civil divorce have changed many times, most recently when New York began allowing “no-fault” divorce? Isn’t he aware that his own Church’s Canon Law has changed many times with regard to marriage and annulment – with the most recent annulment rules being so liberalized that one prominent canon lawyer was quoted as stating that there was not a Catholic marriage in America that could not be annulled under the current rules?

Does the archbishop realize that procreation is not the sole reason for marriage – sure, the Roman idea of “matrimonium” involves procreation, but “connubium” does not. Perhaps he should brush up on his Latin.

Then the Archbishop gets cutesy:

“Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law. There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.”

“But, please, not here! Our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.”

Um – with his geographical references, Archbishop Dolan seems to imply that changing the law is something that only happens under “godless communism.”

But the Archbishop is just being silly here and making false analogies.

Indeed, he is so wrong that it would actually be funny if he weren’t attempting to be so serious.

In the United States, we have representative government, legislative bodies that are charged with making and amending laws and administrative bodies making and interpreting regulations, and courts watching over it all – on the federal, state and local levels. For most purposes, marriage is viewed as being among the laws that is defined at the state level, except to the extent that the state presumes to violate an individual federal constitutional right.

To that end, the United States Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia is most instructive, and the Archbishop should consider reading it one of these days.

And then you notice, he sneaks in something in the list of things godless Communists like to redefine – “natural law.” I can’t help but laugh at his ineptitude. It is the Catholic Church whose ideas and concepts of “natural law” have nothing at all to do with nature, and everything to do with Aristotle’s interpretation of nature. We’re lucky that the Church got as far as Aristotle – but Dolan is as wrong here as some of his predecessors in the hierarchy were when they condemned Galileo.

Let’s move on just a little. We know that in the United States, rights, relationships, laws, regulations, etc. are constantly being changed, interpreted and reinterpreted, by legislative and administrative bodies and courts. Yes, there are constitutional limits, but in many ways, the laws and regulations change as the society changes. This is how democratically elected republican government works, unlike the way the Vatican works, which is strictly top-down, and woe to the priest of bishop who steps out of line - so, which is more like North Korea – the Roman Catholic Church, or the New York State legislature?

Continuing with his misstatements, the Archbishop writes: “Please, not here! We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a “right.” And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?”

I understand the difference between freedom and licentious behavior, having spent some time in a Roman Catholic seminary in my pre-transition youth. However, Archbishop Dolan is misusing the concept here. He might make sense if he was describing sexual promiscuity as licentious behavior – but even that, if engaged among consenting adults is legally permitted, regardless of whether it is moral liberty or licentiousness. Lawrence v. Texas clarified the unconstitutionality of laws prohibiting adult consensual sexual behavior other than heterosexual penile-vaginal intercourse. These laws were generally enforced only against gay people, even though a great deal of heterosexual sexual activity, within and outside of marriage, involves activity other than penile-vaginal intercourse. Morality is an individual matter, while legality is based on constitutional grounds. Like Hebrew National hot dogs, we answer to the higher authority – of the Constitution, and not on the laws of a Church imposed on the basis of arbitrary and capricious interpretations of ancient religious writings.

Incredibly, Dolan continues:

“Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people.”

That is a bald-faced lie, told with a straight face. Discrimination against the LGBT community is found in nearly everything the Roman Catholic hierarchy writes about marriage, or about transgender human rights. It is as if we are all less than human in the eyes of the Church hierarchy.

Dolan continues:

“The Church affirms the basic human rights of gay men and women, and the state has rightly changed many laws to offer these men and women hospital visitation rights, bereavement leave, death benefits, insurance benefits, and the like. This is not about denying rights.”

It is *all* about denying rights, Archbishop. And denying it is futile.

He continues:

“It is about upholding a truth about the human condition. Marriage is not simply a mechanism for delivering benefits: It is the union of a man and a woman in a loving, permanent, life-giving union to pro-create children. Please don’t vote to change that. If you do, you are claiming the power to change what is not into what is, simply because you say so. This is false, it is wrong, and it defies logic and common sense.”

Marriage as the union of a man and a woman will not change, by the amendment of the law- it will also mean the union of a man and a man, and a woman with a woman, and of a transgender or intersex person with a man, woman or other transgender or intersex person. The Church will still allow infertile octogenarians to marry despite the lack of any possibility of creating children. The church will bless the marriage of a man to a woman who has had a complete hysterectomy.

For that matter, the Church will not be forced to marry any non-Catholics, or even Catholics who want a same-sex wedding. The right to discriminate on that level will be preserved – just as a church that would not sanctify an interracial marriage can licitly deny the right to such a wedding in its sanctuary.

Dolan begins his conclusion:

“Yes, I admit, I come at this as a believer, who, along with other citizens of a diversity of creeds believe that God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage a long time ago.”

Again, Dolan does not seem to understand that there is a huge difference between civil marriage and the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Matrimony. To the extent that Dolan is referring to Holy Matrimony as a sacrament – “an outward sign, instituted by God, to give grace” – he is on solid Catholic theological ground, right from the Baltimore Catechism – but once he presumes to step into the legislative process for civil marriage, his particular religious prejudices should hold no sway.

