The sanctity of marriage

So today we had our last formal class of the year. I'm kind of glad the year is almost over but from here on out it's three weeks of straight testing. It's putting a little damper on my enthusiasm if you know what I mean. Anyway fitting for a private catholic university the last class of the year we had was Christian physician. The class that's supposed to show us how to be good and caring doctors in a Christ like way. Well sort of.

One of the topics we had for today was the sanctity of matrimony. Well, we all know that the Catholic Church believes that for a marriage to be valid you only a man and woman can be married to each other. You need those two components and you can't substitute one or the other for anything else. For example a man can't marry a fish , a woman can't marry a squirrel , and a squirrel can't marry a fish . It's just not natural and therefore if they were to allow it, it would threaten the concept of marriage. Now for all you animal lovers out there is no need to write me a bunch of hate mail. That's just what my prof was saying, not me. Well maybe that's not exactly what he was trying to say. It was the gist of it however, but in actuality he didn't put it so politely. His exact words were "homosexual marriage is a threat to the sanctity of marriage".

Now when you say a "threat" I can't help but think of George Bush Junior's war on terrorism and his constant ranting of how "terrorist are a threat to our society". Well maybe I shouldn't use the word "ranting". When someone blows up a building with thousands of people inside, obviously they are a "threat". There is no doubt about that. However, until married homosexual couples start blowing up Catholic Churches or forcing heterosexual Catholics in to homosexual marriages at gun point I don't see how in any way you are going to use the word "threat" in reference to what homosexual marriage is doing to the sanctity of marriage.

When I asked for the reason as to why the Church views homosexual marriage as a threat. The answer I received was that sexual intercourse between a man and another man and woman and another woman is not natural. (How do two women have sexual intercourse anyway? If anyone out there would like to demonstrate it how it is done please let me know. Just for educational purposes of course. ) In all honesty I don't see how it is natural either. One of the purposes in life is to procreate and a man with another man or a woman with another woman, just aren't going to be able to do that. But then again that's just my view from a biological stand point and who's to say what's really "natural". Is what is natural only those events that occur in nature? Those that we can see in the wildlife that happens around us? Therefore would religion be natural? How many dogs or cats do you see attend mass on their own? What about all these drugs and medical treatments we use on the sick in order to keep them from dying? Is that natural? Death is definitely a natural thing, so why do we try so hard to stop this event from happening? Do you find animals of the same sex having sex with one another? Well, yes you do. The closest species in the animal kingdom in which humans are believe are to believed to be related to are monkeys and there are in fact monkeys that do commit homosexual acts. So does this act in nature make homosexuality natural?

In either way whether one thinks homosexualality is natural or not, it does not answer my question of how homosexual marriage is a "threat" to the concept of matrimony. Even if you are only referring to the "Catholic ideal of matrimony" how do marriages outside the Catholic Church affect the Catholic view? For example I like chocolate chip ice-cream, if someone were to choose plain vanilla ice-cream over chocolate chip how does that affect my preference of chocolate chip? (Peppermint chocolate chip is actually the best but back to the point I was trying to make.) Maybe if I was 5 years old it would but I'm a grown man (at least I like to believe that) and I can choose to think for myself. Take this concept of a "threat" a step further and what does it imply about civil marriages done outside the Church, not under the eyes of "God", or the marriage between two Shintoist or Buddhist? Is that also a threat to the "Catholic marriage"? Should we all start thinking the same, like those religious fanatics from the Middle East (or from anywhere else for that matter) who believe that anyone with a view outside their way of thinking is a "threat" to society and these people should be prevented or even forced to stop living their life the way they want to?