THE POPE ON MARRIAGE

I’m waiting to read the full context of the Pope’s remarks decrying the possibility of a gay couple committing to each other as “anarchy.” But at first blush, I would think that “anarchy” would better describe a world in which gay people have no context for their relationships, no social support for connecting sex with love, no chance of being fully a part of their own families. But I’m hardly surprised by the inflammatory rhetoric or the contempt for modernity and for human freedom voiced by this Pope. We knew what we were getting. Is he persuasive? Well, for that he would need an argument, an engagement with the social forces that have propelled gay relationships to the forefront of contemporary debate. Easier to pontificate and condemn. And he sure knows how to do both of those. Meanwhile, Europe continues to ignore him. Close to 60 percent of the Swiss just voted to allow gay couples to have most of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. If I’d stayed in Britain, I’d only have to wait a few months for full legal marriage rights. Maybe if the Pope voiced a little more charity and listened a tiny bit more, more people would listen back.