The Hypothetical Progressive Pope

I’ve been trying out hypothetical as a way to show believers where their beliefs originate. The best example I’ve worked out is directed specifically toward Catholics. I ask:

If a future Pope reversed the Church’s position on gay marriage, would you also reverse your position on gay marriage?

The word Pope could be substituted for “religious leader” to make this less Catholicism-centric, but the Catholic Church is fairly unique in that it’s doctrine trumps even the Bible in the eyes of its congregation. Seeing how the Pope is the infallible spokesperson for the Church, his word matters immensely.

Now, let’s look at what the possible answers mean. If a believer who opposes gay marriage answers in the affirmative, they show that their assessment of morality and their opinions of what is or isn’t discriminatory are based solely on authority. Whatever the Church thinks is how they think. The Pope is the Borg Queen in this scenario. If the believer instead says they would maintain their opposition of gay marriage against the Church, then we can know for sure that their belief is in fact a product of their own reasoning--at the cost of being a "bad Catholic."

Neither option is at all palatable to the believer, so if you pose the question, expect a refusal to answer. Most often I get, “the Church would never change their position so the question is moot.” That may be, but claiming certain knowledge of the future is a childish dodge for people with a distaste for hypothetical. Nevertheless we can’t force an answer out of them. This isn’t the Inquisition. (Speaking of which, poor Galileo would say that the Church sometimes, eventually, changes their position.) Simply posing the question is enough for the believer to formulate an answer, even if they see the trap set for verbalization. Consider the point made.

Why the Church Fears Gay Marriage

I’ve been thinking about the repercussions of legal gay marriage. We’ll have happier gays, obviously, with the longstanding joke that this will swiftly be followed by unhappier gays. Many of the religious say it will be followed by a drive for legalized bestiality, cat and dogs living together, and mass hysteria...but I think they’re just saying that. I bet they know that the much more likely consequence is that it will lead to a more secular America--an even scarier thought from their point of view.

In the not-so-distant future, gays will be able to marry in any courthouse and many progressive churches across the land. Hold outs, like the Catholics, we be able to deny gay ceremonies within their church. The gay rights wave will likely have enough momentum to brand this as the kind of discrimination that is no longer allowed outside of the umbrella of religious freedom. While a popular reception hall owned by a Catholic businessman will not be able to turn away paying homosexual newlyweds anymore than an office can stop a woman’s progress up the corporate ladder on account of her gender, a church can refuse to wed gays as easily as they can prohibit women from going into the priesthood. Religious freedom trumps discrimination in the eyes of the law, but in public opinion? That’s a different story. As the exceptions for the Church’s otherwise illegal actions continue to mount, I see their congregations continuing to shrink and their leadership continuing to bend. Eventually, a Pope will finally agree to give his blessing to gay marriage, overruling biblical text as they’ve done in the past.

At this point, the church will be two-fold weaker. The delay in their decision will have diluted their numbers and the decision itself will have diluted their relevance. There will be the usual sects that break off to maintain their conservative (read backward) views, but they will become the mocked fringe in a culture that has moved on. Outside of the self-hatred of closeted religious homosexuals, I think fear of this scenario is the central cause of the disproportionate outrage over gay marriage. They don’t fear for the souls of gay sinners so much as for their own lost legitimacy.