Spiritual Intimacy

Domenico Bettinelli has a first-hand account of the Boston rally against gay marriage. One important factor that he highlights is that the overtly religious groups who represent the central pillar of opposition have to be careful not to forget that many of their allies are such for secular reasons, and that many among their own ranks (such as myself) actually prefer to make civil arguments against civil changes in the definition of marriage.

The religious aspect comes in ultimately, of course, as it must for anything in life, if we acknowledge that God is part of life. However, it isn't the stronger argument in the public square, and there are legitimate reasons for keeping our religious beliefs distinct from our political opinions. With the culture as it currently stands, even in the secular state, gay marriage presents an unacceptable amount of risk. However, under the right circumstances, some form of it could actually be beneficial.

Many people who read this blog would probably consider that to be a radical statement, and in some ways it is. If we really dig down to what is important in life, though, it oughtn't be difficult to imagine circumstances and to formulate an institution that would move forward even the most fundamental Christian objectives. Here's David Morrison describing his own relationship, which is, essentially, a same-sex union, but one founded on emotional fidelity and spiritual growth:

Intimacy. Real intimacy, not the euphamism for sexual activity that the word so often provides nowadays. Real intimacy is characterized by honesty and trust, two qualities which can only arise over time. These are important because they are the stuff that everyone genuinely needs to have in their lives; the stuff that is the most enduring. We live a deeper and more committed life as a chaste couple now than we ever did when we were sexually active.

Couldn't even the Catholic Church recognize and encourage such partnerships? Not right now, of course; the endeavor would simply create a wink-wink, nudge-nudge structure to bypass dogma. But I can't help but feel that if we acknowledge that there is some irreducible minority of people whose emotions will simply be stronger toward those of the same sex, and if we place relationships such as David's as a model for homosexuals, with the real — if distant — prospect of institutional recognition, then we could break this stalemate, which is ultimately untenable and destructive. We could redirect this particular manifestation of progress toward conservative ends.

ADDENDUM:
David has responded to this post, advising against movement toward what I advise above. I suppose I should stress that I'm really just thinking out loud. This is part of a larger, much more involved, view of potential public and religious policies that I've been developing that includes many other aspects and considerations, to be addressed over time. Of course, I don't envision a straight line into such a society; each step will require benchmarks and the sort of social pressure that tends not to become available when ideas are put into practice. Some of the ideals, however, and even just the initiation of some sort of goal, even if undefined, would surely do some good.

David notes, specifically, one of the aspects that has been a central component to my thinking in this area, but that I didn't touch on, here: friendship. Ultimately, that's what the "spiritual unions" would be, and as such, there would have to be an ethic involved that allowed for transition into marriage with a person of the opposite sex.

Again, we're not talking about anything that can be put forward as actionable in the foreseeable future. In fact, the first step of my inchoate "plan" is the enactment of the Federal Marriage Amendment, including, as it would, the abolition of most civil union/domestic partnership laws on the books (but only to the extent that they explicitly pin civil unions to the marriage). But I guess what I'm trying to formulate is a way to begin to shift the views of homosexuals such that they don't see living within the Church as an impossible achievement and to give them a way to recast their understanding of themselves and their relationship with God.

This would require social views to change not just among homosexuals, but among the entire population, and I suspect that the broader shift in perspective would be profoundly healthy. I'm convinced, for example, that just the debate over gay marriage, itself, has the potential to strengthen some heterosexuals' understanding of and approach to their own marriages — to the extent that they don't conclude, as so many do, that marriage is "all about" the love of two adults for each other.

Moreover, the issue obviously has such tremendous resonance that it would be a tremendous loss of opportunity not to harness it for the cause of social and spiritual betterment. Without some long-term strategy, assuming we win the gay marriage battle, American culture will just sink back into the same ol' mutual animosity and heterosexual apathy about what it is marriages represent.