Time Immortal

Apparently, in the opinion of the corporation, “those who oppose [same-sex marriage] are motivated by hate.”

See if I ever buy your burgers again, Ronald! Oh, wait…

…here’s a long-winded and meandering example. Or perhaps multiple examples. I really can’t tell.

My aunt and uncle, and their three children, recently stopped attending services at their Catholic Church, in quiet protest over the Catholic Church of Canada’s response to Bill C-38, the recently-passed legislation that allows for same-sex couples to obtain a marriage license in Canada, and the Church’s ‘bias towards homosexuals’ in general. Well and good, and as free people in a free society, given the freedom to choose their own actions by God Himself, they are completely within their rights and power to do so. But as G.K. Chesterton once remarked, to possess a right is by no means the same thing as to be right in exercising it. This is as true for abortion as it is for ceasing to attend Church services in protest over the Church drawing a line in the sand over another morally contentious issue. Were I a little more strict in mind, I’d even go so far to say that it might qualify one for excommunication. But as conservative as I seem to be getting these days, I’m not that harsh.

In an increasingly secular society, it’s more and more common for people to leave the Church, or to leave any Religion really, because they disagree with some aspect of the Church’s moral teaching. This is not a new phenomenon, though — many have left the Church over moral, or other, disagreements. The various early heresies, and the Protestant Reformation, came about for these reasons. What is different in this day and age is the acceptance that goes along with such a separation, acceptance and even praise that is, in most respects, completely undeserved.

I am reminded of a passage written in the National Post — by an atheist — that basically began as a letter to Pope Benedict XVI. It’s no longer in their 7-day archive, but for the interested it was written by , and appeared in the June(??) 13th issue of the Post.

In it, he mentioned Benedict’s desire to see the ‘lapsed’ of the Church (some 20 million people) return to the fold, and the columnist’s response to that was ‘do you really want them back?’. It’s a valid question.

In reading some of posts on Angry’s blog that have been left in reply to one of his articles, it seems clear to me that the vast majority of people who have a beef with the Catholic Church disagree with the Church’s stance on birth control, abortion, sexuality prior to marriage, or homosexuality. In short…sex, sex, sex, and sex. Personally believing these things — all or just some of them — to be valid and not in any way immoral choices to make, the lapsed have taken to calling the Church to task for its incorrect stance on these issues (their stance obviously being the correct one!). It’s really quite a delicious arrogance, is it not?

So it goes in the age of moral relativism, really the ultimate in selfish ideologies: “I don’t agree with this teaching, but I think that this behaviour is right. I don’t have to be told how to live my life, and the Bible is just a book written by a bunch of old men, which means it has no relevance to my life. I think the Church is wrong on this issue.” And it goes even further than that. In many respects, it isn’t just the liberal attitudes of the lapsed coming through, but instead the completion of the pendulum-swing of society into the realm of moral relativism.

I had the opportunity to engage in a debate of moral absolutism vs. moral relativism with a young compatriot of mine recently. At the time, I was discussing morality with a friend, also a Christian, in the Computer Engineering ‘Club’ (read: Students’ Association) at my University. Another ‘CompE’ walked in during our conversation, just when I was getting into talking about moral absolutism with my friend. This unfortunate young man, whom we will call Josh, challenged me on this, asking how I could believe in moral absolutism. I asked if he believed in moral relativism, and his reply was a scoff and a “yes, doesn’t everybody?”.

Implication: I’m an under-educated, misguided neophyte.

“Okay“, I think to myself, “you’re on, buddy.“

At the time, there were two males (myself and Josh) and two females (my friend and her study partner) in the Club office, so I decided to fire with both barrels and chose a suitably relevant question. I asked Josh first if he’d be willing to engage in a little “outside the box” thinking and argue from a morally relativistic standpoint as to under what circumstances a certain action or sin I would name would be morally justifiable. When he agreed, I said one word: rape.

To his credit, he stuck to his guns* and tried valiantly to explain a situation in which rape would be morally justifiable:

JOSH: Well, if the person who…ah…got raped learned an important lesson from it.
ME: Yeah, we gotta learn them uppity womenfolk good, teach ‘em that they belong in the kitchen, right?
JOSH: No, not saying that. But if, you know, a person thought they were on top of the world, and the rape brought them down a notch…
ME: So…like…like it happens in some Middle Eastern nations, where a woman tries to, I don’t know…get an education? Or sleeps with a man outside of marriage…and then the local tribunal sends eight guys to rape her senseless for acting up?
JOSH: No, not like that at all!

