June - Gay Pride - and Weddings

Today Gay Pride celebrations reach a climax in New York City with the Pride Parade. June is also a traditional month for weddings. This combination makes the legislative victory for gay marriage in New York so wonderful for the Pride Parade there today.

Friday evening I listened for a long while to a live feed from the Senate debate in Albany regarding gay marriage. One of the best speeches of the evening was the one by Senator Mark Grisanti, a Catholic and a republican. Grisanti talked about his Catholic upbringing and how he struggled with the concept of marriage being between a man and a woman. He added that he was also an attorney and that the more he struggled with this issue and thought about it; he had to conclude that gay and lesbian people had these same rights to marriage that he and his wife had. In an earlier interview with a Buffalo newspaper Grisanti said: "If I take the Catholic out of me, which is hard to do, then absolutely they should have these rights," In the end, reason won out. Here is a link to his speech. Senator Mark Grisanti's Speech for Gay Marriage

I admire the struggle and soul searching of someone like Senator Mark Grisanti. That effort is not something new for gay and lesbian people. We have been doing it for a long time. My hope is that more and more people will embrace that struggle in the honest and respectful way in which Senator Grisanti did. I am confident they will come to a similar conclusion.

Yesterday I attended a wedding in the garden of gay couple. The wedding was between a man and a woman. One of the persons getting married was a staffer for a member of Congress.That member of Congress was there.  This congress person has taken strong stands on behalf of gay and lesbian people. The congress person was comfortable in the garden and environment of the gay hosts. So were the two people getting married. This is the second straight wedding that has taken place in that gay garden. I wonder how long it will be before my two gay friends will be able to be married in their own back yard.

While at the reception I was sitting with one of my gay neighbors and he held out his wedding ring. It appears to be just like the one his partner wears. The design is the same except for the diamond. Then he told the story of the diamond. It first belonged to his partner’s grandmother. When his partner was preparing to marry a woman he was dating, he gave her an engagement ring with that diamond. Two weeks before the wedding my friend said his partner realized he could not go through with this wedding. Everything was called off. The engagement ring with the diamond was returned. Now my gay friend wears a ring with that diamond. These two men have been together for almost twenty years.

June is Gay Pride month and a month for weddings. I want to celebrate the victory for gay marriage in New York, not only for the equality it brings but also for the honesty that it allows. The honesty that this new law allows means a person does not need to pretend to be someone he or she is not. Now, at least in New York and several other states, it is possible for two people who really love each other who are gay or lesbian to get married.

Everything Pope Benedict Knows About Human Sexuality

John McNeill in a strong critique of Benedict’s recent comments on gay marriage in Portugal wonders what alternate universe the pope inhabits.  It is also possible to wonder what the pope knows about human sexuality.

McNeill’s analysis is a strong indictment of the traditional catholic teaching on sexuality and a condemnation of Benedict’s continual attacks on gay people and gay marriage. In Portugal Benedict inferred that gay marriage is the most insidious threat to the human family. In the same article McNeill blasts Benedict for overlooking so many real threats to the human family from nuclear war to inner city violence.


In a particularly profound part of his critique, McNeill says of Benedict’s theology of human sexuality that the pope equates human sex with animal sex. It seems to me, Benedict's knowledge of human sexuality is more mechanistic.  Sex for the pope is like the man and women in the picture in the plug and receptacle costumes.  McNeill says that Benedict’s theory of human sexuality is based on gender difference and gender complementarity and not on the uniqueness of the two individuals entering into a marriage relationship.


McNeill argues that Benedict does not understand the reality that when two unique people enter into a marriage relationship it is much more than a fusion of biological opposites.  McNeill moves far beyond simple gender complementarity as a basis for the marriage relationship pointing out that the two individuals bring a range masculinity and femininity to the relationship not based on biological gender.


Here are the two relevant and extremely significant paragraphs from John McNeill’s article.  You can read the whole article here.

http://johnmcneillspiritualtransformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/pope-benedict-xvi-on-gay-marriage.html


 “Every human psyche has both masculine and feminine attributes. Both parties following the patriarchal model must accept only those aspects of their psyche that accord with their gender identity. Males, for example, should only accept the masculine dimension of their psyche and suppress the feminine, which they then must project out onto their female partner. Women, in turn, must suppress everything masculine in their psyche and project out the masculine on their husband. Many psychically healthier women today, who are more in touch with both their masculine and feminine dimensions, and see themselves as whole persons, increasingly are unwilling to play the role of being mediators of the feminine emotional, spiritual and compassionate needs of men. They want a man who is a total human person in himself! They are demanding, and rightly so, that we men get in touch with our feminine dimension”


“Many men, in turn, are coming into touch with both the masculine and feminine dimensions of themselves and refusing to play the role of being the mediator of the masculine needs of women for assertiveness and autonomy.” …”Both genders are being called on to develop the fullness of their own humanity, so that they can approach each other as complete, independent persons and not remain essentially dependent on the other gender for their completion.”


In McNeill’s analysis that coming together of two unique human persons to form a marriage relationship is much more than the coming together of two people at the level of gender difference.   A further reality is that over the course of a relationship these two unique individuals will access differing aspects of his or her masculine/feminine polarity as they mature together.


McNeill’s conclusion is powerful saying that the coming together of two people whether male and female, male and male, or female and female in a marital relationship is much more than the coming together of two biological gender opposites. McNeill offers that there is a whole range of masculine and feminine psychic energy that comes together in a marriage relationship. This opens up so much more what the reality of marriage is. The reality is that when two people come together to form a committed relationship, marriage, that it is a union formed on a psychic, emotional, and spiritual level. Benedict’s theory of human sexuality is very one dimensional.

Instead of condemning gays and gay marriage Benedict should be praising it.  Here is McNeill's powerful rebuttal. “Gay marriage then, rather than being a threat to the family, opens up a new paradigm for a fuller, more human and fulfilling love between the partners.”