Six of 7 Prayers for Marriage: Just Love
Author: Andrew Comiskey
March 25, 2013
It is now popular to label anyone a ‘hater’ who upholds marriage and refuses to remove its centerpiece: gender complementarity. On the other hand, those for ‘gay marriage’ are applauded as loving and just. I contend that love is far more stern and splendid than conceding to another’s demands. What is harder: to give people what they want or what they need?
True marriage bears witness to all people, including to persons with same-sex attraction, of something deeper and more beautiful than two people sharing lives. It reveals a quality of sacrifice and mutual submission not unlike Jesus’ love for us.
Early on in my journey out of homosexuality, still confused as to my sexual future, I caught glimpses of my parents’ love for each other. However imperfect, they always conveyed respect to each other; I noticed the very specific ways they understood and bolstered each other in their respective weaknesses. These weaknesses grew as they aged but so did their patience and care for each other. My father died with dignity due to the love of his still devoted bride.
My parents’ marriage had a converting impact upon my spirituality and my broken sexuality. It revealed the limits of same-gender pursuits; it opened a window to what I could aspire to as a man created to be in right relationship with woman. What people do not realize is that every human being is created to realize the gift of his/her otherness in relation to the opposite gender.
There are many ways in which we can get stalled or sidetracked in that realization. But that does not change the truth of God’s design and destiny for human sexuality.
When the state upholds true marriage and refuses its redefinition, it points confused citizens like me in the right direction. The state helps clarify the goal of our sexual humanity. It directs us by properly defining reality. The state misdirects us by misnaming reality.
We are thus wise to halt the efforts of gay couples to normalize their unions through ‘marriage.’ In truth, no heart open to the Creator can wholly rest with these ‘normalizing’ efforts. That unrest can work two ways. It can prompt us to go against the grain of our culture and uphold the original meaning of marriage. Or that unrest can fuel the activism driving ‘gay marriage.’ What one cannot resolve internally, (s)he directs outward in efforts to convince the world that ‘we really are normal.’
But ‘gay marriage laws’ cannot calm the moral unrest underlying two men or women trying to become one. Such laws ‘whitewash’ something that God cannot bless. ‘Gay marriage’ is alien to Him and His design for all of humanity.
On behalf of the moral and sexual integrity of all persons with same-sex attraction, we act in love when we uphold marriage as one man committed to one woman for the sake of kids they create. It sets a boundary that distinguishes one type of union from another; it clarifies an essential difference between heterosexual commitment and same-gender friendship. In this hour when our nation lurches along the broad path to ‘gay marriage’, we do well to take the narrow way, the way of love, by insisting on true marriage.
Most importantly, we who are married must make every effort to love well our friends with same-gender attraction. We must extend the gift of our communion, just as I benefitted from my parents’ marriage.
Annette and I marvel at a beloved couple. Both spouses have struggled with the husband’s same-gender attraction; they have succeeded at loving each other faithfully and well. You can imagine their grief, concern, and finally their understanding at the ‘coming out’ of their son. Now they love him well. Though they disagree with his choices and self-definition, they manage to treat him with sensitivity, compassion and respect. (CCC #2237)
This couple seeks prayerfully to give their son what he needs, which is their love. They cannot give him what he wants—full acceptance of his homosexual practice. They have not changed the truth of God’s will to ‘manage’ their disagreement with him; instead they embody the truth by loving him honestly. Their marriage is a living witness of how God created humanity and how He redeems us. It is a bright light to their child and to all of God’s children.
Please pray with us this Holy Week as the Supreme Court hears both cases concerning ‘gay marriage’ on Tuesday the 26th and Wednesday the 27th.
‘Father, we lift up marriage before you in this hour. We do so for all loved ones with same-sex attraction. For their clarity as Your children, we ask for the Supreme Court to uphold the true definition of marriage. In particular, we pray for plaintiffs opposing marriage, Paul Katami and Kristin Perry, both self-affirmed homosexuals. Would You manifest Your goodness in their lives? Might You give them what they need—a revelation of Your saving love, and not what they want– ‘gay marriage’? We love You Father and ask for Your advocacy on behalf of marriage in this crucial hour for our nation.’
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