And so on. In the end, having made a near-complete fool of himself and forever offended (and probably frightened) the two women I had previously been talking with, he hung his head and switched topics — still convinced his relativism was right. But I kept on. And he said something interesting then. I asked him: if he believed that people can decide their own morality and there is no overall arbiter thereof, whether or not it would be hypocritical for him to judge my actions as right or wrong if I did something…like rape someone. And his answer was that yes, he was allowed to judge me.

And therein lies the rub, as ol’ Bill might’ve said. The crux of the morally relative argument is just that: I am allowed to define my own morality, and I am allowed to judge the actions of others as moral or immoral according to the morality I define for myself. If there was ever a case of having your cake and eating it too, this is it. The ultimate selfish Philosophy. And this example above is no different…the supposed advocates of personal freedom of choice and action and morality are only too quick to impose judgment and restriction on those they disagree with.

* and no, I don’t think it’s right to rape someone. I think it’s a terrible violation of a person on all levels of their being. I credit Josh with sticking to his guns, as it were, because he didn’t back down from his relativism in the face of a difficult question. Other people I have so challenged have, in the past, defaulted to a selective absolutism when asked about rape, saying that in that case, it is never right. Josh did not stray into such hypocrisy.

It’s like Angry said in a recent post: “Me, me, me. It’s always about “Me” with these people.” And ultimately, it is folly, for it stacks the presumptuous moral posing of an individual angry at being told that the way in which they live their life is (dare I say it?) ‘wrong’ in some capacity against the long-established, age-and-persecution-tested, 2000-year evolved belief system and understanding of the Church. Who’s gonna win with that one?

O’Neill goes so far as to say that he, an atheist, would prefer to be seated next to an born-again evangelical Christian than to be seated next to a ‘recovering Catholic’ such as Marg, because while the former might provide some interesting conversation or a reasonably thought-out debate about the nature of religion…the latter will usually only whine about how the Church ‘done them wrong’ (to use the Southern vernacular).

How apt.

And so it is with my relatives. My cousin was only too happy to correct my understanding and curtly inform me that her family would no longer be attending Church services because of the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. All well and good, but it is hypocritical to criticize the Church as having the ‘wrong’ stance on the issue. Marriage, within the understanding of the Catholic Church, is an institution not solely designed to provide a forum for the consummation of passion between two people, nor is it solely about the two people getting married.

A priest whom I respect likened the divine nature of marriage to the divine nature of the Trinity, and I think his point is relevant. The Trinity is the ultimate embodiment of love, being that it is God, and within the human context marriage is the ultimate embodiment of love that a human being can experience in their mortal life on Earth. That is because marriage is a three-part arrangement as well. Certainly it involves, as is quoted in numerous places in Scripture, the unification of a man and a woman into a lifelong, monogamous relationship. But though marriage unifies, it does not complete. The completion of marriage, the culmination of the joining of two people, is in the fruits of their love, and the fruitfulness of their love. It is in children, the coming together to create a new life.

Adoption is wonderful, but even adoption does not cover this base. marriage is fully realized only when the couple that is married can partake of both its unitive aspect and the procreation that results from their sexual union. That is not something that is possible in a homosexual marriage. Two gay men cannot between them produce a baby, for neither has the necessary physical hardware to carry the child to term and deliver it. Likewise, two gay women cannot between then produce a baby, for though either one would be able to get pregnant, the child would not be the product of the sexual union of the two of them. That is not to say that either couple would not find some manner of fulfillment in adopting, artificially conceiving, or surrogating a child, but it IS to say that whatever fulfillment they might find, it is not a fulfillment that would justify the use of the term ‘marriage’.

This is the Church’s stance, and for all I can see it is the correct one. Marriage exists to provide the MOST STABLE framework possible for the rearing of children, because it is designed as a framework in which a man and a woman pledge monogamy to each other so as to facilitate the furthering of the species through natural procreative methods and the bringing of children into a household that is most ideal for raising a properly balanced (emotionally, mentally, spiritually…) child to adulthood. Anything that deviates from that should not be called marriage, for it does not contribute to the good of all humankind in the same manner. Call it something else.

So apparently the Senate, already being expert in the field of national governance, have expanded their knowledge base to include cutting-edge theology. Or perhaps “bleeding heart Theology” — I can’t really tell anymore.

