Correspondence
DeBERNARDO, FRANCIS & HAWKINS, (REV.) ALLAN R. G. & McKENNA, NORMAN C. & THORPE, VINCENT W. & LEMIEUX, WAYNE K. & JR., EDWARD McGLYNN GAFFNEY & Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
CORRESPONDENCE Respect for same-sex love Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's argument against societal sanctioning of same-sex unions, in her September 22 review of Andrew Sullivan's Virtually Normal,...
...Whether on balance such alternative dispute resolutions help or hinder the poor or less advantaged can be argued both ways...
...Thorpe is right in referring to arbitration as a less costly alternative for resolving disputes...
...The affection and commitment of a homosexual couple have the same potential for the desirable social benefits of stability, personal growth, and productivity...
...Lemieux is plainly wrong in imagining that LSC is a centralized bureaucracy...
...In fact it is exceedingly parsimonious: The amount of federal aid appropriated for LSC has never approximated the very modest goal of funding two lawyers for every 10,000 poor people...
...The economic and legal benefits bestowed on a heterosexual married couple-tax deductions, insurance protection, inheritance benefits, legal decision making, even reduced membership fees in many organizations-aid the relationship, whether or not children are involved...
...Or perhaps it is because they have not learned to trust or value the deep potential for affirmative love between people of the same sex that exists in some members Of Society...
...And so neither did I. The confines of a "reply" are hardly conducive to expanding on a difficult and complex subject...
...And their families, almost always in the most modest of material circumstances, have been models of what every Christian household should be: the Kingdom of God in miniature, as my own father said to my wife and to me as he preached at our wedding thirty-one years ago...
...The author replies: Mr...
...As for my failure to "explain why the U.S...
...If Mr...
...On the contrary, of all federally funded programs, LSC is one of the most decentralized...
...Readers will find the argument on page 26 of the review...
...Gaffney shows himself to be an old liberal by continuing to ignore the middle class...
...government must ride to the rescue...
...Society does indeed have an interest in promoting stable relationships that can foster emotional health in the partners, since the citizens so favored are more likely to add to the common good...
...First, Carlin makes no reference to what must surely be the relevant fact that there are already married priests, in significant numbers, at work in the Roman Catholic church-not only those who, like me, have come from what Pope Paul VI called the "legitimate patrimony" of an Anglican background, but also Catholic priests of the Eastern rite...
...That is not to say that there have not been other, less admirable, examples...
...Gaffney's premise-the poor need lawyers because the rich and powerful need lawyers-is wrong...
...Third, Carlin makes no mention of the ecumenical perspective for the debate over celibacy...
...And when the poor do have to go to court-typically because they are haled there-they still need publicly assisted lawyers to achieve even a modicum of public justice...
...But to get a real-world feel for the situation, go to a church where there is no Mass, and a lay eucharistic minister distributes Communion because there is (excuse the expression) a shortage of priests...
...Pragmatically, the benefits bestowed on couples by marriage are not solely related to procreation and child-rearing...
...The unity of Eastern and Western Christendom is eagerly sought and prayed for, but it is hardly likely to be furthered by the writing off of the married priesthood of Orthodoxy as desacralized and a "contradiction in terms...
...Of course, the old liberals are intent on protecting the masses whether the masses like it or not...
...Steinfels says, "deeply counter-intuitive for most people," perhaps it is because they associate marriage too exclusively with procreation and child-rearing, rather than with the relationship between the partners...
...Let seminary faculties argue the precise meaning of the word shortage...
...Lemieux is right in noting that the middle class are underrepresented by attorneys in many of the legal problems that beset them...
...The rich and powerful need lawyers because they do business with one another...
...And the sacrament of holy matrimony is belittled and devalued if it is regarded as an agent of desacralization for a priest or anyone else...
...States can (and often do) deal with landlord-tenant disputes by regulations which avoid lawyers altogether...
...Carlin charges the "promar-riage party" with saying "silly things like This will solve the priest shortage.'" I have been a supporter of the "promarriage" (optional celibacy) party since its inception, and I have never heard or seen a claim that permitting priests to marry would prove the whole solution to the priest-shortage problem...
...DeBernardo has not read Virtually Normal, I urge him to do so...
...Lemieux describes federal support for LSC as "massive...
...EDWARD MCGLYNN GAFFNEY, JR...
...CORRESPONDENCE Respect for same-sex love Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's argument against societal sanctioning of same-sex unions, in her September 22 review of Andrew Sullivan's Virtually Normal, erroneously assumes that only heterosexual marriages deserve society's respect because only these unions provide for future citizens...
...Privatized justice...
...He is evidently unaware that Legal Services Corporation [LSC] lawyers already serve the poor through extensive use of alternative dispute resolution, both as mediators and in arbitration...
...But certainly the same can (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2) be said of some Catholic priests...
...This is a polite way of saying that federal funding of legal services seems a ploy by Gaffney and his ilk to substitute ideology for obtaining the consent of the governed...
...The only business transaction common among poor people is an occasional landlord-tenant agreement or dealing with the government...
...Keep the feds out Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr.'s article "The Poor Need Lawyers" is an example of the fuzzy logic that continues to embarrass liberal causes...
...She does grant, however, that people marry for many reasons other than child-bearing, and that not all marriages are stable...
