Waiting for the decisions on same sex marriage

The entire nation, including the Washington DC area - where the National Conference of Catholic Bishops is located, is awaiting the result of the two cases regarding same sex marriage before the Supreme Court.  The first case regards whether Proposition 8 will be upheld or whether the High Court will agree with lower courts that it violated the equal protection rights of California LGBT couples to marriage.  The second case is about whether the Defense of Marriage Act will be overturned, allowing gay married couples to be treated equally, both by the federal government and other states.

There are procedural questions that are as important as the underlying questions, which the court may use to dodge the major issues - mostly involving standing - the ability to bring the case at all.  The reverse of that question is whether the Court will limit these decisions to California and to the parties involved or nationalize gay marriage rights, as many are hoping.  We shall see what happens shortly.

What interests me is the question that Justice Sonya Sotomayor asked Petitioners as to what interest they had in preserving traditional marriage.  I am sure his answer was less than complete, just as those of us who are for gay marriage are less than honest when we say we want traditional hierarchical marriage to go away (we believe both parties in a marriage should be equal).  It is that inequality, with male domination, that those who wish to defend marriage, are trying to maintain.  Indeed, it is compared to the relationship of Christ to the Church, as well as the clergy to the people in the pews.  That is is another thing that progressive Catholics would like to reform, at least as far as the hierarchy is concerned.

The bottom line is the hierarchy insists upon doing our thinking for us on moral issues. Such issues are based on natural law, which supposedly should be the province of every informed conscience, with or without a Roman collar.  What the plaintiffs are really defending is that authority within the Church.  This is because the Sacrament of Marriage has rather beautifully followed the civil celebration of the institution and will likely continue to.  Indeed, unlike the Petitioner argument, in Catholic Canon Law, fecundity is not a requirement for the Sacrament.  Indeed, neither is the Priest.  The two parties marry themselves. The Priest or Deacon is merely the witness for the Church (and in the United States, the community).  With a largely gay priesthood, many bishops most likely fear that many civilly married gay couples will have their unions blessed privately by a friendly priest - with a large number of such priests seeking the right to marry as well.

Petitioners have one last fear - one that they are unwilling to admit, even to themselves.  They fear that society will be damned by allowing gay marriage and that failure to prevent this puts their own souls in jeopardy - or possibly their own faith in what they have been taught if gay marriage goes through and nothing happens.  At the very least, their attitude of moral superiority will be tarnished in the inevitable event that the marriage equality side wins.  Such a dose of humility would likely be good for the conservative movement.