My respect for Senator Anne Cools has gone up a few more notches, however. Though a member of the unelected portion of the Canadian government, she displays a level-headedness and clarity of principle that the and NDP seem completely devoid of, that the Bloc Quebecois sometimes displays but limits in focus to Quebec, and that the Conservative Party could display if they ever stopped trying to placate both the Liberal government and the liberal media.

I wonder exactly where the fundamental understanding of Jesus and His message goes wrong with Senator Marilyn Trenholme Counsell. On the surface, it seems she thinks of our Lord as some sort of hip swinger, someone who’d permit anything in the name of being “fair”.

Not exactly the picture of Jesus painted in the Gospels, is it? Certainly, Jesus’s message was one of peace and understanding, and certainly He tore down many barriers between Jew and Gentile, man and woman, slave and master, invader and invaded. He preached that all were equal in God’s eyes, and never turned away those who sought him.

Okay, that part sounds kind of like the picture our Senator paints. But is that the whole picture of Jesus?

As I recall it, if people came to Jesus as sinners, one of the first things He would do is ask them to repent and sin no more. If people came to Jesus who were sinners but did not realize it, or thought their actions permissible/moral/justified, He would correct them, often in a very direct and sometimes harsh way. He was especially harsh with the self-righteous authorities, those convinced of the correctness of their ways because of their status in society (not unlike, I would wager, a certain Senator I could name).

When he stopped the stoning of the adulterous woman, He did not condone her sin. He stood up not in support of her right to fornicate herself silly — instead, He stood up against the hypocrisy of those would would overlook their own sin in their zeal to condemn her, since all sins are equal in magnitude before God. And when her would-be executioners had left, He turned to her and (much more gently, but firmly nonetheless) told her to end her sinful practice.

When Jesus met the woman at the well in Galilee, He treated her as an equal, a valued child of God and a person. He did not condone her five (or was it six? Curse my memory…) marriages, nor the fact that she was shacking up with someone she was not married to (note: tacit condemnation of common-law relationships, people!). In fact, He pointed these things out to her as an example of her sin, and His frankness with her inspired her to repent.

Would Jesus support gay-marriage legislation? I think anyone who claims to speak for Jesus, as our Senator has done, is guilty of blasphemy, and so I won’t come out with a “yes” or “no” answer. But I will leave this parting thought:

Christian moral philosophy teaches that proper sexual relations have two seperate but indivisible parts: unification and procreation. If a couple engages in sexual union that is open to one but blocks the other, this is a sin, because it violates the natural order and God’s intention for humanity. Proper sexual relationships should be a joining, strengthening force in the lives of the couple, but the couple should always be open to the possibility of bringing forth a child. (And no, this isn’t the Monty Python conflation that “every time they have sex, they have to have a baby”.)

Bearing that in mind, and assuming for just a moment that the Church has got something right in its understanding after 2000 years of ministry, one has to ask whether a homosexual union qualifies. Certainly, I will be the first to concede that homosexual sexual relations, like heterosexual relations, can be unitive in nature. I admit that’s speculation on my part, having never had a homosexual affair myself, but I would wager it likely. But even in that case, that’s only part of the puzzle, isn’t it? And we could start the debate over artificial insemination and surrogacy, but let’s cut to the chase on that one: procreation, in its natural state, involves one zygote from each partner in the sexual union, so that the child will be biologically related to both of the people it will come to know as “parents”. Wake me when that’s possible in a non-heterosexual setting.

And really, given that same-sex marriage is already a morally contentious issue, do we really need to open the “embryos debate” can of worms too?

Do I support “equal rights” for homosexuals? That depends on what you mean. As I understand it, they are human too, and as such already have equal rights under the law in Canada, even before the various related Supreme Court filings. Should they not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality? My first answer is yes. But I think even there I need to disclaim. I think respect is a two-way street, and I think that homosexual lobbyists should not force their agenda on those whose personal beliefs hold the homosexual lifestyle as immoral. That means no bullying town mayors who don’t want to take part in “Pride” days. That means accepting that religions institutions may not condone promotion of that lifestyle in their classes. That even means accepting that some churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples will refuse to perform marriages for homosexual couples…not because they are discriminatory, but because for them the morality of the issue is anything but settled. And in return, I say that yes, homosexuals should not be targets of hate crimes, should not be denied employment (see caveat above), and should continue to enjoy the same full legal protection of the that they have since its institution in 1982.

