Defending Prop 8

Appearing in National Review Online, Ryan T. Anderson wrote an excellent piece defending traditional marriage as, first and foremost a natural institution. He is answering the notorious Doug Kmiec, a liberal Obama-supporting Catholic who typically resorts to all kinds of shallow sophistry to square his sordid views with his faith. I recall Newsweek running a cover story not long ago boasting an image of a large bible on the cover with a pride ribbon serving as a bookmark. The title read something like, "A Biblical Case for Same-Sex Marriage." The writer missed the point (or intentionally obscured it). Objections to gay "marriage" are not principally made on religious grounds. While perhaps among the Evangelical crowd, there is a tendency to rely too heavily on Scriptural injunctions and "Because God said so" responses, the Catholic approach, as Anderson makes clear in his piece, is rooted correctly in a reasoned philosophical and anthropological understanding of the human condition.

States and religions rightly recognize and support marriage, but it precedes both. Kmiec, who writes as a Catholic, fails to notice that his argument contradicts the Catholic faith, which teaches that you don’t need the Book of Genesis — or any divine revelation — to know that man and woman are sexually differentiated and that marriage is founded on the bodily union of sexually complementary spouses. Though Catholics believe that Jesus elevated this natural relationship to participate sacramentally in the divine Trinitarian life, this elevation does nothing to eliminate or obscure marriage’s status as a natural human institution. That is why the Catholic church has always regarded the marriages of nonbelievers as true and valid.