Marriage
This evening I stumbled upon an article in Pagina 12 entitled “No te casarás con musulmanes,” a short summary and explanation of a recent Vatican document calling upon Catholics to refrain from marrying non-Christians, particularly Moslems. Such unions have often yielded “bitter experiences,” the document warned. At the very least, it urged Christians who married Moslems not to sign any document assenting to Islamic beliefs.
It’s hardly surprising that the Catholic hierarchy would warn against marriages outside of Christianity. Probably the most interesting thing about this document is that it exists, thus signaling that Christian/Moslem marriage has become more frequent, rising to the level of a concern for officials in Rome. But it struck me that, considering the current tensions in the world, this document must have attracted attention elsewhere. I quickly consulted the website of a few other Spanish-language dailies (including El Pais, once my favorite but not largely a close newspaper to me because of its restrictions on non-subscribers). I found no other mention of the document Erga migrantes Caritas Christi in my very brief search, though Google search turned up a handful of references.
What I did quickly find, though, in the New York Times, was an article on gay marriage. It seems that conservative Christians have not mobilized behind the amendment to ban gay marriages as enthusiastically as supporters of the ban had predicted. At the moment, they seem to pin their hopes on the images of gay men marrying gay men (and lesbians marrying lesbians) that will spread across the country beginning Monday when gay marriage becomes legal in Massachusetts. So, it seems like whoever you want to marry these days, you are in trouble with someone.
I recently counter-demonstrated at a rally in support of the ban on gay marriage. A few SHU students and I showed up on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the Greensburg County courthouse where 50 to 100 people had gathered to hear speakers and listen to an audio downlink. My group was directed across the street, and from that vantage I couldn’t hear much of what was said on the other side, though one speaker wanted everyone to remember that “We are in the majority.”
There were five of us from SHU, plus two SHU alums showed up, and probably ten other people, including a gay couple from NYC who had launched The Wedding Party (set for June 27 in NYC) to further the cause of gay marriage. In my unbiased opinion, we were a much more interesting group and a lot more fun to hang with. One of the SHU students led us in a civil rights protest song. We received plenty of media attention, and the interview that Justin Norris gave to Channel 11 News was so bright and insightful that it was destined to not make it into the news program. A reporter from the Post Gazette also interviewed some of us. She seemed fairly sympathetic to our side of the issue, though she was obviously disappointed when she learned that the SHU librarian and I were not a gay couple. [When David retold the story later, he said that his response was, “I can do better than him.”]
The anti-gay marriage amendment fits well with right-wing tactics that seemingly will sacrifice any civil right as long as it can mobilize the conservative base. If by some bizarre turn of events the amendment is written into the Constitution, it will be the first amendment to limit the rights of American citizens (a job that, until now, had been left to Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas). Such an amendment would distort the right to marriage and codify the second-class citizenship of gay people. And in the end, amendment or not, Vatican document or not, people will marry who they want to marry, or at least they will make families with them.
To take a critical look at this issue, we need to ask what harm intra-gender or inter-religious marriage will likely bring? The Vatican document points to “bitter experiences” that have resulted from Christian/Moslem marriages. Bitter experience? Marriage? Helloooo! Just show up in divorce court, Cardinal Hamao. Or, turn on any TV channel that doesn’t originate in Vatican City.
On this side of the Atlantic, “many Christian conservative leaders argue that recognizing such marriages will undermine cultural support for traditional families.” The traditional family? Currently, my traditional family includes one man, one woman, two daughters, and two separate residences. I could run through a list of variations on the theme “family,” including single mother, single mother living with parents, and minor children not resident with parents and still be discussing my family of origin. You can still find textbook nuclear families, but they live in the midst of and offer their love and support to many versions of family that could never pass as traditional.
The anti-marriage movement in both the U.S. and in the Vatican have this in common. They don’t really have anything to do with marriage. The Cardinals are worried about the loss of Catholic faithful in Europe, and Christian conservatives in the U.S. fret about the rapid changes that American culture has undergone. Of course, most of those changes result from the dynamism and amorality of capitalism, but conservatives find it much more satisfying to blame gay people. True, they speak for a majority of Americans when they state their opposition to any kind of marriage that departs from the one man/one woman rule. But the year I was born, 1954, most of the states of the Union had laws against miscegenation. And I’m sure you could have found a majority of Americans then who would have argued against the marriage of people across racial lines, using pretty much the same arguments that conservatives offer against gay marriages today. In another fifty years those arguments will look to most people just the way they look to me right now—backward, fearful, hateful.
So, choose your majority. I'm willing to wait for mine.
Comments
When I was 13, I babysat for a young couple in the Emirates who were in their late twenties. He was raised Hindu and she was raised Muslim and I thought they were the coolest thing since summer popsicles because a marriage like that was unheard of. Besides, they had an adventure under their belt - they had both been threatened with excommunication (and worse) by the mosque, the temple, and their families. Sigh.
Posted by: Neha | May 17, 2004 9:16 PM
Today I am the unlikely apologist. I don't know how this happened.
It is funny that of the whole Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi has been reduced worldwide to "Don't Marry a Muslim." In English the title of the document is "The love of Christ toward migrants." It is a pastoral instruction on the responsibilities of Catholic communities to extend themselves to migrant worker communities, or refugee communities, or immigrant communities within their regions. It contains suggestions of how to provide services and welcome to these migrants.
The much publicized section regarding not marrying a Muslim is actually a cautionary tale. Certainly there are the motives to maintain membership, but beyond that is a concern (and here I am quoting directly from the document in English) "to support the least protected member of the Muslim family, that is the woman, to know and insist on her rights." The "bitter ends" are more frequently found in Europe and southeast Asia when women marry Muslims, go to their husband's home countries or regions, and sign the statement of faith, only to learn later by doing that they have surrendered their rights they would have enjoyed in their home country. Bitter ends include her never being able to return to their home countries, or if they do, forfeiting custody and visitation priviliges. When we read this with an American mindset, we can't imagine that Cardinal Hamao lives on this planet, when in fact he is dead nuts on.
Wow. How'd you do that, Spock? When I post to the other blogs I read I come off as the radical liberal wacko. Here I sound like a bastion of conservatism (shudder).
Posted by: ambrose | May 18, 2004 2:48 AM
Thanks for the nice corrective comments, JA. What you have brought to light is the way that liberal western values often do not work out well when mised with illiberal values from any point of origin. Neha brought that home nicely with her example from the Emirates.
But, let's face it, the RCC doesn't exactly have the best track record. Only since Vatican II have members of the hierachy begun to come to grips with Catholics marrying other Christians who aren't Catholic.
Posted by: John | May 18, 2004 9:50 PM
It wasn't just VII, though that Council is a major force that allowed us to codify positive trends. It is a matter of the 20th century as a whole with growing ecumenism worldwide (like the creation of the World Council of Churches mid-century). Not just the RC, but many denominations have discouraged or forbidden (by way of ostracism of one kind or another) marriage outside of their creed. Not many has a great track record, except maybe the Unitarians :-)
Posted by: ambrose | May 19, 2004 11:53 AM