He wraps up with:

“We believers worry not only about what this new intrusion will do to our common good, but also that we will be coerced to violate our deepest beliefs to accommodate the newest state decree. (If you think this paranoia, just ask believers in Canada and England what’s going on there to justify our apprehensions.) But I also come at this as an American citizen, who reads our formative principles as limiting government, not unleashing it to tamper with life’s most basic values.”

Canada and England do not have the constitutional protection of not having established churches, and do not have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religious expression. So yes, Archbishop, it’s paranoia – you’re not a “state religion” like the Church of England, and the U.S. has a strong aversion to establishing a religion, and a strong constitutional provision in favor of “free exercise” of religion.

If by “violating our deepest beliefs” he means that providing spousal benefits to married gay employees is somehow wrong, then he’s likely to have his deepest beliefs violated, just as the courts will require a blood transfusion for a Jehovah Witness’ baby over the objections of parents, or a court would convict someone who decides that their “deepest” religious beliefs require them to kill Wiccans, or stone gays to death, or otherwise not respect the rights of others.

This is where we should have a discussion about the difference between “freedom” and “license” – your freedom to exercise a Catholic faith does not give you the license to prevent women from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed reproductive rights. Your freedom to be Catholic does not give you the license to disrespect my Unitarian marriage, or to treat my marriage in any way under the law as different from any other marriage. Just because the Catholic Church teaches that transsexual people cannot marry anyone, male, female, or other, does not give the Church the right to deny me any civil benefit, even though the Church does not have to provide me with a sacrament.

Dolan violates my deepest beliefs with every word he has written in this blog essay – but that does not give me the right to censor him – he has the right of free speech even if he is lying, as long as he’s not committing defamation. His calumnious column is evidence of his deep official and possibly personal bigotry – I had hoped that he would at least try to keep himself to Church business rather than meddling – but they haven’t given him his cardinal’s hat yet, so he must feel that he has to cater to the irrational ravings from the Vatican on the subject. Would that he were brave enough to stand up and speak truth to power and risk his position. But he’s typical of the corporate middle-management about to break into the upper echelon – don’t rock the boat.

There is no intrusion, just a fairer, more decent law that will provide legal protection to families in need. Poor black and latina lesbians with children,( often children from prior relationships in which they tried to maintain a straight marriage against their natures because of societal expectations) are likely to have the biggest benefit from the broadening of the marriage law. They and their children will benefit.

Society will benefit from the New York legislature’s enactment of marriage equality – and I sincerely hope the legislature does do the right thing, despite pressure from Dolan and the other foes of freedom.
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An Open Letter: The "Unchanging" Church and Marriage

April 16, 2009

The Most Reverend Timothy Dolan
Archbishop of New York
1011 First Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Re: The “Unchanging” Church and Gender-Neutral Civil Marriage: An OPEN Letter

Your Excellency:

At the outset, I wish to welcome you to your new post as the apostate* spiritual leader of the millions of Roman Catholics in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York (NOTE: *apostate? This is a technical apostasy only applicable to the members of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, since the Mystical Body of Christ remained with me when Father David Clifford, the associate pastor of my former parish in Valhalla, New York, asked me to not come back in August 1999 because my transition was “causing a scandal in the church.” Prior to that I spent 15 years at that parish as the cantor for the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass, and I sang with the choir. I was involved with the parish Home School Association. I also spent three years studying for the priesthood at a Roman Catholic seminary. But all this is merely a footnote.)

Unfortunately you chose, at a press conference held just before your installation as Archbishop, to make at least two erroneous statements about Church history in a single phrase, namely, that the Faith “remains changeless and has for 2,000 years.”

Let’s take the second error first – the length of time the “Faith” has been around: Christianity was not founded until after Jesus Christ was crucified (and in accordance with the Faith, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven). One might consider that the “foundation” at the earliest could be considered to have taken place at the original Pentecost – which means you’re over twenty years shy of two millennia. One might date the founding of the Roman Catholic Church to as late as the Great Schism of 1054 C.E., which split a then-somewhat-unified Christianity into two great groups – the rites of the Orthodox Churches and their various Patriarchates, and the rites (now pretty much a single Latin rite) associated with the Patriarch of Rome, who at that point was asserting the doctrine of papal supremacy; that the Pope was no longer primum inter pares among the patriarchal successors to the Apostles. If we take this later date, the Roman Catholic Church, while one of the successors or “daughter Churches” to the Christianity established at Pentecost and first doctrinally formalized at the first Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E., may be conceived, based on the time of this schism, to be something on the order of 45 years shy of one millennium.

