Marriage... & it's limitations.

"Husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives." - Pope, Paragraph 8

I think we all have a clear understanding on the Pope's (...and his peep's) views of marriage, and whom he believes this act should be limited to. He believes this sacred act is allowed strictly between men and women, and reinforces this idea many times through paragraph 9. "It is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything..."; "This is how husband and wife understood it on the day on which..."; "Finally, this love is fecund. It is not confined wholly to the loving interchange of husband and wife, it also contrives to go beyond this to bring new life into being..." and so on. His message is clear. Men and women share this act, and he strongly believes this is the way it needs to stay.

I've never been able to wrap my head around the concept of banning gay marriage, and I don't think I ever will be able to. However, I can see where the 'opposing' side is coming from through two aspects of their argument. One of them being compromising your beliefs. It is something no one wants to do, and through this idea, I can see where people with a religious standpoint on this topic are coming from. No matter what your religion, or the values of which you live your life by, once you give in to one thing, it's easy for all your other values to start falling under attack. The second one being that the Pope, as well as the millions of people sharing his viewpoints, believe that procreation is one of of the golden rules in the marriage handbook, something that clearly can't be done (through 'natural' means) with homosexual couples. As much as I respect everyone's beliefs and the way they choose to live their lives, I feel this reasoning alone doesn't justify the ruling that someone else's personal choice (a decision that ultimately has no effect on your life whatsoever) is incorrect.

Through our studies of the politics of representation, we found out that classification is a way of maintaining order, and the things a person considers terrible is anything that breaks this order. I think that through this method, is the easiest way to tackle the subject. People that live their lives according to the Scriptures believe that terrible things are anything the Scriptures tell them are terrible. I guess you can say the same goes for what they consider is correct as well. This is very much a structure of feeling; taking our elements of impulse and what we were taught, and combining them to our lives, or the elements of our consciousness. The thing I find most contradictory about it is how much of the things said through the Scriptures (as well as the Pope) fit in agreement with the lives of homosexual couples. As far as I'm concerned, the Bible has a whole lot of 'love thy neighbors' in it. Is this something we shouldn't do if our neighbor happens to be homosexual? "Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself." - Pope, Paragraph 9. In my opinion, I consider this statement to be fit for any breathing human being, not just a man and a woman. I consider marriage to be a binding commitment, social and personal, between two individuals to take on special obligations to one another. I fail to realize why homosexual couples are prevented from making these commitments to one another and society, while other adults, equivalent in all other aspects of their lives, are able to do so.

"Nothing is more basic to happiness and liberty than the right to love another human being with the same privileges and responsibilities as everyone else." - Marshall Forstein