A sample:  Que l’on ait l’une ou l’autre des visions du monde, on voit bien que ce qui se joue derrière « le mariage pour tous », c’est une substitution : une institution chargée juridiquement, culturellement et symboliquement serait ainsi remplacée par un objet juridique asexué, sapant les fondements des individus et de la famille. (“Whether one has the one world view or the other, it is quite clear that the intention behind the slogan ‘marriage for everyone’ is a substitution: a juridically, culturally and symbolically charged institution is to be replaced by an asexual juridical construct, undermining the foundations of individuals and of the family.”)

One thing this essay helps to demonstrate is the foolishness, if not the dishonesty, of the notion that support for same-sex marriage is support for what is natural, whereas opposition to same-sex marriage is mere bias against forms of nature different than one’s own.

I have in fact made no argument about the phenomenon that seems most to matter to you, viz., that people of same-sex inclination often have a sense of discovering this in themselves rather than of choosing it. You think this fact laden with world-changing, or moral universe-changing, implications—analogous, apparently, to the collapse of the Ptolemaic cosmology or of the Roman Empire, or some other frightening and rage-inducing event. I do not. I think it both quite predictable, on the one hand, and highly ambiguous, on the other; like other facts, it requires thoughtful interpretation.

In any case, it has to be said that people of homosexual inclination are not united, and never have been, either on the question as to whether that inclination amounts to a solid “identity” or on the question as to whether it is fixed by nature without reference to nurture. That a goodly number of “gay” people presently affirm both these things may be granted; but, even were they all of one mind, that could hardly be regarded as decisive in any scientific or philosophic attempt to get at the truth of the matter. Indeed, it is not allowed much weight even by some who share their determination to change our laws and languages and cultural attitudes to accommodate “diverse forms of sexual expression.”

Why? Because the “hard-wired” claim only gets us so far. It still implies that there is such a thing as nature, and that nature matters. That may sit well with you, David, but there are very influential factions today who object to that implication. They wish us to go further, much further, in the direction of accommodation than any appeal to fixed natures could allow. They do not believe in hard-wiring; or, if they do, they think it something there simply as a challenge to overcome.

Your new position is more difficult, I fear, than you have yet realized (or perhaps you are realizing it, to judge from the temperature of your response).

Let’s look back on the territory you first inhabited. There marriage is understood as a disciplinary institution tied to basic human goods and hence to nature. Those goods are both unitive and procreative; and perhaps the chief natural good of marriage, as a disciplinary institution involving chastity and faithfulness, is the good it does to children, and so to society as a whole, by nurturing the fruit of procreation under the protective care of fathers as well as mothers. I can’t help but recall here that I first met you fourteen years ago at a McGill conference called (if memory serves) “The Forgotten Father.”

But now you reside in the territory where same-sex marriage is advanced. Let’s set aside for the moment the question as to whether in nature there really is or can be such a thing. Let’s just consider the fact that “marriage” here is not so much a disciplinary institution—certainly not one tied to procreation—as a celebratory institution, useful more for symbolic than for practical purposes. (I don’t say, by the way, that there would be no practical benefits were people in same-sex relationships to confine themselves for life to a single partner. There would indeed be benefits; but I leave it to you to carry that argument, if you can. You’ve more expertise and experience than I, and you’re no longer impeded by false and slanderous charges of something akin to racism, arising from alleged opposition to soi-disant “gay people.” That you yourself now feel free to level such charges is to your shame.) On this territory, the territory of same-sex marriage, the divorce of the unitive and the procreative has been finalized. And in consequence you will need to rethink your entire project.

I have no doubt that you still fancy that there is such a thing as dual citizenship. But there isn’t. For same-sex marriage seals the divorce between the unitive and the procreative, and the project you have been engaged in hitherto can’t survive that divorce. In a culture that is not characterized by fatherlessness and the whole array of negative phenomena with which fatherlessness is inextricably bound up, the unitive and the procreative cleave together. It is for the sake of that cleaving that the whole idea of chastity, or “virtue in sex” (Anscombe), exists. And where that cleaving is repudiated—the repudiation, of course, began more than a century ago—there can be neither virtue in sex nor committed fatherhood. Which is to say, there cannot be human flourishing.

In the dispute between these territories it is not enough to appeal to nature or to what we perceive to be natural. It is necessary to offer an account of human flourishing, and of nature in her strengths and weaknesses, that is coherent and compelling. That is a daunting task, to be sure, and one which can’t be undertaken without speaking to the relation between desires, reasons, choices and actions; even to body/soul relations and to what one thinks a human being is for.