That leads us to the second error, that the faith is “changeless.” Of course, this idea of changelessness can be dated, again, to either the formalization of the Faith in 325 C.E. at the time of the adoption of the Nicene Creed, or to 1054 C.E. when the Roman Church used the casus belli of its addition of the filioque to the Creed, changing it from the original. But that idea of changelessness in the faith, regardless of the date to which we can trace it, can only go to the so-called “core beliefs” that are shared by all who accept the tenets contained within the Nicene Creed (for our purposes, while I believe the Eastern Patriarchs were more correct on the filioque controversy, we’ll also leave that controversy to the side).

In your press conference you transferred that concept of “changelessness” from those central tenets of the Faith that are truly (well, except for the Great Schism) unchangeable for Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to those various bits and pieces of Church tradition that have only got only a rather relative and sometimes dubious longevity in practice, and to some of those doctrines adopted at Church Councils (sadly, none since a time prior to 1054 C.E. have been truly “universal” and thus can’t be seen as binding on Christianity – so the universally accepted councils, for those not steeped in Church History are Nicaea I - 325 C.E., Constantinople I – 381 C.E., Ephesus – 431 C.E., Chalcedon – 451 C.E., Constantinople II – 553 C.E., Constantinople III – 680-81 C.E., Nicaea II – 787 C.E.).

For example, the doctrine of papal infallibility dates only to 1870 C.E. – The Immaculate Conception dates only to a papal dogmatic declaration of 1854 C.E..

So let’s take a look at the current “controversial” things to which you seem to want to append the idea of “changelessness.”

Abortion: The Church’s initial teachings on “ensoulment” and abortion are based on writings of Aristotle, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas – all of whom believed that “ensoulment” occurred several weeks after conception. Pope Innocent III, to whom one might ascribe “infallibility” (though there is the story of one Pope trying and condemning a deceased predecessor – try sorting *that* out), made it Church doctrine around the 13th century that abortion was permitted until fetal animation (called “quickening” Aquinas posited that girl souls were implanted at 90 days after conception, while boys got souls after only 40.

Of course, this medieval and Aristotelian-based philosophical stuff ignored the majestic message of Sacred Scripture, in which the infusion of the soul (and the soul’s taking leave of the body) is inextricably intertwined with breathing – the soul itself involves the “breath of God” or “the breath of life.”

It was not until the 19th century that the Church started to change its position on abortion – and, of course, we have Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that is largely responsible for the Church losing its moral compass on the ideas and concepts of ensoulment and what constitutes a human being. Human life is a continuum, but a human being does not exist until birth and breath. Humanae Vitae prohibited Catholics from the use of any sort of artificial birth control.

It’s clear what the current Church hierarchy teachings are on abortion and birth control – I submit that while these may be binding on those Roman Catholics who accept the apostasy of the Church hierarchy in its misguidance of the flock, it is in no way appropriate for the hierarchy, and that means you, your Excellency, to take action as the agent of a foreign power to interfere with the constitution and laws of the State of New York and the United States as they apply to those citizens and inhabitants of the United States and the State of New York who do not subscribe to your hierarchical apostasy.

Let’s move on to priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. While these are certainly matters reserved to the hierarchy, it is exasperating when you take advantage of innocent Roman Catholics who are supposed to be members of your flock, who have not had the opportunity to take a seminary course in Church History, to misinform them that these things are “changeless” doctrines of the Church. Shame on you, your Excellency!

As you well know, the doctrine of priestly celibacy in the Western Church has its roots in canon XXXIII of the Spanish Council of Elvira (295-302 C.E.) – and this Western doctrine was expressly not adopted at Nicaea I in 325 C.E. – at which the Church Fathers merely confirmed the prohibition of mulieres subintroductas (no women in a bishop’s priest’s or deacon’s household except a female relative. Church tradition discouraging or forbidding priests marrying after ordination does predate the Council of Nicaea I. At various times in the West, similar prohibitions were adopted at various synods. The final thrust in the Roman Chuch came at Lateran Council II, at which the Church pronounced any marriage contracted by subdeacons or any members of higher orders to be invalid – leaving any conjugal relationships by clergy in the Western Church to be seen as mere concubinage. The celibacy doctrine was further reinforced at Lateran IV and Trent.

Still, the Church in the Modern World may well be prepared for changes in the doctrine – the large numbers of priests who are unable to keep to vows of celibacy and chastity, and who in attempting to suppress their sexual natures turn to alcohol abuse, child sexual abuse, seduction of widows and divorcees, and other matters one might deem to be “scandals in the Church.” While the apostate* Church response to the child abuse scandal has been a witch hunt to remove priests who were naturally endowed with a same-sex sexual orientation, you must know that does not address the root of the scandal.

As to the ordination of women? The early church ordained women. There is evidence in the writings of St. Paul that women were deaconesses, and as late as the 8th century C.E. there were bishopesses, priestesses and deaconesses (in these latter cases, these women were wives, respectively, of bishops, priests and deacons, with whom there were no longer supposed to be conjugal relations, but both husband and wide were to devote themselves to ministering to the flock).

