Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE God-talk isn't boring Alkmaar, Holland To the Editors: The one helpful point that readers can pick up from Crystal Gomer's review of Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe [November 8] is...
...The question of a public religious sanction, especially in the Catholic sacramental tradition, is more problematic...
...Otherwise we would view marriage solely as a legal matter, and a matter of "indifference," at that...
...Sex drives us out of our minds in idealistic romance and utter silliness...
...Commonweal must do better on this one...
...AMITY PIERCE BUXTON The writer is author of The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses (IBS Press...
...P. David Finks is naive when he asks why bishops don't call on married priests to serve on diocesan committees and councils...
...And what of the homosexual identity/orientation itself, which is claimed to be authentically, though not statistically, as much a part of the human artifact of "sex with a biological base" as heterosexual orientation...
...I speak of the experience of the two million or more straight spouses who unwittingly wed gay or lesbian partners whose sexual orientation had been denied, repressed, or closeted because of society's expectations and pressures from parents, priests, or psychiatrists...
...The U.S...
...His opponents appeal to supposed threats to the normative status of heterosexuality from certain sanctions of gay marriages...
...The bottom line is the meaning and value found in or given to the physiological and biological differentiation of the male and female human bodies...
...What is the meaning of sexuality— homosexual or heterosexual...
...I throw down a right...
...REV...
...Shame on you for being so one-sided...
...Opponents all agree that a middle ground of limited societal recognition of gay marriages might be possible without necessarily equating homosexual and heterosexual acts or sliding down the slippery slope to the moral enervation feared in displacing the legal and moral uniqueness of heterosexual marriage and the biological family...
...And what do the "technologizing of birth" and threats of "wholly untrammeled pluralism" have to do with serious debate of the subject at hand...
...Marriage is not just a "privilege" granted by society to certain classes...
...Bacik is a trained theologian (he studied under Rahner) who is also a university pastor...
...I suggest that there is broad confusion in the marriage bureaus and the divorce courts about its meaning (if any...
...If there is anything that is damaging serious discussion of sexual issues it is the solemnity with which the subject is treated by Puritan detractors and Playboy enthusiasts...
...While the profound dilemmas are eventually resolved, scars from deception and sexual rejection remain...
...I was excited to read a novel about the success of unpopular life choices...
...Your definition of marriage, confined within a biological and civil law framework, is incomplete and flawed...
...Despite your professed liberalism, you really accept the values of homophobic bigots within church and society...
...Citing Madonna's proclamation that "mock masturbation before tens of thousands is 'freedom of expression'"—an intimation of things to come, the "slippery slope," if society legalizes gay marriage— she associates the grotesque with the reasoned proposal of her opponent...
...He wasn't boring to me...
...Your sym(Continued on page 44) 2: 31 January 1992 Commonweal (Continued from page 2) CORRESPONDENCE posium made no deeper analysis of this question...
...Is there really an "ur-text" of genital biology which (apart from biological reproduction) essentially makes heterosexual life patterns different from homosexual life patterns...
...Right or wrong, the above-mentioned stake out philosophies on sexuality that somebody ought to attend to in these discussions if we are to move beyond "rant...
...Bishops have been known to fire the wives of married priests from diocesan jobs when their status became known...
...And only those people who choose the desert over the marketplace know how beautiful is the desert, how empty the marketplace...
...It is a toss-up which is more baleful, those old-line pulpit exhortations against sex or Dr...
...I have no use for such phony liberalism and would like my name removed from your subscription lists...
...NANCY FOREST-FLIER Half-gay marriages El Cerrito, Calif...
...When I read the book (or devoured it, or guzzled it, in three days), I was overjoyed to find myself reading a book in which the word God is not printed within quotation marks...
...As long as we do not know beyond serious question how to evaluate homosexual relationships and acts psychologically, sociologically, or theolog lly, the question of the validity of a heterosexual norm based on biology remains...
...In a perfect world there would always be people who took care of others for the right reasons...