...No shortage...
...The practice is growing rapidly, with the result that in many civil cases a person's rights are now often determined by judges who are not publicly appointed but privately selected and paid...
...Only the new liberals have confidence enough to let the masses themselves decide what kind of governmental protection is appropriate...
...Why then, I ask, call it marriage at all...
...Instead of promoting massive federal subsidies to lawyers for the poor, new liberals can reclaim middle-class support by backing state legislation enabling the middle class to recover their attorneys' (Continued on page 30) (Continued from page 4) fees when they are victimized in a way contrary to public policy...
...Nevertheless, I was greatly interested in the contribution to that debate made by David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Gaffney's conclusion is incorrect even if his premise isn't...
...ALLAN R. G. HAWKINS Arlington, Tex...
...Edward Gaffney, Jr., misses a dramatic current trend in his otherwise cogent comments ["The Poor Need Lawyers," October 6] when he suggests that "no one is seriously proposing the privatization of the judicial system...
...VINCENT W. THORPE Woodland Hills, Calif...
...On the Way to the Altar," October 20], and I share much of his perplexity with the partisans of both positions...
...The reviewer replies: In fact, I said nothing about societal sanctioning of same-sex unions except to argue against a specific claim made by Andrew Sullivan in Virtually Normal about the nature of the liberal state and what it confers and recognizes when issuing a marriage license...
...FRANCIS DeBERNARDO Mt...
...others, such as Idaho, might provide no assistance at all...
...All this experience must surely constitute at least the beginnings of the accumulation of relevant evidence...
...Even if this aid were more generous, the fact that many in the middle class suffer injustice does not negate the validity of aiding those who cannot afford to pay any legal fee...
...asks, "....[H]ow do we know there is a shortage of priests?...[T]here must be some right number we have in mind...
...In fact there is increasing corporate and trade association emphasis on using mandatory arbitration provisions in commonly used contracts...
...Some states, such as California, may provide more liberal assistance than the federal government...
...The writer is program director for New Ways Ministry...
...But there is a notable omission in what he writes, the begging of an important question, and the absence of one dimension in the matter...
...Unlike the poor, members of the middle class engage in a variety of business dealings and are usually poorly represented...
...Carlin's implication that the married priesthood is inevitably a desacralized priesthood...
...I think Sullivan is mistaken in his claim and his analysis...
...But he doesn't argue for expanding the provision of legal aid to the middle class...
...Sullivan's characterizations of same-sex unions...
...Second, the more I think about it the more disturbed I am by Mr...
...Why not start with a minimum of one pastor and one assistant in every church-including those that have been closed in consolidations for lack of priests to staff them...
...Instead he urges the British system of shifting legal fees to the losing party, a dicey remedy for poor and middle class alike...
...REV...
...So central is the theme of equal justice under law to our American system that none of us- whether old liberals or neoconserva-tives-should let the 104th Congress trample upon it or treat it with contempt...
...As one of the relatively few married priests in the church in the United States (a former Anglican priest, received into the church and ordained under the terms of the 1980 special pastoral provision), I am both deeply grateful to the Holy See and to my own diocesan bishop for making my present priestly ministry possible, and extremely reluctant to make a point in the debate over priestly celibacy...
...Since federal funds account for less than 25 percent of the needs of poor people, local committees decide which needs are more urgent priorities...
...MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS Desacralized...
...Andrew Sullivan could have said a great deal more on the subject of same-sex unions, but he didn't...
...After accusing the Republicans of making a fetish of protecting the rich, Gaffney does the same for the poor members of by concluding the federal government must intervene for the poor to have appropriate access to the civil courts...
...WAYNE K. LEMIEUX, ESQ...
...On the same page I point out that Sullivan's own characterization of the positive aspects of same-sex unions includes childlessness and sexual freedom...
...government should ride to the rescue," the general obligation of equality is found in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was added to the United States Constitution precisely because the states could not be trusted to do equal justice without that federal guaranty...
...he may find that he does not share Mr...
...In all cases the level of service will reflect what the community believes is important...
...Many such provisions call for binding arbitration before trade-association-sponsored panels...
...In "Cm the Way to the Altar," David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Apart from the fact that, subjectively, I cannot accept this as a characterization of my own ministry-which, I insist, is very distinguishable from that of "Presbyterian ministers"-I have to say that I have known, from the days of my childhood in an Anglican presbytery, very many austere, devout, disciplined, holy Anglican priests and bishops whose lives have been totally centered in the daily offering of the sacrifice of the altar, the recitation of the divine office, the preaching of the faith, and the care of the poor...
...My argument, based on the equal dignity of all persons before the law, may indeed be old, not in the sense in which we speak of "tired old liberals," but in the sense with which we venerate the ancient obligations set forth in the commands of Deuteronomy (16,19) and in the very core of our commitment to "equal protection of the laws...
...States are capable of making policy decisions about how the poor should be treated...
...NORMAN C. MCKENNA Silver Spring, Md...
...Nowhere does he explain why the U.S...
...Westlake Village, Calif...
...Why call it a stable relationship if it does not include fideli-ty...
...If the notion of a same-sex marriage is, as Ms...
...Rainier, Md...
Vol. 122 • November 1995 • No. 20