Neither priestly celibacy nor the ban or ordination of women is “changeless” doctrine. However, the apostate hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has the power to change these things, at a Council, or upon a pronouncement by the Pope (neither of which seems to be likely). You, your Excellency, are certainly correct in asserting that you do not have the power to change these things. You do, however, have the power to privately (publicly would be scandalous, of course) express opinions to the Pope and your fellow bishops that a loosening of doctrine in these areas might be beneficial to the Church. (You also may truly believe that current doctrine rooted in long tradition should not be touched.)

Let’s move now to marriage, a matter which I take very seriously. I am most deeply disappointed in your opposition to the state recognizing civil marriage on a gender-neutral basis. I am aware of your history of anti-marriage activism in secular civil matters from when you were stationed in Wisconsin, where you strongly supported that state’s 2006 constitutional amendment prohibiting gender-neutral marriage and abused your episcopal power and authority to silence the vocal moral opposition of nearly 150 of your priests to this immoral, vile and heterosexual supremacist measure.

Based on this, I must come to the conclusion that your Excellency is really not such an Excellent personage, after all. I am well aware that you are constrained to obedience to the immoral and unethical pronouncements of Joseph Ratzinger (the apostate* anti-Pope Benedict XVI, and the chief architect of the retreat from Vatican II’s encounter between the Church and the Modern World) and the apostate* Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the subjects of heterosexist supremacy and the institution of marriage.

You and your apostate* Church hierarchy are certainly entitled to limit sacramental Holy Matrimony to those who are approved and qualified to receive the sacrament by the apostate* Church rules. That is, at least one of the parties must be a Roman Catholic, and the other party, if not Roman Catholic, must solemnly agree that any children of the marriage are to be raised within the Roman Catholic Church in order to receive a dispensation and participate in the Sacrament. Longstanding but not “changeless” Church doctrine also requires the participants in a sacramental marriage to be members of the opposite sex relative to each other. (The early Church blessed same-sex unions, such as that between Saints Sergius and Bacchus, based on Sacred Scripture, which in 1 Samuel 18, we see a sacred marriage covenant entered into between God’s anointed, David, and King Saul’s son Jonathan, while later in the same chapter, when Saul gives to David Saul’s daughter Michal in marriage, accurate translations (such as Darby and ASV) make it clear that Saul proclaims that this marriage to Michal makes David Saul’s “son-in-law a second time” (the first time being in the marriage with Jonathan). This bit of Scripture is not taken out of context – and while it is clear that there are many references in Sacred Scripture to heterosexual marriage, this one reference makes it clear that same-sex marriage covenants, as well as polygamy, are sanctioned by Scripture, though not by current understandings of Church tradition. I grant that Jerome fudged the translation of the Vulgate in this chapter, leading King James, Douay-Rheims and other Vulgate-based translations into confusion, so you might dispute the reference to “son-in-law a second time – after all, it is Church doctrine that the Vulgate is the “official” Bible of the Catholic Church.

So we have long-standing but not “changeless” Church doctrine that deals with the Sacrament of Holy matrimony.

Where you and the apostate* Church hierarchy fall into deep immorality and error, is in the insistence that Church doctrine in the area of marriage must be applied in the secular law, despite the strong American secular traditions of the free exercise of religious belief, and the guarantees of individual rights and equal treatment under the law.

Your proclamation that you “don’t shy away from these things” and will work to oppose the gender-neutral marriage bill that Governor David Patterson is about to introduce, makes you an enemy of the American people and the social contract that is the basis and foundation of the United States of America and the State of New York.

There is an uneasy balance between the “majority rule” of democratic institutions, and the “tyranny of the majority” when democratic rule is misused and abused to create special rights for the majority in oppression of the minority. In this case, your erroneous position on civil marriage puts you on the wrong side of the principles of justice, fairness and equal protection under the law.

Your position pits you against the children being raised by same-sex partners in stable relationships. Your position pits you against same-sex partners with long-standing relationships who are forcibly separated under the immigration laws of the United States. Your position pits you against transsexual people – as you well know, the Church held in a sub secretum document published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2000 C.E. (leaked to Catholic News Service in 2002 C.E.) – it’s the Vatican’s position that transsexual people cannot be allowed to marry anyone (male, female, or other), must live lives of celibacy, and may not be admitted to holy orders or even be members of a religious order, congregation or convent (even third-order Franciscans!).

In this area of interference in the civil law, you, your “Excellency,” represent the worst in the abuse of Church doctrine to suborn the processes of secular affairs that have nothing to do with the Church.

While you may have to accept the pernicious and immoral pronouncements of the apostate* Church hierarchy, in particular the vile Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons of July 31, 2003, you are not obliged to blindly follow this. You have a right, as a person who may well have an ounce of moral fortitude in your soul, to take this particular declaration of Church policy in such a way as to permit you to take the high road on this issue and not actually interfere in the process of recognition of the civil rights of the minority. It is not a sin of omission to refrain from taking action to oppose civil laws that would permit government to cease oppressing the minority that your superiors in the apostate* Church have immorally and in an ultra vires manner ordered you to oppress. You may have the moral compass to refuse immoral orders of your superiors – indeed, you have the duty to refuse these orders.