...I insisted, for that is what civic philosophers must do to be true to their vocation, 44: 31 January 1992 Commonweal that any and all arguments for or against gay marriage, or surrogacy arrangements, or eugenic reproduction, or other possibilities our culture throws up must be evaluated as part and parcel of the current American Zeitgeist in which wants become rights and rights are trumps...
...To the Editors: I am really disappointed by your editorial on gay marriages...
...But, having taken on the care of the children for his own healing and salvation, Ian discovers that not only is he in fact healed, not only are his parents relieved of an enormous amount of work, not only are the kids reassured of a responsible adult presence, but Ian finds he loves them...
...Catholic bishops teach that "covenant love endures and is creative in ways distinct from biological parenthood" and that genital love of married couples can and ought to be "fruitful or creative in a variety of ways even when the procreation of children is not possible...
...The compromise in a pluralistic society might be a legal marriage which, contrary to Hartinger's claim, would "celebrate" and "endorse" homosexual sexual behavior...
...Like childless heterosexual couples, same-gender couples can experience "the mystery of the other" and the "joys of human creation" if we are to take their testimony seriously...
...Reading it, I thought not of Socrates but of Dorothy Day's well-known quote, "If I've accomplished anything it's because I'm not embarrassed to talk about God...
...They were greatly appreciative of his clear prose, his capacity for rendering difficult concepts into intelligible language, and, most of all, his suggestions for further study in the original texts...
...To the Editors: First, congratulations on the broad look at gay marriages in the issue of November 22...
...To the Editors: Janet Baxendale writes, in regard to the McCabe vs...
...Proclaiming that gay people should have a place in society, you deny us that place and perpetuate that great harm by your hair-splitting rhetoric...
...Hartinger's presentation of the "pro" side of the issue is also incomplete...
...Few therapists or clergy understand the problems...
...Polemics don't help Vancouver, B.C...
...Second, there's a serious gap in the picture that needs to be filled...
...And Rome put a stop to that...
...But Jean Bethke Elshtain is no slacker here...
...But would such a "marriage" in any real way threaten the primacy of heterosexual marriage and social regeneration...
...When O'Brien grandly concedes that "perhaps homosexual relations are better sex" and cites Oscar Wilde on masturbation as enlightening guru we progress from the bizarre to the aberrant...
...As I suggested in my original statement, we have an almost impossible time attaining any balance on sexual issues...
...Ruth urging us on to ever greater orgasms...
...Those of us who have made the difficult decision to do something because we knew that not doing it would be unbearable (like bearing an unplanned baby) can only cheer when a book like this is written...
...MARY LOUISE HARTMAN The writer is president of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church...
...Again, arguing from the norms of the Athenian polis or discoursing on Playboy and Puritanism is so much wanton dust chapter on these thinkers for context...
...Takes two to tangle Delran, N.J...
...She doesn't seem to realize that Rome has ordered all dialogue between bishops (the party of resistance) and CORPUS (the party of change) to cease...
...46: 31 January 1992 Commonweal...
...What's your decision...
...I suggest that if Roberts would stop being solemn, he might discover the seriousness of my article and Professor Elshtain's...
...His reaction is altogether predictable...
...JAMES J. WILLIAMS, M.D...
...Steinfels debate ["A further exchange of views," December 6, 19911, that the party of resistance and the party of change should begin to talk to one another on the issue of married priests...
...Those interested in getting an overview of a particular thinker as a prelude to deeper study would also find the work useful...
...Marriage and family as a "communio personarum" exist even prior to and even apart from biological offspring...
...To the Editors: Embarrassment is the word that captures my response to Dennis O'Brien's and Jean Bethke Elshtain's "Against Gay Marriage I and II...
...A fortiori...
...in the eyes...
...From five years of research into gaystraight marriages, I can attest that straight wives and husbands face a shattering crisis of identity, integrity, and faith when their partners' homosexuality comes to light...
...Finally, if Ian is such a boring guy, and the woman he marries is so interesting, why does she marry him...
