If I'd Known You Were Coming--I Wouldn't Have Baked a Cake

 

There has been much in the media about the Vatican announcing that priests cannot bless same-sex unions. There should not have been. This is not news. In principle, the Vatican cannot change the Church’s stance on either faith or morals. The Church is supposed to be infallible on faith and morals.

There is much malarkey in the media about “bringing Christianity into the 21st century.” Right and wrong do not change by the calendar date.

Most world religions consider homosexual sex sinful: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bahai, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism—in effect, all religions that consider ethics essential to faith. Those that do not consider homosexuality sinful do not pronounce on sin in general.

The wider society sees no crime, because it is consensual. Nobody’s rights have been violated. “The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.”

One might argue that this is not entirely so—that there are hidden victims. For example, one might claim that homosexuality spreads disease, or threatens to reduce population. However, so long as things like adultery are legal, it is hard to make a case that homosexuality should not be.

But the religious concept of sin is not based on the doctrine of human rights, but on obedience to God’s plan. Moreover, while the state has no business considering anything other than physical harm, religion takes spiritual harm into account. There is no physical harm to another in any of the Seven Deadly Sins. There is no physical harm to another in seven or eight of the Ten Commandments, depending on whether you count adultery.

 It is a dangerous error to confuse crime with sin. If you make every sin a crime, you have totalitarian government. If you make every crime a sin, you have totalitarian government.

It is vital to maintain the distinction between homosexuality as a sin, and homosexuality as a crime.  

A wise Christian, and a wise liberal, can support the Vatican pronouncement, while supporting state recognition of homosexual unions. If only for the value of maintaining this distinction.