HOT SPRINGS, S.D. — In the past couple of years, conservative opposition to same-sex marriage has clearly started to erode. Prominent Republicans like Senators Rob Portman and Lisa Murkowski and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell have come out in support of gay marriage. Even David Blankenhorn, the expert witness in the Proposition 8 trial in California and a Democrat, announced that he had changed his mind.Read the rest here.
They are, for the most part, moderate conservatives using secular, democratic arguments. None come from the Christian right. Among religious conservatives, opposition to same-sex marriage has remained essentially unquestioned.
Which is why “The Things We Share: A Catholic’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage,” an essay by Joseph Bottum, published Friday on the Web site of Commonweal magazine, is something new in this debate.
No surprise he is getting front page coverage from the NY Times.
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As gay marriage at this point is almost certainly inevitable throughout most of the country and developed world, I've come to terms with the fact that more (lower-case "o") orthodox Christians will have to learn to live peaceably with the "new" marriage. And if "conservative" Catholics and the like want to raise the white flag, I'm not all that dismayed by it.
But it's positively damnable to go out and actively campaign for something directly oppugnant to the faith. It's one thing to throw in the towel with regards to this issue in order start laying the groundwork for our coming "post-Christian" social order. But to write a political defense for it and dress it up as a theological imperative is another thing entirely.
Prominent Catholics' response to the homosexuality issue is becoming every bit as bad as the Anglican reformation brought about by Henry's divorce. The Protestants on the continent in those times at least had the decency to admit they rejected Catholicism outright. The English reformation was brought about by *Catholics* who decided to craft a religious rationalization to suit the marital whims of a lecherous tyrant for reasons of political stability.
And though I'm a Catholic and tend to focus on my side of East/West divide, let's face it, many (most?) of the Orthodox are as wildly out of whack as any other Christian group when it comes to these types of things as well.
Thus endeth the rant, haha. I had no idea I had already written so much.
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