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LA Catholic Examiner: National Day of Prayer: Not Sufficient

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LA Catholic Examiner: Not Just Earth Day, Creation

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LA Catholic Examiner: Earth Day: Catholic Climate Covenant Launched

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LA Catholic Examiner: Conscience protection regulation: Bush’s last attack?

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LA Catholic Examiner: The Condom: A Distraction from Justice

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“Do same-sex couples have the right to marry?” The question has given itself to debate, with the ‘definition of marriage’ being thrown into the arena of politics even to the point of it becoming the litmus test for determining if a politician should be elected or re-elected. Especially during this month of lovers, with Valentine’s Day being the focal point, the idea of mixing marriage with politics seems like a peculiar endeavor. Marriage is supposed to be about love and romance, not about the continuous power struggle between conservative and liberal politicians and activists. But even the story about St. Valentine, the namesake for February 14th, involves not just love, but politics. What would the patron saint of lovers say about same-sex marriages?

Not much is known about St.Valentine. In actuality, there might have been two early Christian martyrs honored by the early Church. What we do know is that both were priests who, due to their charitable work, were imprisoned and killed during one of the many anti-Christian campaigns administrated by the Roman Empire. One story has the saint being clubbed and finally beheaded by the Roman Emperor Claudius due to Valentine and his friend Saint Marius providing solace to condemned prisoners.

Another story has Valentine being arrested because of his secretly presiding over the marriages of young couples. The emperor, in need of soldiers for his military campaigns, passed a law forbidding young men from marrying, believing that unmarried men would be more likely to sign-up for military service. Valentine’s charitable disposition could not refuse the young lovers when they sought to be officially united in matrimony. It is this story that is most remembered and pleasing to our modern sentiments and is often presented as a justification for why every February 14th I should buy flowers for my wife. Either story however makes it clear that Valentine’s primary mode of operation was love; love for God, community, and those who were in love. Secondly, the stories show how questions of love can often be influenced by civil or political desires.

Looking at the story of Valentine and the young lovers, one wonders what Valentine would think about today’s debates surrounding marriage. In particular, the question of same-sex couples having the right to marry. Would he think of marriage as a political right, or as opponents of California’s Proposition 8 would hold, a civil right?

Can a person ever claim that she has a right to marry? The peculiarity of thinking of marriage as a right is that marriage is an action that cannot be exercised without another person also participating. In contrast to freedom of speech, which someone can exercise without others being obliged to listen, marriage always involves another. Though it can be very personal, marriage is a communal, versus private undertaking. If it is a right, it is one that can only be exercised when an individual forms a union with another. It is the individuals who give and receive to each other, but what makes marriage unique is that the couple seeks the recognition and acceptance of their exchange by the community. As such the act becomes public, and governed by the guidelines and beliefs practiced by the community in which the couple find themselves.

As an act that occurs in community, the community is asked to witness the union, and in so doing, declare the act as genuine and binding. In Valentine’s case, as a priest of the community, he functioned as both a witness and overseer of the union. In this capacity, the official declares to the community that the two individuals have formed a union grounded on the traditions of the community. This official recognition also commits the community to respect and support the union. Due to the couple’s fulfillment of the communal customs and traditions, the community is now obligated to acknowledge and support them. Often the laws of the community spell out these communal obligations. At this level, law, not love, defines the terms and conditions of the union. The expressions of love shared by the couple are reduced to a civil, legal contract. Legally speaking neither love nor romance need be present for the union to occur. As a civil act, each individual is free to bind themselves to the terms of the communally defined contract, and since it is a civil act, it is legally supported, recognized and empowered by the community. If this is done, then the community also forms an implied legal contract of support and respect for the union.

But to many the word ‘marriage’ means more than just a civil union. And thus, when it comes to the same-sex marriage question, it may not solely be the civil rights of the individuals that are sought, but also the spiritual/moral acceptance of the union. The problem however is that even though an individual may have the right to participate in a civil union with all its civilly protected privileges and responsibilities, there may not be a right to have the union be identified as a marriage, especially when other non-legal qualities may be implied by the term.