I warn you, however, your “Excellency,” that your interference in secular and civil law in this area will be met with vigorous opposition. If you succeed in your quest to stifle this legislation, you will find me as a strong advocate in opposition to your apostate* Church.

Among the things I might consider:

- laws that would require all of the clergy and members of the hierarchy of your apostate* Church in the United States register as agents of a foreign power. (This thinking is not original on my part – Cardinal Law had to be dissuaded from claiming diplomatic immunity on this sort of basis when his diocesan priestly sex scandal caused him much grief.)

The fact is, the only religion in the world with which the United States maintains a diplomatic ambassadorial relationship is the apostate* Roman Catholic Church, by virtue of its temporal administration of the Vatican City-State. It makes perfect sense to see Catholic prelates who seek to apply principles of the 2003 abomination of a doctrinal message in interfering with American legislative and judicial processes as “agents of a hostile foreign power.” This would not be an unwarranted breach by the State of the separation of government and religion, but an appropriate and necessary reaction to a religious cancer that has already interfered enough in secular affairs.

- laws denying the hostile foreign power apostate* Roman Catholic Church the right to own tax-exempt real estate in the United States, with the exception of embassies and consulates (cathedrals, Episcopal residences and diocesan administrative offices would qualify, assuming we are continuing to maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but not the ownership of parish churches and schools – these would also have no break from local taxation, since they are used by the hostile foreign power to interfere with the internal affairs of the civil law of the United States and the several States; they may even be subject to seizure).

In addition to legislation along one or more of these lines, and the denial of tax exemptions, there are other things I might consider advocating. Since you, and other bishops, on behalf of the apostate* Roman Catholic Church hierarchy officially act in a hostile manner toward the rights and freedoms of the People, as the agent of a hostile foreign power, with the purpose of subverting the American system of government and establishing a sort of Christianist theocracy, I would urge the federal government to break off diplomatic relations and expel all of the hierarchy (or at least those acting in such a hostile manner) from the territory of the United States until such time that the Vatican agrees to not interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States or the several States and at least as to the United States, rescinds the July 2003 document which is the basis for malicious interference in secular affairs.

I admit that these may seem to be somewhat “fringe” positions to take – but they would represent an appropriate response to your proposed active interference on behalf of the apostate* Church in secular matters, if it should be successful (I would not bother to advocate that the apostate* Church be treated as a “hostile foreign power” if you fail, hostile though the hierarchy may be by its actions to people like me). You cannot expect to be able to abuse your position of power as Archbishop of New York without risking the potential adverse consequences of violating the boundaries between Church and State, particularly when the Church you represent is also a Sovereign State in its own right.

Now that I have gotten the unpleasant matters out of the way, I do welcome you to New York. I understand that in areas other than these controversial areas of apostate* Church immorality and hostility to the interests of the people of the State of New York and the United States, you are reputed to be a fine preacher and a prelate who gets along well with your priests, at least with those who are quiet about matters which they might otherwise express disagreement.

While I have shaken the dust of your apostate* Church that has rejected me, from the sandals on my feet, I do retain a certain interest in Catholic matters. While my faith has unraveled to the extent that I am more theologically comfortable with Unitarian Universalism than I am with the sort of things I had to suspend my disbelief to accept that are among the minutiae of Roman Catholic teachings, including some things that are articles of faith under both versions of the Nicene Creed (oh, I *could* believe in some of these things, but the Church’s failures in moral theological maters has made me suspect of its authority in other areas in which it claims to be the possessor of the sole and complete Truth – so it makes me question things like the Church’s understanding of the “Virgin Birth,” the “Immaculate Conception,” the “Assumption” and even a truly central tenet such as the Resurrection. These days I think Thomas Jefferson had a better grasp of the Nature of Jesus than any Catholic theologian – but then again, that’s my personal faith development after having been rejected by the apostate* Church).

In any event, I do hope that despite our doctrinal, political, and other differences, that you serve the Catholic population of the Archdiocese of New York in an appropriate way as a good and faithful Shepherd of this large and diverse flock. I may be among the Other Sheep, exiled and outcast from that flock for being different, but that does not prevent me from wishing you well in those aspects of your work that involve ministering to the legitimate spiritual needs of the Catholics under your jurisdiction.

With warmest regards,

s/
Joann Marie Prinzivalli, Serva Servarum Deae
State Director, New York Transgender Rights Organization (NYTRO)

Going toe-to-toe with the Christianists

Today on one of my favorite blogs in the whole world, Pam’s House Blend, we get the otherwise cryptically-named article by Pam Spaulding herself entitled:

And Blankenhorn and Rauch think these people will compromise on marriage?

(The cryptic reference to Blankenhorn and Rauch is to an op-ed piece on compromise in federal recognition of civil unions that ran earlier in the week in The New York Times, A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage, by By DAVID BLANKENHORN and JONATHAN RAUCH
Published: February 21, 2009 )

I won’t go into the proposed “compromise” here – that’s not the thrust of Pam’s thoughtful essay.

