Courtesy of the aggregator RealClearReligion, I chanced upon this story at the ABC News website by Erin McLaughlin, titled “First Military Base Same-Sex Wedding Held.” It concerns a male couple, one of them an Air Force noncom, the other a civilian, who were “married” by a Lutheran Navy chaplain (no, there’s no such thing as the Lutheran Navy, you know what I mean) at a military base now called by the cumbersome name Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
I put “married” in quotation marks, not because I want to call into question the idea of a same-sex couple being married, although that is truly impossible in the nature of things, no matter what the law says. No, I use the quotation marks this time because the “wedding” (complete with “newlyweds” elsewhere in the story) is said to have taken place in the state of New Jersey, where I sit while typing this. The state of New Jersey has not established same-sex marriage in its laws. The most it has done–and this is more than it should–is create “civil unions” for same-sex partners.
Whatever else Navy chaplain Kay Reeb may have done, she surely did not present the couple with a valid New Jersey marriage license at the conclusion of the ceremony. The fact that the event took place on a military base changes nothing, for military bases within a state are, in these matters, governed by local state law. And the Defense of Marriage Act, whose spirit if not its letter would be broken by any same-sex ceremony of “marriage” occurring under federal auspices, would seem to get in the way anyhow, even in the wake of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” (This is a matter with great collisions on the horizon in the military chaplaincies, to the detriment of religious freedom for many chaplains and troops, no matter what happens to DOMA, but especially if it falls.)
Certainly the chaplain could not have pretended to marry the couple under, say, the laws of New York, while standing in New Jersey. So, since it is not possible that a non-New Jersey “wedding” took place inside New Jersey, what exactly happened? Almost certainly, a “wedding” that was not a wedding–since it did not result in a marriage even under any locally-in-force positive law. Perhaps liberal journalists are weary with calling such an event a “same-sex civil union commitment ceremony,” and want to anticipate a yet-unwon cultural victory simply by declaring it. Or perhaps this ABC reporter just didn’t know better, and willingly called the event what its participants wanted her to call it, and what they earnestly want it to have been, even though it was not.
Or is it I am who missing something I should know better? As I say, a head-scratcher.
UPDATE: I should have read the ABC report a third time before posting. Just once, in McLaughlin’s story, the phrase “their civil union” appears in a reference to the couple’s legal relationship, presumably as it stands after the “wedding” and not before. This is the only time in the story that the truth peeks through, that no wedding as that word is ordinarily understood took place at all.
July 20th, 2012 | 2:06 pm
Well, not so far, anyway:
http://newsok.com/as-gays-serve-openly-few-problems-for-chaplains/article/feed/400643
July 20th, 2012 | 2:21 pm
Get used to these kinds of confusing situations where words and ideas developed for traditional marriage get transplanted into the new world of gay “unions”. Why not call the ceremony joining two gays in a civil union a “wedding?” “Unioning” is hard to say and sounds like it involves a ballot process at a factory.
And these confusions will only grow more perplexing when ideas and words developed regarding “mom and dad” parents get applied to mom and mom / dad and dad parents.
A very kind older gentleman I know fell into one such trap. He heard that a lesbian couple were expecting a baby. Trying to be nice, he said “How wonderful for them. Who is the mother?” This was taken as a terrible affront. Of course, he was told, they are both the mothers of the child. He explained that he only meant “who is carrying the child” – but even this was taken as demeaning of the “other mom.”
My advice — keep your mouth shut and nod with a smile if you don’t want to be labeled a hater.
July 20th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
Would it be uncivil of me to hope that the ELCA drop the word “Lutheran” from it’s name?
July 20th, 2012 | 3:47 pm
Why should anyone label me a “hater” because I don’t endorse a type of relationship that violates natural law and millennia of teaching by the Church and other institutions, religious or otherwise? The words “hater” and similar epithets says more about those who would hurl them than those to whom they are directed.
July 20th, 2012 | 3:53 pm
Perhaps the article was using Lutheran terminology, as was the couple.