Though marriage automatically implies having all the civil privileges, responsibilities and obligations defined in a union, being married implies more than having those privileges, responsibilities and obligations legally recognized. Due to this distinction, it is possible for individuals to both exercise their civil right of forming a contract, and having it legally recognized by a community attaching other non-legal qualities to it–Without having the community identifying it as a marriage.

So, if all civil rights were protected, why would one seek to have the union also be labeled a marriage? And can we say that a person has a right to such a label? When the term ‘marriage’ comes to mean more than just a civil union, such as in the case of same-sex marriages, it is not solely the civil rights of the individuals that is sought by the identification, but the social/moral acceptance of the union by the community. At this point, the issue shifts from a civil rights issue to one of moral/social acceptance-To have the same-sex union be called a marriage is not simply to uphold it as legally okay, but to also have it be socially affirmed. The problem then arises, that though it may be possible to legislate civil practices, it is not possible to legislate peoples’ feelings of acceptance or moral approval of such practices.

So in answer to the question, “Do same-sex couples have the right to be married?” If by marriage one means the free exercise of individuals to form legally recognized contracts, then the answer is yes. However, if by marriage one means the legislation of moral or social acceptance, then the answer is no. The reason being, that acceptance, though it may at times correspond with law, it is not the product of law. The best that can be attained from the law is tolerance. And people only ‘tolerate’ that which they do not approve or accept. Acceptance has to come from some place else.

So were would Valentine stand? Maybe he can point to that place where acceptance may be found? Given the complexity of the issues around the question of same-sex marriage, Valentine would probably consider death at the hands of the Romans an easier task than to provide an answer. However, he probably would not think of marriage as a right, but as a natural extension of the blessing given to the first couple in the Garden of Eden; “Be fruitful and multiply.” Blessings are gifts and not something we deserve. If we are blessed with love, then we have to find ways in which it can be expressed and shared. And if others are blessed with love, then we have to find ways in which their blessing may also become a blessing to the community.

Also, given the fact that Valentine’s primary mode of operation was one of love, and that he too experienced a form of `the politics of marriage’, he would quickly point out that laws and politicians fall short when dealing with matters of the heart and moral acceptance. The law by itself cannot provide an answer. An answer will only appear in the context of mutual respect and understanding between people who hold either traditional or contemporary views on marriage. People’s words and actions affect the day-to-day practice and lives of fellow human beings, and one must not speak or act in a manner that generates hate, and mutes dialogue. All people are called to love, have the ability to love, and are in need of love. A community, and its cherished beliefs, can only become a place of justice, acceptance and growth when it finds the means by which the dignity and value of its members, along with the experiences they live be permitted to properly find expression. In so doing, each person is seen as a blessing to the community. A blessing that will bear fruit.

St. Valentine, pray for us.

Take a look at this video clip.  Let us be thankful that Pres. Obama was born before Roe vrs. Wade .  

www.CatholicVote.com

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As Barak Obama takes the oath to serve our Nation, and to uphold and defend the Constitution, I pray that the message that he so clearly and inspirationally articulated in the campaign comes to be accomplished. His words inspired many, and provided us with optimism about the future.  Hope was his rallying call, and many, including myself responded. This was against the backdrop of a campaign that also demonstrated how easily our nation can be polarized around issues dealing with life, war, economics, immigration, religion and race.  Polarization, defining reality as either black or while, is the opposite of hope. Today our nation defines reality as either right/left; Democrat/Republican; Pro-life/Pro-choice; Conservative/ Progressive; Legal/Illegal.  Such ideological categories paint the complexity of life in simplistic language which often leads us into a type of dualistic blindness. This blindness is governed by the mottos, “If you are not with us, you are against us” and “If you do not agree with me, then you hate me.”  It is this blindness which often prevents us from seeing that God’s creation is filled with possibilities, and that we have been given the power to be co-creators and care keepers of it.   It is a blindness-of-possibilities that induces the fear to move beyond ourselves, makes us deft to one another, and impedes us from seeking the truth. 