Far be it from me, however, to speak for you! What I am trying to do, David, is to prompt you to speak for yourself. And if I may say so, “Huh?” was not a very auspicious beginning. I think you can do better.

that Rusty Reno knows as well as anyone that almost no gay people (certainly no openly gay people, or at least none that I can think of) would accept the premise that being black-skinned is fixed whereas being gay is not — i.e., that being gay can be properly understood, as Reno suggests, as simply the choice to commit certain acts. Reno can defend this position, of course, if that’s his position (and of course it’s a position that many have argued), but in my view in 2012 he can’t simply (with legitimacy) assume it, as if it were an uncontested fact, rather than what the whole fuss is all about.

I very much doubt that Reno thinks that “being gay” is simply the choice to commit certain acts. He just doesn’t think that it is like “being black.” One can be black and do nothing at all (though of course one wouldn’t live long); indeed, one who is black cannot be other than black no matter what he does. But what is “being gay”? Whatever it is, it is not quite like that.

As for Blankenhorn, I would like to hear him further on three questions.

First: What does he mean by “gay people”? Does he mean “people with deep-rooted same-sex attractions” or does he mean “people with same-sex attractions who engage in same-sex activities” (to employ a deliberately broad term)?

If he means only the former, he is (a) begging the question about the moral propriety of same-sex activities, while (b) implying a knowledge of the biological factors in same-sex attraction, and their weighting over against other factors, that science does not yet have.

If he means the latter, he is either adopting a determinist view of human beings, one that makes moral considerations no more than intellectual mirages, or (more likely) making a number of assumptions about the way in which inclinations and choices and behaviours are related in human beings. Which is to say, he is positing all sorts of moral and anthropological claims which he has not yet articulated clearly enough. This again is question begging, as Reno has pointed out.

Second:  Why does Blankenhorn insist that “almost no gay people” would allow that their sexual inclinations and/or habits are not fixed by nature? Surely he knows that the history of the homosexualist movement, both early and late, includes major arguments about this. Surely he knows that “gay” and “queer” denote differences on this. Surely he knows that the “transgender” advocates are disinclined to biological determinism. Surely he knows that the Yogyakarta fathers abandoned the idea of fixity and sketched out a much bolder, constructionist path towards the social and legal acceptance of what used to be regarded as deviant behaviour.

What work is this statement meant to do anyway? Does it really help build an analogy to skin pigmentation – the Selma analogy that allows the charge of implicit or explicit racism that Blankenhorn seems willing now to endorse? No one thinks “being black” something fixed because he has talked with many blacks who, almost to a man, assure him that this indeed is the case!

Third:  Why does Blankenhorn suppose that the logic of the institution he cherishes, marriage, is going to survive the change in anthropology and moral theory that he himself has now embraced? Marriage may, for the moment, be the key strategic prize, but marriage is nowhere near the heart of the new moral majority (to use that label in a rather Bolshevik fashion) that Blankenhorn has joined.

How could it be? There is not even a clear logic of sex, much less of marriage, in this movement. And when it comes to polling its supporters – I am thinking not only of those who congregate under ugly acronyms such as LGBTTIQQ2SA, but also of those who cheer them on – a good many will say quite openly that marriage is just not their line; not a few will say that it is inimical to their line.

It is this fact, rather than any admirable candour he found in Reno, that should have made clear to Blankenhorn that of course we are arguing about human sexuality and about human nature, and not merely about marriage as such – as if one could argue about either separately! Or rather that we ought to be arguing about human sexuality and human nature; but that is the very thing the Selma analogy is meant to prevent.

M312 would have set up a committee in parliament to answer the following questions:

(i) what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth,

(ii) is the preponderance of medical evidence consistent with the declaration in Subsection 223(1) that a child is only a human being at the moment of complete birth,

(iii) what are the legal impact and consequences of Subsection 223(1) on the fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth,

(iv) what are the options available to Parliament in the exercise of its legislative authority in accordance with the Constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1).

By human being the Canadians seem to mean something more akin to what we would call a human person.

Whether an unborn child at any specific state of development is a human being or a human person is not a medical question. It is a philosophical question, upon which there is no significant hope of reaching a resolution, especially in a legislature. Hundreds of years of legal precedent go against considering an unborn child a human person. To do so has all kinds of unknown ramifications for pregnant women, each of whom will be put in the unique situation of being a human person with another human person inside of her who deserves full protection of the law.

On my view, he is right to question the motion along these lines, which is why I declined to sign a major statement of support for it that was circulated to MPs. Instead, I and a couple of professors from other universities published in the National Post a letter that read as follows:

Canadians have for too long countenanced an indefensible degree of separation between legal convenience and moral reality.  The significance of M-312 (the Woodworth motion calling for reconsideration of s. 223 of the Criminal Code) is that it invites Parliament to make amends for that. Though there is much debate philosophically over the essence of personhood, few doubt that the human fetus carries within itself the requisite attributes for personhood. It has nevertheless been tempting not to count the pre-born among those with legal standing, just as it was once convenient not to count slaves or women. With much difficulty we faced our moral failure with respect to the latter and modified the law accordingly. Is it not time we did so for the former also? Or do we so covet legal immunity from the killing of the pre-born that we are prepared to sacrifice all moral consistency?