Even for heterosexual, traditional marriage, the usual procedure in the United States, where the couple obtains a marriage license from the government, which is completed by a religious minister, who is “deputized” by the government for this function, is unusual for religious marriage ceremonies in the West, by my incomplete estimation.
In other parts of the world, the civil authorities do not deputize members of the clergy, or the clergy refuse to fulfill this government function, so religious couples have what Americans call a “courthouse wedding,” which is followed by a religious service. The Prince and Princess of Monaco are a celebrity example. Was their Nuptial Mass not a “wedding” because it did not have the force of civil law?
Of course, this couple is different than my foreign examples, in that they had the religious ceremony without the civil ceremony. But I think a society that dictates to churches what constitutes a wedding is more to be feared than a society where the civil laws allow for same-sex, civil marriage.
July 20th, 2012 | 4:07 pm
This is slightly off-topic but speaks to how the VA can over-ride state law on it’s premises. Perhaps the military on it’s federal bases have other kinds of state law over-rides as well. I was really surprised when I first found this out.
As an RN with a specialized master’s degree called a Clinical Nurse Specialist, I am licensed by the state of Oregon under a specific scope of practice that defines what I am and am not allowed to do as a CNS. In the VA system there is a similar CNS designation but with a different (and higher level) scope of practice. So even though the VA requires that I have a state CNS license, when I practice as a CNS on VA property I can practice at a higher level scope than I could if I worked just across the parking lot at the Oregon med. school which follows the state of OR Nurse Practice Act.
July 20th, 2012 | 8:10 pm
@Carl
Homosexuality does not violate natural law. There are over 1500 species of animal that exhibit homosexual behavior. Homosexuality is reinforced as a natural orientation by nature itself. As for religion, religion should not ever dictate two people being denied 1100+ federal benefits that are afforded to heterosexual couples. It is unconstitutional and violates ‘ones unalienable rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness’ that this country was founded on.
July 21st, 2012 | 5:25 am
@Carl
Homosexuality does not violate natural law. There are over 1500 species of animal that exhibit homosexual behavior.
Homosexual rutting is perfectly natural.
Pretending that homosexuals are “families” is not. There are many animals in the world that use parasitic reproduction strategies, but I don’t know of a single animal species that parasitizes its own species – heck, its own family – so that an older barren adult can exploit the young in ways that benefits the adult, but at the expense of the young.
It is normal and healthy for adults to care for the young. It is abnormal and unhealthy for adults to exploit the young, or to tolerate the exploitation of their young.
The problem with gay marriage isn’t that gays don’t believe marriage is procreative; it’s that they do; if they could accept that a gay union is necessarily barren – instead of coveting what isn’t rightfully theirs, and trying to force both children and the larger community to pretend that having “two mommies” or “two daddies” is just as good as having an intact family – then gay marriage wouldn’t be nearly as large a threat to society.
It’s the coveting and the telling of lies that are the real problem. Not the sex.
July 21st, 2012 | 7:55 am
RS
I know of no European country that follows the US model, except Scotland, where, until 1940, no formalities, civil or religious were required for a valid marriage. a mere mutual manifestation of consent sufficed In this Scotland followed the pre-Tridentine marriage law of the Church. Marriage by habit and repute survived until 2006. We are still having actions of Declarator being raised, either by the parties or their heirs. Now, everyone must give notice to the civil registrar and must marry before an authorised person in a civil or religious ceremony. The AP must then send a return to the civil registrar.
France, Belgium and Luxembourg all follow the model you describe and it is an offence for a minister of religion “habitually” to celebrate marriages for unmarried couples.
Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain have a dual system, with both civil and religious weddings being recognised, although the marriage certificate must subsequently be produced to the civil registrar.
