I write this as a practicing Catholic who has worked for the church both as a paid employee and a volunteer for many years. I am heterosexual. I feel that the church has every right to say that marriage as a sacrament should only be for a man and a woman. I don’t see why the church is against civil rights for a gay couple. If we believe that God makes a person, why should that person be punished for the way he or she has been created? Why does the church feel that person should live a lonely celibate life because of his or her God-given nature?
People don’t get married just to have children. We get married because we’ve met somebody we wish to share the rest of our life with; children are an added blessing. In this day and age, almost as many people get married with the thought, “Oh, well, if this doesn’t work, we can always get divorced.”
If we got married only to have children, why would people in middle age and older be allowed to get married? I was widowed and remarried at the age of 50 to a man who was almost 60. We certainly didn’t expect to have more children. We both had finished raising our families. The church had no argument with our getting married because of our ages.
What is the reason for the argument that our marriage was OK, even though it wasn’t possible for us to have more children, but a gay couple can’t marry legally because they can’t have children? If they do adopt children, those children are no more in danger than children living with a single parent, as mine were after their father died. In this matter, I don’t feel that the church is following the teachings of our founder, Jesus Christ.