But, as Anne Cools noted in the Senate debate: “Marriage is not now and has never been a right…No sacrament of the church has ever been a right.”

In the aftermath of the Canada Day weekend, I always find myself reflecting on…well, to be truthfully honest, I find myself reflecting on more than I want to, a problem I attribute to the tendency of my mind to wander just beyond the fringes of my control when I’m a little tired (or a little inebriated). And this Canada Day was no different.

It helps, or perhaps doesn’t help — I’ve never figured out which — that those fireworks make me just a touch sad. I don’t know why, but they make me feel quite suddenly alone. Maybe it’s the fact that the one time I’ve tried to watch the Canada Day fireworks with someone else in the past four years, they started the fireworks early because of weather considerations, and we wound up missing the show. I usually watch the Canada Day fireworks alone. In 2002 and 2004, it was because I had moved away to Rocky Mountain House, and this year it was because Grace and Anne were on their way to Leduc to sleep over at a friend’s place there before catching a morning flight to Vancouver. 2003 was the year we missed the show.

And I can reflect forever on old mistakes, because that’s just how I am. Should I have been in Rocky both those times? Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to say. I can’t even remember why I was in Rocky on Canada Day last year, although I think it had something to do with the fact that the guy I was catching a ride back to Edmonton with wasn’t planning to leave until the 2nd, the next day. When you don’t own your own car, you kind of find yourself subject to the whims and fancies of others who are willing to drive you, and you really can’t complain about it. And I’m not complaining that Rob wanted to wait a day at all. I just question my wisdom in taking the second work stint in Rocky.

Did I need the experience? Coming off of getting fired from EPCOR, a little reconstruction of my resume was perhaps in order. So in that sense, it was a good thing. Plus that, it helped pay for my schooling, which is something else. You know, I’m not rich, nor am I from a wealthy family, and though my parents and grandparents did set up a GIC or two for me back when I was an infant, the majority of my paying for school was made possible through summer jobs and scholarships. But thanks to those jobs and scholarships, I’ve been able to avoid going into debt, for the most part (credit cards don’t count, right?). But though it helped out with the work experience picture and paid for another 8 months of my degree, was it the right choice? In the end, I can’t say it was — too much collateral damage to the relationships I cherished, to the people I loved.

But I could flog myself over that forever if I wanted to. What I’ve really gotten to reflecting on these past few days is why we celebrate Canada in Canada Day. Because that’s what we do — it’s not just a commemorative ceremony for our becoming a nation unto ourselves in 1867. We celebrate Canada, and what it means to be Canadian. Don’t believe me? Listen to any speech given that day, or any media correspondent commenting on the celebrations. But what, lately, is there to celebrate about being Canadian?

We have a minority government that for a week ruled completely without the confidence of the House, and in the end probably only survived a confidence vote by postponing it until midnight and not telling the Opposition MPs that the vote would be held then. That’s a legal parlimentary tactic under the Westminster system, by the way. At the same time, this government doesn’t even represent the will of its constituents, and forges ahead with its own vision of Canada that in many respects is at odds with what the people want. Take the recent same-sex marriage legislation: don’t know about you, but every web poll I’ve come across seems to suggest that a discernible majority of Canadians don’t think it’s a good idea, and I have to say I’m one of them. But does that stop our government? A top Cabinet minister resigns because he and his constituents oppose this legislation, but does THAT stop our government? Not at all — instead, the dissenters (who may have valid reasons for opposing the legislation, reasons worth considering) are criticized and branded as bigots, and the legislation is rammed through. This is a government that has consistently set itself at odds not only with itself, but with the people it purports to govern, and in the process they are changing the very fabric of the nation itself. And the judges of the Supreme Court are no better.

And so now, as the Americans celebrate their independence, I find myself wondering exactly why last Friday millions of people across Canada came to celebrate their nation, a nation increasingly not their own. For myself, I was already sad enough watching the fireworks, and eventually I turned and went home. There’s precious little to celebrate about anymore. The Americans have something to celebrate — that is clear. The American people have much more power in their government, and can recall elected representatives that they find have strayed from executing the will of the electorate. Remember Gray Davis?

But then, the Americans also celebrate something different on their national holiday. They celebrate their independence. They celebrate where they came from, not just what they have become. We in Canada seem to have forgotten that.