Hope is the virtue that helps us to see future possibilities. It is the habit of seeing what we can be while still being grounded in the reality and difficulties of the present. To be hopeful is to know that the truth can only be discovered when we are open to each other’s ideas, gifts, talents and energies. It is only in hope that we can seek new solutions to social, political, and moral challenges. It is this sense of possibilities that leads Obama to say that change is possible and that all of us can contribute to a new future.  

Two thousand years ago, St. Paul wrote that in the end only three things will last: faith, hope and love. At the end of eight years of the Bush Administration, and at the beginning of a new era in U.S. history, we must also acknowledge that hope alone is not enough. Faith demands that we act to achieve that which we hope for. Love elicits recognition that what we hope for is only valuable when we achieve it for the sake of another. 

But hope is a beginning, a first step.  So, on this occasion, I hope that the illusion that destroying life is the way we can assure our personal liberty, achieve personal fulfillment, or maintain a good quality of life, be replaced with the vision that all human life be seen as a gift, as a moment of celebration and as an opportunity for each of us to move beyond ourselves.I hope that the practice of determining human value and integrity be not grounded on political, fashionable or economic convenience, but instead on the conviction that each person has been lovingly created with an intrinsic dignity.  I hope that instead of living by the fallacy that the human family is divisible into “us and them,” we live by the truth that all human beings belong to one family and thus share in a common life and destiny.

On the occasion of the inauguration of Barak Obama, we recall his message of hope. But as he takes the oath of office, let us chose to hope by our action.  Failure to lovingly act diminishes hope into a mere delusion.  As we move to form ‘A More Perfect Union’ may we recognize that no authentic community can exist if it is not grounded on the belief that all human life has intrinsic value.   Obama’s swearing-in ceremony is not a magic-laden ritual that will transform the nation, but a call, a challenge for each of us to actively move beyond the polarizing conversations of the past, and into an open creative exchange about who we are, how we belong to each other, and that a “perfect union”, can only be measured by the way we acknowledge the dignity of those who are vulnerable, poor and marginalized in our society.

From Pope Benedict XVI’s World Day of Peace message, January 1 2009:  “Faithful to this summons from the Lord, the Christian community will never fail, then, to assure the entire human family of her support through gestures of creative solidarity, not only by “giving from one’s surplus”, but above all by “a change of life- styles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies.”. At the start of the New Year, then, I extend to every disciple of Christ and to every person of good will a warm invitation to expand their hearts to meet the needs of the poor and to take whatever practical steps are possible in order to help them. The truth of the axiom cannot be refuted: “to fight poverty is to build peace.”

Dear Councilman Huizar,

I am a professor of Philosophy at East Los Angeles College and a member of the Office of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  As such, I am an individual who works in your district and serves citizens who also belong to your district.  Today however, I write as a person who has been moved to seek higher education and service by the animals who inhabit the Greater Los Angeles Zoo.

When I arrived as a refugee from Cuba at the age of seven, it was my encounter with the animals at the L.A. Zoo that provided a bridge to becoming an engaged participant of our community.  My parents, who only had a 3rd and 6th grade education, took low-income custodial jobs at a local hospital.  Due to both its proximity and affordable entrance price they often took me to the zoo.  Though I lacked mastery of the English language, often receiving failing grades in school, my encounters with the animals, including the elephants, moved me to go to my school and local library to seek out more information on the animals I got to see and interact with.  I remember reading about how there were two different species of elephants and could not wait to return to the zoo and see if I could distinguish the African elephants from the Asian.  Even though I could not quite fit in this new land or could not do well in school, I was still able to learn and know the world of animals.  The more I visited, the more I read.  My encounter with animals opened my mind to the world of books, to a world not defined by a new language or customs, and in turn set my mind on the road toward new possibilities, new confidence, and new learning.