In England, Church of England weddings do not require a civil licence, nor do Quakers, Moravians and Jews. All others do, with ministers of religion being appointed as authorised persons
July 21st, 2012 | 11:59 am
And anyone who does not think that animal behavior is the appropriate model of human sexuality and morality must be an ignorant fool. So let’s see what that animal model tells us we should be doing with our own sexuality. In nature we see: males who have nothing to do with their offspring; males who simply have sex with as many females as possible; males who fight each other to determine who gets to mate; males who eat the young of their own species if the females don’t fight them off; and dogs that hump the legs of their owners. I’m sure we could go on and on with examples of how animals behave with regard to sex, including the use of male power to induce or overpower females to have sex with them.
All these are natural, so I suppose they should be things we humans go about doing as well? In fact, if we take animals as our model of moral behavior it’s “un-natural” that humans don’t do these and many other disgusting things that animals do.
The use of the term “natural” in regards to human morality does not involve copying animal behavior, but rather using the “natural” human capacity of reason to determine behavior that leads to human flourishing. The use of reason tells us not to do many things that animals do. This is natural to human beings with reason.
July 21st, 2012 | 12:23 pm
And these confusions will only grow more perplexing when ideas and words developed regarding “mom and dad” parents get applied to mom and mom / dad and dad parents.
Sally Rogers,
Here’s an interesting question: Who is Nancy Reagan? Wikipedia identifies her, among other things, as the widow of President Ronald Reagan. It says, “They married on March 4, 1952[,] in a simple ceremony designed to avoid the press at the Little Brown Church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.”
But Jane Wyman was still alive. Who was Jane Wyman? Wikipedia says, “Wyman was the first wife of Ronald Reagan. They married in 1940 and divorced in 1949, before Reagan ran for public office.”
For Catholics and all others who believe that marriage is indissoluble, this is extraordinarily confusing. Can we call the simple ceremony of March 4, 1952, in which Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis participated, a wedding any more than we can call the recent ceremony participated in by Barney Frank and James Ready a wedding? The latter two obviously can’t marry, because marriage is the union of one man and one woman. But Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis couldn’t marry because Ronald Reagan was already married to Jane Wyman, and marriage in the eyes of Catholics (and God) is the indissoluble union of one man and one woman.
So Nancy Reagan was not the second wife of Ronald Reagan and the stepmother of Maureen Reagan, and she is not the widow of Ronald Reagan. Whether or not she is a former First Lady is unclear, since there is no official definition of the title. But if we accept that the First Lady is the wife of the President, it seems to me that Jane Wyman was the actual First Lady.
Why, I wonder, do those who believe in the indissolubility of marriage not use scare quotes when referring to second “marriages” or second “wives”? Or the “weddings” of those who are “divorced” and decide to “remarry”?
July 21st, 2012 | 12:25 pm
My advice — keep your mouth shut and nod with a smile if you don’t want to be labeled a hater.
Sally Rogers,
Is it your implication that all, or perhaps most, gays, lesbians, and people who sympathize with them are hostile and believe that people who disagree with them are “haters”? Or is it that it is only some, perhaps a small minority, but since you never know who might be hostile and call you a “hater,” it’s safer to hide your own views from everyone?
I would have to say that, having lived in New York City (one of the gay capitals of the world) since 1970 and working in publishing all this time, an industry with a disproportionate number of gays and lesbians, I have run into a very small number of people who are hostile in the way you describe. In fact, I am not sure I have met anyone who would become rude over asking which partner of an expecting lesbian couple was the mother of the baby. It is a question that I certainly would feel comfortable asking without fear of getting my head bitten off.
July 21st, 2012 | 3:07 pm
Blake –
As I’ve asked you many times before, “What’s the proportion of ‘gay parents’ who labor to sever all ties with the other biological parent? Just a rough estimate would be fine, I know you can’t point to any actual numbers.”
Feel like answering this time? (At this point, after a year or so of discussing this with you, I’ll settle for “less than 50%” or “greater than 50%”… though I’ll still ask you how you know.)
July 21st, 2012 | 3:13 pm
The use of the term “natural” in regards to human morality does not involve copying animal behavior, but rather using the “natural” human capacity of reason to determine behavior that leads to human flourishing.