What Pam writes about here is the right-wing Christianist rhetoric about gays that rings lodly in the halls of Congress and the inner recesses of our state legislatures. Today’s featured nutcase is Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, a Republican from Greeley, Colorado.

Renfroe was quoted in opposition to a bill to grant insurance benefits to gay partners of state employees (a bill that passed in the Colorado Senate after his less-than-inspiring speech) as saying “I oppose this bill because of what my personal beliefs are. I think that what our country was founded upon was those beliefs also.”

What are Renfroe’s beliefs? He certainly can’t be a Christian. Then again, even Pope Benedict XVI isn’t really a Christian. People with the sort of belief about LGBT people that Renfroe has, if they claim to be Christians, are lying. They’re Christianists – people who pervert and twist the kerygma of the message of the Good News, and use it as a justification for attempting to take their bigoted feelings about people who are different from themselves, and make their bigotry the law of the land.

How do we deal with the Christianists? Toe to toe on the theological level.

Every time they cite Leviticus 18:22:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination"

We should turn the other cheek with 1 Samuel 18:3:

“Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul”

and 1 Samuel 18:21 (KJV and most other translations are confused):

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain,"

giving the impression that David will be marrying one of Saul's two daughters. So let’s not use the old KJV or other mistranslations of this verse. The literal and accurate Darby gives us:

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be upon him. And Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time."

The first time was with Saul's son Jonathan, the second with Saul's daughter Michal). That means David and Jonathan were married.

The American Standard version (ASV), also a reasonably good translation, differs from Darby in only two words:

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time."

John Nelson Darby was the leader of the Plymouth Brethren movement in the 1800s. He was extremely gifted in linguistics. Darby is reputed to be a very rich and accurate translation. By going to the available original language sources rather than translating from St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate, (Douay-Rheims does the best job of that, but most non-Catholic Christianists think that the KJV was "authorized" by God rather than King James . . . ), Darby gets to the essence of what otherwise looks like a completely fumbled passage. After all, when homophobes do the translating, they're more likely to try to obscure the meaning of anything quite as powerful an example of same-sex marriage clearly stated in the Bible as the sacred covenant between David and Jonathan.

How does this relate to Leviticus 18:22? Simply put, at worst this verse from the "holiness code" relates only to a single kind of male-male sexual activity. Some theologians will also link this prohibition to the story of Sodom, and indicate that it relates only to the practice of anal rape, commonly used in the ancient Near East as a way to humiliate a defeated enemy by "using him as one would use a woman" (which has nothing to do with a loving gay relationship). Others would link it to a prohibition of sacramental religious relations with transgendered priestesses of Near East agricultural goddesses (Astarte, Ishtar, etc.), relating more to Caananite religion as the forbidden "competition" for the Hebrews at the time of Leviticus.

The Christianists and their erroneous understanding of Sacred Scripture can be challenged, and should be challenged, on their own theological turf. Too often LGBT people will turn away from Christianity, thinking that the Christianists are the bearers of the Good News. They are not - they pervert the Bible with their Un-Chriatian foul bigotry spawned by Satan. Unless they repent they will be numbered among the goats on the Day of Judgment, asking in their confused false righteousness:

"Lord, when saw we thee . . .a stranger, . . . and have not ministered to thee?

Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have not done it to one of these least, neither have ye done it to me.

And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life eternal."

- Mt. 25:44-46 (Darby)

This relates back to one of my favorite passages, Isaiah 56. I often will cite verses 3-5, but see 6-7:

Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.

- Isaiah 56:6-7 (KJV)

Strangers are not only those who are from foreign countries and cultures, but also those in our midst who are different by our natures or circumstances from the majority - whether it be based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, etc.

Real Christians embrace the wonderful diversity in God's creation, while Christianists, even the Pope, abhor it. Like the men of Sodom, their desire is to obliterate us, to humiliate us, to deny us human rights and common decency, solely because we are different, because we are "strangers," because we are aliens in our own native land and culture.

Marriage Equality in the Year of St. Paul

Until June 29, 2009, the Roman Catholic Church is celebrating a special jubilee year dedicated to commemorate the approximate 2000 years since the birth of St. Paul the Apostle.

In honor of St. Paul, let’s start this essay as a meditation on his writings on the issue of the purpose of marriage, expressed in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9:

8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.

9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

In addition to this passage from St. Paul, let’s take a look at the recent reports coming from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, reported in an article in The Raleigh News and Observer on Sunday, February 15, 2009, entitled Push is on for same-sex celibacy: Raleigh diocese directs ministry at gays, lesbians

I learned about this from a blog essay written by Pam Spaulding, the proprietress of the Pam’s House Blend blog (a blog I highly endorse for its well-written essays), entitled Raleigh, Charlotte dioceses pushing same-sex celibacy, NC marriage amendment

Now that I’ve identified the sources of the reportage, let’s get to meat of the reports.