Over the years I have brought youth groups, students, and now, my own sons, to the zoo to share with them the sense of awe and wonder that the animals inspired in me when I was young.

I hope that you will consider how important motivation is to the learning process.  For many low income and immigrant children such as me, it is often difficult to connect with a new land and its customs.   It is with this hope that I encourage you to support the work of the Los Angeles Zoo and the citizens who support it.    In providing a safe and healthy place where we can be moved to come to know, love and respect our fellow creatures, the LA Zoo provides a place where education and animal advocacy can blossom.    It is with this hope that I request that you specifically support the present work the staff of the zoo is doing in regard to the elephant habitat they have undertaken and the future elephant conservation program they are planning.

In supporting these endeavors you will be providing future opportunities to both our human citizens and our brother elephants.

For an article on the elephant issue go to:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-scott-royce/zoo-is-not-a-dirty-word_b_146226.html

Recently two events occurred; Christians around the world celebrated the Feast of Epiphany, and President Bush revealed his plan to escalate the US military presence in Iraq. What do these have in common? In both cases you see a nations leader hiding his real agenda behind words of goodness.

The image of three magi following the Star of Christmas is one which adorns many seasonal card. The story of the Wiseman of the East being guided by the star that announced the birth of a new king, the child Jesus is remembered by Christians on the yearly feast of Epiphany (manifestation). The story however states that the wise men did not exactly get their facts correct. Instead of going to the place where the infant Jesus was, they instead visited the palace of Herald the Great, the king of Judea. King Herald, who jealously held to his power even to the point of killing his own children, welcomed the mysterious foreigners. After hearing their story, and consulting with his advisors, he sent them off with the words, “When you find the child, come back and tell me where he is so that I too may worship him”. However, worship was far from his heart. Instead he sought the child in order to kill him and thus maintain his power. Luckily, the wise men did not comply with his request.

Many Americans heard President Bush’s speak in which he stated that he would increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq. He used language and imagery that Americans would have no difficulty identifying as their own. Some of these included that Americans do not run from a fight, and that victory and not defeat is the goal of any struggle. That national leaders, more specifically Iraqi leaders, ought to govern in a manner that generates dialogue and peace among its citizens. That Liberty is something that all Americans treasure and have a responsibility to promote and defend. That the oil riches of Iraq should be use for the reconstruction and development of a democratic and just society in Iraq. That America should not abandon those who struggle for liberty. And that terrorist must not be permitted to attack U.S. citizens as they did in 2001. Just as the Wise men did not disagree with Heralds words about adoring the newborn king, so Americans do not disagree over the President’s sentiments. However, though all these the sentimental words ring true to Americans, do they actually reflect the heart of our administration and of those who govern it? Are we in Iraq and refuse to leave Iraq for these reasons, or is there another?

The Presidential Office of the Unites States is a noble office, and those elected to it, must govern wisely while constantly seeking the common good of all. This must be done in a spirit of honesty and respect for all Americans and toward people whose lives are affected by American policy. Lets face it, we do not want to entrust the most power office in the nation, and most economically and militarily influential office in the world to someone who is neither respectful nor honest with us.

So why are we still there? Did we not already complete the mission? Sadam Hussein, and his cohorts have been defeated, and are dead. A constitution has been written. Free elections have taken place and the people of Iraq have a new government. Though an expected civil war has developed, the American people did not send their children and resources to militarily build a nation, but instead to assist a people in the elimination of a tyrant, (one we conveniently no longer liked), and to, using the revenue from their natural resources, assist them in the rebuilding the life of its people. We did not go to Iraq to create a puppet state in a region that also happens to be one of the world’s top three sources of oil. Or, did we?