Slats Grobnik,
I think you are wrong here. I am not expert on natural law, but I believe in the context of natural law arguments, a sex act is “natural” if it serves the purpose for which nature (or God) intended it. If the sole purpose of sex is procreation, then any non-progreative sex act (such as masturbation) would be against natural law, or unnatural.
So what are we to make of the fact that masturbation (and homosexual behavior) is frequently found among nonuhman animals? It is obviously true that we should not use animals as a model for human behavior, but the question in my mind is whether animals can, by instinct, use a faculty like sexuality for a purpose other than which nature (or God) intended it. Apparently among giraffes, homosexual intercourse among males is more common than heterosexual intercourse between males and females. That does not mean this is the way it should be among human beings, but the question is whether giraffes can use sex in a way that nature (or God) did not intend for it to be used. From an evolutionary standpoint, it would seem that the sexual behavior of giraffes is adaptive in some way. The population of giraffes doesn’t die out as a result of their sexual behavior. So giraffe sexual behavior seems to be, in some very real sense, behavior that nature (God?) “intends” for the “flourishing” of giraffes.
It would seem we have to say that the purpose of sex is not limited to procreation, otherwise animals wouldn’t engage in those behaviors. Animals, it would seem to me, can no more defy the laws of nature than they can defy the laws of gravity or thermodynamics. It might be true that occasionally an animal has some kind of physiological disorder that causes it to “malfunction.” But that is not what we are talking about when we see widespread homosexuality or masturbation among whole species. I don’t understand how there could be something “against nature” that nevertheless appears routinely in nature. That is, I don’t see how animals could routinely use faculties they are endowed with for purposes that violate the reasons for which those faculties were given to them. The natural behavior of nonhuman animals may be amoral, but I don’t see how it can be called “unnatural.”
July 21st, 2012 | 3:53 pm
[...] at a NJ Military Base Saturday, July 21, 2012, 3:53 PM Matthew J. Franck Yesterday I blogged here about an ABC report of a same-sex “wedding” at a military base in New Jersey. The [...]
July 22nd, 2012 | 10:32 am
Dear David.
You are wrong. Natural law reasoning in the Catholic moral tradition does not proceed as you suggest. If you think I am going to go through and explain 2000 years of that tradition to you, you are also incorrect. Look it up. The short answer, however, is that there is no violation of the natural law by animals possible because animals lack reason (don’t bother telling me they are intelligent, or clever, or good at surviving – all of those are indeed signs of some kinds of intellect, but not of reason). They can’t be morally unreasonable, because they don’t have reason to deploy about abstract moral questions. They can’t commit murder (even if they kill one of their species) because they don’t have reason. We shouldn’t copy their judgment about moral behavior because they don’t have reason-based judgment about the morality of their behavior. But if you want to go ahead and take animals of your behavior — good luck. First lesson: What becomes of the weak, injured or ill members of an animal species? If it’s natural, it must be good.
July 22nd, 2012 | 6:15 pm
The short answer, however, is that there is no violation of the natural law by animals possible because animals lack reason (don’t bother telling me they are intelligent, or clever, or good at surviving – all of those are indeed signs of some kinds of intellect, but not of reason).
Slats Grobnik,
You missed my point. It is my understanding that according to natural law reasoning, masturbation or homosexual acts are wrong because the purpose of the sexual faculty is reproduction. The following is from from Chapter 1 of The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings:
I am not arguing that animals are capable of moral or immoral behavior. My point, however, is that something like masturbation is morally wrong, according to natural law arguments, because it uses the sexual faculty and the sexual organs in an “unnatural” way—a way contrary to their intended purpose.
I am not making an assertion that “animals do it, therefore humans can do it, too.” I am raising the question of whether animals are capable of using their sexual faculties or their sexual organs in an “unnatural” way. If a behavior like masturbation or homosexual behavior is common in an animal species, and if it is adaptive—that is, if it works toward the survival of the species—can it be reasonable said to be “unnatural” or contrary to what God intended? Since animals don’t have reason, how could they decide to act according to the way God intended them to? I am not raising a moral question. I agree animal behavior is neither moral nor immoral. I am raising the question of whether it makes any sense to say, for example, that an animal that masturbates is using sexuality or its sex organs in an “unnatural” way, or a way for which they were not intended.
