My Statement on Gay Marriage

The law by virtue of being it I must respect. And it is expected from everyone else in a free society to do the same; because only the law has supreme earthly authority. Even in autocratic regimes the figure of the autocrat is the origin of the law. I will skip the problem of what would be a legitimate origin of the law, and just state as principle that the law, whatever it happened to exist according to the common consent of those being subject to it, remains the supreme earthly authority. But the Church (of Rome) has the monopoly of my conscience, the place where only God reaches. The law can only ask from me to obey it, but it cannot claim my conscience, my self. Recently gay marriage was approved in the State of New York, the place where I presently reside. And for the previous mentioned reasons I respect gay marriage by being sanctioned according to the law of this land, and having supreme earthly authority. But I cannot concede in favoring it in my conscience, because that part of my self belongs to my devoted faith in the Church; and the Church does not recognize as warranted the union of same-gender couples.

However I cannot judge others' love. Doing that is always deeply unchristian. The authority to judge others' love, and weather it is right or wrong, belongs only to God. That is why the inclination of gays is not my concern nor does it demands my opinion on the subject, because simply I cannot know better, because I am no better. My opinion only rests in regarding the institution of gay marriage and it is guided by the Holy Doctrine of the Catholic Church. For that reason I don't support with my conscience what the law forces me to respect nonetheless (and I willfully do respect it): the institution of gay marriage. But the judgment of others' love goes beyond my reach, as it is well explained by the Pauline theology from the teachings of Jesus.

The difficulty in explaining this is that our society has become to fond of judging others, coming from every orientation in politics, ethics and religion. The difference between the judgment of a court of law is that it rests upon the earthly authority of the law. If the law has a moral content, it is not morality which makes the law binding, but the law which makes morality binding. In itself the only moral court where the individual stands is that upon God. But this difference goes completely unnoticed by many who think that an opinion regarding a subject of ethics or morality, almost like by necessity, implies a judgment on those others that break what we consider to be the moral norms. This must be rejected, because there is a difference between a statement of morality, where basically the subject states what he believes to be the frontier between right and wrong, and another one is having the authority to point at some other person and rightfully say "you did wrong". Morality is a claim of the self in the his relation to God, but never to other men. To other men only law and conventions are binding, but the deep meaning of human morality lies hidden inside the conscience to a level that only God can pierce.

To put it more simply; when a person breaches the law, he goes to court. The law is recited to the person, but the person still remains innocent. In order for any judgment to be imposed on the person, it must be shown that the person actually broke the law. The sole speaking of the law does not make the person guilty. What makes the person guilty is the judgment based on the law. As it stands the law is just a statement of will (general will if you may) but it does not finger any guilty. It just creates the possibility and basis for the guilty. But the actual materialization of the guilty emerges from the judgment. And the judgment is only warranted when it has been proven that the person did break the law somehow (if there are enough doubts, it will always be better for the person to walk free). But with morality we face an insolvable problem: it is impossible to prove that inside another person's conscience there has been a real breach in the moral norms. A breach in convention can be proven, as well as with the law; but never a fault in morality, because we have no way of knowing what happens inside the depth of another human's mind (heart, soul, conscience). That is why blaming another for hypocrisy is most of the time a very bold judgment.

Morality does no warrant anyone to judge other people. Christianity teaches so, and the philosophical basis were built by St. Paul already a long time ago. When I state what I think to be right or wrong is a moral statement, but it does not imply a judgment (however many do that, and others interpret it that way). A true Christian morality will always point the difference between right and wrong, but stay there as when the courts of law have still not passed a judgment on a defendant. Because the only and truly possible authority in morality is God, the only force in the universe conceivable to penetrate inside the human heart and know their deepest truths. I think this more than enough to justify and explain my previous statement in gay marriage: why is it possible for me to oppose gay marriage and gay love as concepts contrary to Christian morality and still welcome any person without distinction of sexual inclination, without remorse or judgment upon them. Morality cannot be used as a weapon to judge without losing completely its true meaning, but as the relation between our individual consciences and God. The Church states the maxims of Christian morality, but it has no authority to produce any particular judgment on anyone. So the same with all of us.