After reading a recent article in the British Independent press, which reports how oil corporations have been politically active in Iraq, one cannot help ask who is to primarily benefit from the establishment of the government. According to the article, oil corporations, under the careful support of the US government have been taking advantage of the growing pains of the new Iraqi government. These corporations have been pushing for Iraqi legislation, which may be soon passed giving them unprecedented control over the oil in the region. What is even most surprising is that the majority of the legislators are not even aware of such efforts, while US officials are, and have approved such measures. One cannot help but wonder whose interest is being sought by the elimination of Hussein and the orchestrated formulation of the new government. Is it really the people of Iraq, or the oil industry?

In the last few years the Republican lead Congress has consistently refusal to have oversight hearings on how US dollars are being spent by private industries involved in the providing of weapons and services to our soldiers. No substantial oversight has been given to how money, allocated to rebuilding programs in Iraq, is actually being used. Or of how much of the revenue of the sales of Iraqi oil has been reserved or used for the rebuilding of Iraq. So the question arises, “ Who is benefiting from the military action in Iraq, and who would continue to benefit?” One thing is clear; two mayor groups have already benefited, and have a great deal to gain by an increase of military presence in the region, the international oil corporations, and the weapons and war industry.

A few months ago my family and I were struggling with the continued increase of gasoline prices. The increase took a great chunk out of our monthly budget. The increases noticeably began when we invaded Iraq. The hikes were reasonably expected but we were informed that it would be temporary event. I recall many of our political leaders saying that as soon as we got control of the gas production in Iraq, prices would eventually come down. They did not.

Then Hurricane Katrina made havoc of our offshore Gulf production, and prices went up again. Even after production resumed, prices continued to rise. This wave was then followed by the sectional closing of the Alaskan pipeline. And you guessed it, prices continued their upward pattern.

All through these price increases, many individuals wondered why the White House or Congress had not done anything about the situation. The best response we could get was that nothing could be done–the increases were due to unforeseen events. In addition, the administration did not control the market forces. Due to the public demand, Congress called the leaders of the major oil companies to Capitol Hill. Each leader gave their own account on how the increases were a natural phenomenon of the petroleum market, and how the increases were outside of their control. No one, we were told could do anything about it. That is, until now.

As we approach the November elections, I find it peculiar that gasoline prices have been steadily going down, and may continue doing so even into Election Day. President Bush, and members of the Republican-led Congress, made this recent phenomenon a campaign slogan. They tell us that due to their leadership, gas prices are dropping.

There are two unusual points about this claim. First is the reality that gasoline prices rapidly increased while both the White House and the Congress were under Republican control. Do they really think that we suffer from short-term memory problems? The reductions now only closely bring us back to where we used to be before, and thus do not indicate any genuine improvement for the American consumer.

The second point is that either they had an influence on the increases, or they did not have such an influence. They can’t have it both ways. These same leaders, when earlier approached to do something, held that nothing could be done. If they could do nothing then, how can they now claim that prices are lowering due to their leadership?

If they did have an influence, then they were not completely forward with the American people, and quietly sat by while American families suffered. Prices for food, goods and travel increased steadily. Many families and businesses had to adjust to the increases, all while the petroleum companies saw the greatest profits in their history. Such profits permitted some CEOs to have very comfortable salaries and unimaginable retirement benefits.

So which is it? Did our leaders have an influence or did they not? If they did, why was it not used when the American public requested it? Why is it that prices are going down now before an election, and not then? Is it possible that the American citizen is presently being placated by the present price of gas? Are we being tempted to forget how much American families have suffered in the last few years? Are we being lured to believe that everything is fine under the control of one political party, specifically the Republican Party?

I cannot help but remember the story about Queen Marie Antoinette. The story goes that while the citizens of Paris were begging for bread outside the gates of the royal palace, she was asked by one of her attendants what to do about the hungry crowd. She responded, “Let them eat cake.” Instead of cake, is the American citizen now being placated with gasoline? Are we, by getting a reduction in gas prices now supposed to forget what has occurred in recent years in Washington? I, for my part am not placated.