It seems that the Diocese of Raleigh is embarking on two initiatives related to marriage:

First, the Raleigh diocese is organizing a diocesan chapter of Courage, a group that encourages gay Catholics toward a celibate life, and

Second, the Bishop of Raleigh is planning on joining with the Bishop of Charlotte (also in North Carolina) on February 24, 2009 to endorse a proposed amendment to the North Carolina state constitution to define marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman, to enshrine in the state constitution a ban against equal marriage rights for non-heterosexual people.

I actually don’t object to the bishop starting up a Courage chapter – but I believe that Courage itself is too limited in its scope. It should be aimed at all unmarried Catholics, and not just those with a homosexual orientation. The reason is very much associated with 1 Corinthians 7:8-9.

While I would welcome an expanded Courage aimed at all sexual orientations, I strongly object to the bishops in North Carolina on the one hand trying to discourage promiscuity only for gays by pushing celibacy on them (which works only for those few actually called to a celibate life), and at the same time encouraging the adoption of a constitutional anti-marriage amendment that would serve the opposite purpose, as a secular encouragement of promiscuity in the gay population.

I also disagree with the Roman Catholic hierarchy on its objection to the idea of marriage as a sacramental covenant that is not open to non-heterosexual people. Holy Matrimony as a sacrament should be open to non-heterosexual couples on the basis of the sacred marriage covenant entered into between David and Saul’s son Jonathan (see 1 Samuel 18).

Why do I take these points of view?

Simply because anyone who reads and understands the Bible properly must know that the Church (and all Christian leaders) should, like St. Paul, be teaching that the highest calling for all Christians is to celibacy, while marriage, even though a sacremant as well as a civil right, should be seen only as the last resort for those Christians whose libidos are such that they cannot remain celibate.

By closing the option of sacramental marriage to gays and lesbians, the Roman Catholic hierarchy sets up those of them who cannot live a celibate life, and who, being unmarried *and* without an option to marry, cannot contain their sexual libidos, to a life the Church can in its gross immorality gleefully condemn as sinful.

(A preferable alternative and truly moral point of view is to understand that God does not require the impossible. If marriage is not a sacramental or secular possibility for gays and lesbians, any actions they take to assuage their libidinal feelings outside of marriage cannot be sinful – they have no option to marry, God does not require the impossible, and thus the Church cannot reasonably expect all gays and lesbians to be called to celibacy.)

By closing the option of sacramental marriage to gays and lesbians, the Roman Catholic hierarchy also actually encourages them to enter into lives of promiscuity – by providing no moral alternative. It is a wonder that so many gays and lesbians are able to find a way to live non-promiscuous lives with long-term partners in informal or even legally recognized domestic partnerships, civil unions, and civil marriages. And wise governments, seeking societal stability, will find ways to encourage marriage as a choice for all. The Church, however, ignores this phenomenon and paints a picture of a “homosexual lifestyle” that is purely sybaritic, self-indulgent, decadent and promiscuous. It is this “lifestyle” that the Church creates as a straw man – as if the only alternative for the gay population is celibacy.

On the Raleigh diocese website, this promiscuous “gay lifestyle” is the main reason for the creation of Courage. The diocesan webpage starts with a quote from “Mark,” a Courage member:

“I thought I had the homosexuality under control. I'd been a Catholic for five years, went to daily Mass, prayed the rosary daily, went on one or two retreats a year, and volunteered at my parish. Yet, after a series of crises occurred, I once again became involved in addictive, homosexual behavior. So what happened?”

“Addictive homosexual behavior” is a code word for that straw man “promiscuous gay lifestyle.” I’m not about to deny that such a lifestyle actually exists – but I will deny that it is the only path taken by gay people.

The diocese goes on:

In a recent interview, Fr. Check talked about his experience in counseling those with SSA. “The problem of same-sex attraction does not reduce well to a few words,” he said. “It is certainly no place for slogans or hastily formed conclusions. Most importantly, it calls for abundant and genuine charity, something that in my opinion tends to be conspicuous in its absence from much of the discussion of the topic.”

NCC spoke with a Raleigh woman active in Encourage. Her son was 23 when he announced defiantly – by email -- that he was gay. “I was devastated,” she says. “My son was sinning, alienating himself from me and from God, and I didn’t know how to parent him. All I could say to him was, ‘I love you with all my heart. Stay close to God.’” In her search for compassion and support, she learned about Courage/Encourage in 2004, and became an advocate for the establishment of a chapter in the Diocese of Raleigh.

The perception that people with SSA are happy is a myth, she says: “When my son is ‘acting out’ the SSA lifestyle, his whole personality changes. He becomes distant, cruel and defensive. When he’s not living it, he’s just the opposite, compassionate and empathetic.”

“The problem of same sex attraction is often vexing to those who struggle with it,” Fr. Check concurs. “Shame, loneliness, and a sense of hopelessness are the enemies. Often people with SSA also struggle with sexual addiction, drug or alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety or other mental illness. This remains true even in the places where sexual promiscuity is widely tolerated.”

