News To Me

In this story, the problem with her argument in regard to transsexuals is that we don't want to be androgynous. Our identities are feminine or masculine, despite our body's appearance. The thought that same sex couples "can never be a true reflection of [God's] love" is, in my mind, a slap in His face. I can't agree with Jennifer Hartline's vision of a world of androgynous people, either because among other things, I believe that everything in nature is a spectrum. It is the nature of nature to be varied. As far as the projected time line, well, we might have equal rights by then! (full story) apparently, linking directly to this story at catholic.org is prohibited, so I've posted the entire work here. 'Male and Female He Created Them': Men and Women R.I.P.?

By Jennifer Hartline 1/15/2010

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Being male or female does matter.We ignore this difference to our severe detriment and we trample on it to our self destruction.

God certainly would not have bothered to create two separate ways of being human with distinctly different yet perfectly complimentary attributes – physical, emotional, mental, and vocational – if the difference wasn’t important.

CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - I have a nightmare in which I look ahead twenty-five years or so and I see a bland, ambiguous society simmering with an undercurrent of antagonism. I see a culture largely without men and women, made up instead of some strangely amalgamated human creature. This creature is not truly human anymore because it has declared gender and the Natural Law to be irrelevant and oppressive. In that tragic mistake, it lost its freedom and fulfillment. I think it’s more than just a melodramatic bad dream. It's slowly coming true right now, in bits and pieces every day. Amidst all the new sexual classifications – gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender – we’re losing the awe-inspiring truth about men and women as we were created to be. Such forgetfulness will be disastrous. Being male or female does matter. God certainly would not have bothered to create two separate ways of being human with distinctly different yet perfectly complimentary attributes – physical, emotional, mental, and vocational – if the difference wasn’t important. We ignore this difference to our severe detriment and we trample on it to our self destruction. If we weren’t so pigheadedly set on our asinine idea of a limited, instrumental understanding of equality which is rooted in function we’d be able to understand the inestimable worth of our differences. We might see how our opposite natures as men and women are intended to strengthen and enhance our individual gifts and form a complete foundation for life when brought together in marriage and the family and society founded upon it. No such foundation exists within a relationship that excludes either man or woman. It simply can’t. God created us, male and female, for each other, to be the complete and perfect companion, and to be a sign and symbol, a reflection of Christ’s love for His church. Same-sex relationships can never be a true reflection of that love for many reasons, just one being that they necessarily reject the opposite sex. It’s two men saying, “Sorry, ladies, we don’t really need you,” and two women saying, “Thanks anyway, guys, but we don’t want you.” That’s a grossly distorted image of femininity and masculinity that only serves to drive a wedge between men and women with its errant message that we don’t need each other. It feeds the hostility of those who insist that all men are oppressors of women everywhere. Worse, it promotes a culture in which men and women are increasingly used for their reproductive functions without any attachment, commitment or respect, all of which are a part of an authentic understanding of love and communion. Two women who wish to become mothers simply need a guy to give them some of his DNA (which he'll be financially compensated for, of course). No father is necessary, thank you, just some sperm. Two men who want to be parents need a woman who will simply be a “carrier” for them, donating an egg and her womb (which she'll be financially compensated for, of course), then leave the child motherless. To create by design a fatherless or motherless home for a child is utterly selfish and damaging. I can't fathom how two homosexual men could possibly teach a little girl what it really means to be a woman nor how two lesbian women could show a little boy how to be a man. More importantly, it reduces children to some kind of accessory that can be purchased and manufactured at will, and it opens the door to endless scenarios in which the courts are left to decide who gets parental rights, while the child is the one who suffers. None of this equals giving life as God intended. None of this is love. The issue is more than just the ability to provide material goods for a child and care for a child. Children need a father AND a mother. A child needs to see the proper relationship between a man and a woman lived out in the home day after day in order to understand and appreciate the unique roles of male and female. A same-sex relationship simply cannot teach a child about the beautiful, sacrificial mystery that is married love, nor can it demonstrate authentic feminine and masculine natures because it denies and excludes the opposite sex. We are sending dangerous messages to the generations coming after us. The fact is, men and women need each other to reach the fullest potential of our humanity, to become who we are created to be. It is a terrible fallacy to say that women can do it alone, or men can do it alone, that both are not vital to the family structure and the healthy formation of a child. True and authentic femininity embraces true and authentic masculinity and the two interlock and create a proper balance. We are rapidly losing that balance and the innate, God-given, unique value of men and women is being cast aside in deference to counterfeit notions of a sexuality rooted in function and the use of the other.

Marriage is not solely about the couple saying “I do”, that is the beginning of an invitation into the communion of love through the gift of self. Its primary purpose is not to get something, but to give someone to another someone. This exchange gives life daily by affirming the dignity of the spouse and recognizing and receiving the complimentary gift of that spouse. That gift is expressed in the fullness of married life and, in a special way, in the intimate communion of the marital embrace with the beloved. Certainly, this relationship gives life by cooperating with God in the creation of children. Love is always fruitful, and open to life. Obviously, this giving cannot exist between same-sex couples. That is the wisdom of the Natural Law trying to tell us something. If we just forfeit the fight to protect true marriage between one man and one woman out of some misguided belief in what is passing itself off these days as "tolerance" and "equality", we will effectively consent to the diminishment of men and women altogether. Men and women give life to each other in a myriad of different ways through our minds, hearts and bodies precisely because we were made to complement one another… we were made to complete one another. The giving and receiving of life simply doesn’t work any other way. It’s absolutely essential that we start reaffirming the value of femininity and masculinity as the two halves that make one whole, before it is too late. ----- Jennifer Hartline is a Catholic Army wife and stay-at-home mother of three precious kids who writes frequently on topics of Catholic faith and daily living. She is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

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