...Worse, straight spouses, stigmatized by antigay attitudes attached to their mates, become an isolated minority without the support organizations available to the gay and lesbian partners...
...Contemporary Theologians, then, is very helpful for the teacher and student...
...For every literary tragedy of wayward passion there is an equal and opposite sexual farce...
...If Roberts believes he can come up with a single instance of "rant and repugnant caricature" in my comments, he is welcome to try...
...Their story should no longer be ignored...
...The reviewer wants to tell Ian, the novel's protagonist, that "Children are not to be taken on as reparation...
...But they also raise profound issues of the meaning of human nature, sexual morality, and the nature of society itself—all of which are crucial elements in the discussion...
...But he needs a quick refresher course in how to read a text...
...The reader is left adrift in rant and repugnant caricature when we need the kind of solid and sober argumentation that characterized Brent Hartinger's article...
...While Brent Hartinger turned out a serious, wellargued case for gay marriage bolstered by corroborative examples and cautious caveats against abuses that might undermine the norm of heterosexual marriage, his opponents indulged in a farrago of outlandish polemics that degrade the issue and the persons involved...
...Roberts somehow thinks that Athenian homosexual customs, Puritan strictures, and Playboy permissiveness are "wanton dust" to the argument...
...I am not sure how to be fully serious about sex but I suspect, like Walker Percy, that a certain sense of the wild and humorous on this and all serious issues is proper for mere humans...
...CORRESPONDENCE God-talk isn't boring Alkmaar, Holland To the Editors: The one helpful point that readers can pick up from Crystal Gomer's review of Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe [November 8] is that those who are embarrassed by people who talk about God shouldn't read the book...
...This is boring...
...Not so the bishops— except for a few, and that only recently...
...To the Editors: Brent Hartinger argues a compelling case for gay marriage by listing several concrete, positive, and practical benefnts for homosexual people, society, and even family structures and values...
...If he wants a model of what such a a caricature looks like, he might consider re-reading his own letter...
...Hartinger refers to the problem in passing...
...I aver seriously— even solemnly—that this is a subject radically unattended to...
...Either she's desperate, or he's not boring...
...JAMES R. ROBERTS The author replies (I): The Reverend James R. Roberts complains about a lack of serious treatment of a serious issue...
...My questions were: What is the meaning of marriage...
...Instead, I presented one version of a feminist case, grounded in civil philosophy, for the view that societies have an enormous stake in preserving symbols of social regenesis associated with the intergenerational family...
...My essay explicitly rejected slippery slope claims...
...Include me out Berkeley, Calif...
...Straight spouses are victims of victims of homophobia...
...Bang...
...Like one of the Annunciation icons, with Gabriel galloping in on the scene to announce a very big life change for Mary, this is very often how grace is dished up to us...
...Think fast...
...CORPUS has always been ready to dialogue...
...you lose...
...DENNIS O'BRIEN The author replies (II): The Reverend James R. Roberts seems quite adept at boosting and anathematizing...
...As a consequence he knows theology at a deep level and, given the exigencies of his position, he also can communicate...
...ROBERT NUGENT The writer directs the Centerfor Homophobia Education in New York City...
...Surely there are writers who can grant the dispute the justice it deserves...
...God and sin, penance and salvation are all there, as ordinary and everyday (as "beige," perhaps) as breakfast cereal and junk mail...
...The reality of a sacramental blessing for a nonreproductive heterosexual marriage is not withCommonweal 31 January 1992: 45 out relevance, however, to evaluating same-gender relationships...
...JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN Biology isn't all New York, N.Y...
...There are deeper issues at stake and they must be taken up with appropriate gravitas...
...What light, for example, can O'Brien's focus on the Hollywood marital high jinks of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn shed on the essential problems of gay marriage...
...The right to associate is fundamental but is recognized and protected only for heterosexuals, not for gays...
...Given the upbeat ending of the book, I'd like to think that Ian is only boring to some people...
...It is not only pop-stars who seem to have transcended marriage...
Vol. 119 • January 1992 • No. 2