This whole line of reasoning is specious. That mother would have done herself and her son a lot more good had she gotten involved with her local P-FLAG ghapter. This whole straw man “SSA lifestyle” (SSA = same sex attraction) is not any different from an OSA lifestyle (where OSA means “opposite sex attraction.” Let’s see how much sense the foregoing makes if we make the substitution (and also, as the Church seems to do with SSA, make the same assumption about OSA, that it involves lots of wild promiscuous sex parties):

In a recent interview, Fr. Check talked about his experience in counseling those with OSA. “The problem of opposite-sex attraction does not reduce well to a few words,” he said. “It is certainly no place for slogans or hastily formed conclusions. Most importantly, it calls for abundant and genuine charity, something that in my opinion tends to be conspicuous in its absence from much of the discussion of the topic.”

NCC spoke with a Raleigh woman active in Encourage. Her son was 23 when he announced defiantly – by email -- that he was straight. “I was devastated,” she says. “My son was sinning, alienating himself from me and from God, and I didn’t know how to parent him. All I could say to him was, ‘I love you with all my heart. Stay close to God.’” In her search for compassion and support, she learned about Courage/Encourage in 2004, and became an advocate for the establishment of a chapter in the Diocese of Raleigh.

The perception that people with OSA are happy is a myth, she says: “When my son is ‘acting out’ the OSA lifestyle, his whole personality changes. He becomes distant, cruel and defensive. When he’s not living it, he’s just the opposite, compassionate and empathetic.”

Of course, if a person living a real promiscuous OSA lifestyle then turns to God, the Church might encourage that individual to settle down into a marriage, if he or she can’t remain celibate.

The Church presents no moral alternative to gays and lesbians – only the (impossible for most) idea of living a celibate life. And the treatment of “internalized homophobia” blames the homosexuality itself for the effects of what one might fairly refer to as a “culturally-induced stress disorder.”

Let’s take another look at the last of the originally-quoted paragraphs:

“The problem of same sex attraction is often vexing to those who struggle with it,” Fr. Check concurs. “Shame, loneliness, and a sense of hopelessness are the enemies. Often people with SSA also struggle with sexual addiction, drug or alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety or other mental illness. This remains true even in the places where sexual promiscuity is widely tolerated.”

This is turning the whole problem upside-down! The side effects come from the lack of self-acceptance found in those who feel conflicted between the false teachings they have been exposed to about their natural orientation, and their experience of the orientation itself. The struggles cease when the individual comes to the realization that the Church is wrong, and that the individual can be good and moral and loved by God even if they are gay and having a chaste gay relationship.

The Church finds itself in this conundrum, and is itself the cause of so much of the grief (though secular society and parents and family members must also share some of the blame), because its moral theology starts with false premises about natural law. When the Roman Catholic hierarchy insists that "homosexual acts" are sinful for those with a "homosexual inclination," the hierarchy relies on a false understanding of Natural Law. Homosexual acts are only sinful for those with a heterosexual inclination (they should read and understand Romans 1 with the insight that an "act in accordance with (one's) nature" is not an "act against Nature").

The Roman Catholic Church insists on celibacy as a test for a priestly vocation - to insist that all whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual must be celibate or sinful is a perversion of the message of scripture.

The hierarchy should take a closer look at St. Paul – and to the story of David and Jonathan.

It’s about time that the Roman Catholic Church re-examined its schizophrenic teachings about homosexuality – on the one hand, that gays be treated with respect, and on the other hand, that homosexual activity cannot be condoned.

Such a teaching flies in the face of St. Paul’s teaching – sure, in context, Paul was writing directly about heterosexual people – but the point is extendable to non-heterosexual people as well.

God does not expect the impossible. For those of any sexual orientation who are called to celibacy, God will provide sufficient (and efficacious, if they exercise their free will to do so) grace for them to be celibate. For those who cannot remain celibate because they burn with libidinous passion, regardless of their orientation, a legal, moral and sacramental path must be made available for them to be able to live chaste lives within a marital bond.

To that end, an organization like Courage should be open to all unmarried Catholics – who, straight or gay, should be strongly encouraged to remain virginal, chaste and celibate as their primary goal – and that only those Catholics (and all other Christians) whose souls burn with sexual desire that they cannot completely control should be allowed to marry. (Of course, for those who are not Christian at all, there would be no need for the secular law to address the idea of celibacy as a calling – secular law should permit equal marriage rights for all as a matter of providing a level playing field.

To St. Paul, it’s clear that marriage for the Christian is not for procreation – that was a value suitable solely for those who lived before Christ came as the Redeemer, and for pagans and unbelievers. For those who have accepted Christ, and are not already married at the time they are baptized as Christians, the primary calling is clearly to celibacy. . . if they can handle it. Celibacy should not be the expectation only for priests, gays and lesbians.

Oh, and if I didn’t mention it earlier in this essay (I didn’t), the Church has painted itself into the same sort of moral corner with the trans population. We are not allowed to marry the same sex (or the opposite sex). We, too, are all expected by the Church to achieve the impossible (impossible except for a few) that God does not expect.

God does not expect the impossible - why should the Roman Catholic Church?