It sounds as though, before his election to the Papacy, our new Pope had a similar notion to the one we were just discussing: a kind of legal union (what I am calling, after Aristotle, an ethical society of friendship) ought to be available for non-marriage cases. He seems to favor retaining the distinction between the institution of marriage, which is founded in the organic family, and the new institution, which is ideally founded on the manner in which a partnership of friendship can encourage virtue in each of the parties.
We'll see where this goes, now, but it points to a way in which a settlement is possible -- assuming people can accept that a family is different from a friendship, even a very close one with common property (on Aristotle's terms).
5 comments:
Hardcore gay rights activists will never accept anything other than having their relationships legally recognized to be the same as heterosexual marriage, IMO...
You're probably right. Even if they win, though, having the law on your side has nothing to do with being on the right side. We see that proved often enough these days.
I was going to say what ML said. It's pretty obvious that is the goal.
I'm sure you're right, but that's roughly the same as having 'living off charity' legally defined as being exactly the same as 'being paid for work.' You could do it, but there would be some consequences to collapsing the ancient and organic distinction. There are problems with pretending that real and natural differences don't exist.
That's not quite right. I was still thinking of Elise and adoption, not friendship and marriage.
Adoption, like private charity, is a good thing. But it's a good thing that arises because the natural mode of providing for the human need has somehow broken down. The natural way for children to arise and be nourished is for a man and a woman to come together in love, produce sons and daughters, and then educate their children. The natural way for people to feed themselves is to work in some productive way.
If the market is somehow unable to supply the needs of everyone willing to work, or if you come to be unable to work, then charity is a good -- but it's a good occasioned by a failure of the natural mechanism. If the children somehow become orphaned or similarly in need of adoption, then adoption is good -- but it is a good occasioned by a failure of things.
If we could govern by wishes, then, we might well wish that neither charity programs nor adoption should have occasion to exist. Since we can't, it's good that they do exist.
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