Certainly an individual animal could have some physiological problem (say, a brain tumor), that caused it to function “unnaturally.” But how could a behavior that was widespread in a species, a behavior that was adaptive and enhanced rather than harmed the animals’ flourishing, be contrary to nature or to the intended purpose of the animals’s faculties or organs?
This is not to say that what is “natural” for animals would be moral for humans. For example, some species eat their own young. There may be evolutionary reasons for this, and it may be adaptive for the species overall. But one would never recommend this for humans! However, animals who do this cannot be said to be doing something that is “unnatural” or that goes against their natural purpose, survival, or flourishing.
If it’s natural, it must be good.
This is an argument I did not make. The argument I did make is that if it’s natural, it’s not unnatural.
July 22nd, 2012 | 9:51 pm
It is un-natural for human beings to do what animals do when those things animals are doing are irrational.
What is natural to human beings is to act according to reason. It is natural for my dog to eat its vomit and lick its butt. It is un-natural for me to eat my vomit or lick my butt.
July 23rd, 2012 | 8:54 am
“What’s the proportion of ‘gay parents’ who labor to sever all ties with the other biological parent? Just a rough estimate would be fine, I know you can’t point to any actual numbers.”
This is a straw man argument.
July 23rd, 2012 | 9:19 am
Slats Grobnik –
Depends a lot on what assumptions you reason about. ‘The purpose of sexuality’ being one of ‘em.
Indeed, the idea that sexuality has one purpose, or even one purpose that’s always predominant over others, is at issue here.
Take eating, for example. It’s not just there to keep our bodies fueled – it has, and has apparently always had, a very important social dimension. Consider the phrase “breaking bread together” – a sign of friendship and peace. Consider how important many people consider having a family sit down and eat together. Practically every gathering of family and many (most?) meetings among friends involve eating. Does a meal at a wedding reception serve a purely utilitarian purpose? I recall a professor pointing out in class long ago, “In fairy tales, no one ever says ‘I love you’. Instead, they give food.”
Imagine the kind of ‘logic’ that people apply to homosexuality being applied to eating. Overweight Christians would be forbidden from taking Communion until they’d gotten their weight under control, or at least would be religiously compelled to adjust their meals to take the bread and wine into account. (I mean, come on – if Communion isn’t an example of eating taking on a social and religious dimension, what is?)
And sex is not just a procreative act. Even in a monogamous (and monandrous – how come that isn’t a more common word?) marriage, it forms a critical part of the relationship. It’s not just for making babies, it is also a vital way of saying “I love you,” and a way of giving pleasure to one’s spouse, and fun in and of itself. We have utterly clear examples of sexual behavior forming important social, non-procreative roles in other species – most famously in one of our two nearest relatives, the Bonobo chimpanzee.
So, just because homosexuality is non-procreative doesn’t automatically mean it’s ‘wrong’, and David’s pointed out that it’s certainly not ‘unnatural’.
July 23rd, 2012 | 9:35 am
It is un-natural for human beings to do what animals do when those things animals are doing are irrational.
Slats Grobnik,
This doesn’t even begin to address the issue that I raised. Basically, since animals are not rational creatures, nothing they do is “rational.” However, there are generally very good reasons (or explanations) for the things they do, including the things you mention, which, by the way have no moral component.
My point, which you seemed not to grasp, is that in a general way, animals do not do things that they were not “designed” to do, and they do not use their organs in ways that nature (or God) intended them not to. While it still might be a leap to argue that because giraffes engage in homosexual behavior a great deal of the time, it would be moral for human beings to do so, it cannot be argued that the giraffe behavior is “against nature” and that giraffes are doing something that nature (or God) did not intend for them to do, or intended for them not to do.