It will be evident, of course, that I do not agree with Mr Nickol’s conclusion that the motion was “not worth the effort” or even deserving of defeat.  For a further articulation of my own view, I refer interested readers to A Chance to Resuscitate Canadian Politics.

“This is a book with no shades of grey. For those of us who inhabit a world and a church where grey is the order of the day, Farrow’s version of Christianity offers little to help us make sense of a world which was created by God and whose inhabitants were created in his image, and in which we are instructed to love our enemies in a messy world full of compromises.” (The Expository Times 123.4, 2012, 196)

Au contraire, the book has two photos in shades of grey, strategically located at the pivotal chapters: “A Question of Identity” (chapter 4) and “The Politics of the Eucharist” (chapter 6). These are the very chapters that seem to concern him, no doubt because they offer the reader a black and white choice between the kind of church represented by Reichsbischof Ludwig Müller and that represented by Pope John Paul II.  But black and white, as an astute observer has remarked, are precisely what allows us to make sense of grey.

Regrettably, David has sought relief in a position that provides none. No one of sound mind supposes that same-sex marriage is being sought in order to bring sexual discipline to the homosexual culture (or the culture at large), or to enhance the institution of marriage and parenting. Whether it makes our stomachs churn or not, we must face the truth about the struggle that is under way and understand (as I have argued elsewhere) that no peace is to be had by capitulation. What is called for is rather “a recovery of nerve, and a new willingness to deal with the problem at its root.”

One may ask whether it really is the case that “in a world on its way to rapid globalization, the reference to a world Authority becomes the only horizon compatible with the new realities of our time and the needs of humankind.” And whether it is indeed true that “for every Christian there is a special call of the Spirit to become committed decisively and generously so that the many dynamics under way will be channeled towards prospects of fraternity and the common good.” Both statements, it must be said, give the appearance of being somewhat presumptuous, notwithstanding the Note’s referencing of the Second Vatican Council and the Populorum Progressio tradition.

The Note, however, concludes with a note of caution, or rather two notes of caution drawn from a single biblical story:

However, it should not be forgotten that this development, given wounded human nature, will not come about without anguish and suffering. Through the account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), the Bible warns us how the “diversity” of peoples can turn into a vehicle for selfishness and an instrument of division. In humanity there is a real risk that peoples will end up not understanding each other and that cultural diversities will lead to irremediable oppositions. The image of the Tower of Babel also warns us that we must avoid a “unity” that is only apparent, where selfishness and divisions endure because the foundations of the society are not stable. In both cases, Babel is the image of what peoples and individuals can become when they do not recognize their intrinsic transcendent dignity and brotherhood. The spirit of Babel is the antithesis of the Spirit of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-12), of God’s design for the whole of humanity: that is, unity in truth. Only a spirit of concord that rises above divisions and conflicts will allow humanity to be authentically one family and to conceive of a new world with the creation of a world public Authority at the service of the common good.

While it may be conceded that the Babel imagery contains both these warning notes, it must not be overlooked that the “diversity” in question is produced by God himself, with a view to preventing the greater danger – the danger of a false unity – being realized. A question, then, for the authors of the Note: Would you have us believe that the Spirit of Pentecost, who has set about achieving in the Church the true unity of mankind that answers to the false unity of Babel, intends to realize this unity only with the help of a “world political Authority”? If so, is that world political Authority to be under the direction of Christ and his Church, or under some other direction?

Douglas Farrow is Professor of Christian Thought at McGill University and the author of “Baking Bricks for Babel?” (Nova et Vetera 8.4). Nova et Vetera has made this article available free of charge on its website.

The two women are thought to be the first passengers to refuse to submit to scanning by the machines, which have provoked controversy among human rights groups.

They were introduced on a limited basis last month at Heathrow and Manchester airports in response to the alleged attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a jet over Detroit on Christmas Day using explosives concealed in his underpants. The X-ray machines allow security officials to check for concealed weapons but they also afford clear outlines of passengers’ genitals. They are due to be introduced in all airports by the end of the year.

Civil liberties campaigners have said the scans represent an invasion of privacy and their introduction may yet be challenged by the Human Rights Commission.

[ . . .]

Objectors to the scanners, and indeed the two women who forfeited their flight last month, have an unlikely ally in Pope Benedict XVI, a man who is likely to be waved through airport security for the rest of his life.

Last month he told an audience from the aerospace industry that, notwithstanding the threat from terrorism, “the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity”.

Read more . . .

The principle is sound but the language isn’t. No one can force another to take a life or to be complicit in taking a life. Indeed, no one can force another to violate his conscience. One can only punish another, however severely, for refusing to violate it. If we want robust people, and not merely robust laws protecting people, it’s time we got that straight.