Doing some reading over the weekend, I discovered that contemporary philosophers, including the “New Natural Law” philosophers, have generally abandoned the kind of arguments Aquinas made along these lines, although it still seems to me that Catholic morality as laid out in, say, the Catechism, still uses the line of reasoning I am rejecting here.
July 23rd, 2012 | 10:45 am
There is no way I am going to make you understand that what is natural for animals to do is not natural for human beings to do, so this is my last attempt to make myself clear. After that please feel free to continue to discuss this without me.
Animals do not govern their behavior by reason. Nothing they do is “against nature,” since it is not in their nature to have reason. They could not violate the natural law if they tried to do so. Anything they do is a result of some other impelling force, and they cannot be judged morally in the same way human beings are. If giraffes go and rut against a tree, then they are not violating natural law. If a male forces a female to mate, he is not raping her. If a grown male bear eats a bear cub, he is not a cannibal.
If a human being does the same things with members of their own species, it is not natural, which as you say is a term of art meaning “violating the natural law.”
When we say something violates the natural law for humans we are not saying “no animals do x, y, or z”. The two categories (things we see animals do is one category we could see as “natural” and the other category is “what is proper to human behavior” as “natural” or in conformity with the “natural law” possessed by human beings really have almost nothing to do with each other.) Perhaps this is why the language has been dropped by those you identify as the new natural law theorists – because people (like you) no longer understand the distinction.
July 23rd, 2012 | 2:41 pm
There is no way I am going to make you understand that what is natural for animals to do is not natural for human beings to do, so this is my last attempt to make myself clear. After that please feel free to continue to discuss this without me.
Slats Grobnik,
Okay, let’s look briefly at masturbation by humans and animals. Traditional Catholic morality would say that masturbation by a human is wrong because the purpose of sex is procreation. The purpose of a human penis is to deposit sperm in a woman’s reproductive tract in such a way that she may become pregnant. It is wrong for a man to masturbate, because he is using his sexuality and his sex organ for a purpose they were not intended for. In a sex act with a woman, it is wrong to do anything short of depositing sperm outside the woman’s reproductive system in a way that she has no chance of getting pregnant. Masturbation or even a nonreproductive sex act with a member of the opposite sex is “unnatural,” since sexuality and the sex organs are being used for a purpose other than which they were intended.
Animals do not govern their behavior by reason. Nothing they do is “against nature,” since it is not in their nature to have reason. They could not violate the natural law if they tried to do so.
By saying this, it seems to me, you are making the violation of natural law dependent on the knowledge and intention of the person violating it. According to Catholics, contraception is against natural law because it interferes with the intended aims and objects of the sex act. Now, persons who do not know the Catholic teaching are not morally culpable for the “unnatural” act of contraception, but they have still gone against natural law. Similarly, an animal that masturbates or engages in homosexual sex cannot be held morally responsible. But if sex is solely for procreation, that animal is using its sexuality and sex organs in a way that is allegedly not intended by God (or nature), and is thus misusing the faculty of sexuality and its sex organs.
So human beings can do things that violate natural law unwittingly. I would say that animals can, too. Suppose an animal has some kind of brain disorder that causes it to attempt to mate with the same sex rather than the opposite sex. (When I was a kid, my father raised chickens, and a baby chick was born that could only walk backwards. Not every animal acts according to the way nature intended.) But when a behavior such as masturbation or homosexual activity is widespread, common, and adaptive in a species, how can it be said that the members of the species use their sexuality and sex organs in an “unnatural” way, or a way not intended by God or nature?
You seem to equate “unnatural” with “irrational,” but that is not what natural law is all about. One could make a perfectly rational decision to perform an “unnatural” sex act. I am wondering if you also equate animal behavior we regard as disgusting with behavior that would be morally wrong for human beings to engage in. There is no reason I can think of to do this.
July 23rd, 2012 | 7:26 pm
Okay, let’s look briefly at masturbation by humans and animals
Or we could look at females that eat the males after mating.
July 24th, 2012 | 12:01 am
Why not dogs eating their vomit?
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