Bishop Henry’s New Statement on Homosexuality: Clarification or Capitulation?

Roman Catholic Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary recently had a human rights complaint filed against him for comments he made on same-sex marriage and homosexuality. One of the things the gay activists who filed the complaint complained about was his advocacy of coercion.

Over the weekend he wrote a pastoral letter and Calgary Sun column in which he clarifies what he meant by coercion (pastoral letter here):

In one of my previous pastoral letters, I wrote: “Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the state must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good.”

Each, in its own way, undermines the foundations of the family. My list was never meant to be exhaustive as the Catechism of the Catholic Church also mentions: Divorce, fornication, rape, etc.

The state obviously responds to each of these threats to family life in different ways as it exercises its coercive power.

The government has a solemn obligation to protect, not re-engineer, an institution that is more fundamental to human life than the state.

In a word, it must “build fences” to protect the institution of marriage.

The coercive power of the state extends to traffic laws, tax policy, education curriculum, communication regulations, and a whole host of other areas including marriage.

For example, in the case of marriage, federal legislation prohibits people from marrying if they are related linearly or as brother and sister, whether by whole blood, half blood or by adoption.

Specifically, a woman may not marry her grandfather, father, grandson, son or brother. A man may not marry his grandmother, mother, granddaughter, daughter or sister.

The time has come for the government of Canada to use its coercive powers to legislate that a couple being married must be one man and one woman.

This is not a fascist or Hitler-like position, nor even an anti-homosexual stance, but it reflects Christian teaching on the primordial status of marriage and family life.

From what I can tell, Henry’s clarification may amount to a capitulation to the human rights industry, or it may reflect his having placed the Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality and the state squarely within the liberal paradigm of limited government and tolerance.

Consider this. His previous statement could be read as not restricting state coercive power to maintaining the traditional definition of marriage, as Henry’s new letter seems to conclude. If you consider the other examples he provides that are deserving of state coercive power, “homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography,” you can see that the state utilizes numerous other devices to coerce people into refraining from other actions.

However, Henry does not advocate using those other types of coercion. In fact, he advocates no kind of coercion. He seems to suggest that the state has no business in articulating a teaching on homosexuality, except as it relates on the question of same-sex marriage. This is a more “liberal” approach than I would have expected him to take, especially since, while Catholic social teaching long ago made its peace with liberal democracy, it still considers the role of the state to educate its citizens.

The complaints seem to have won a few points from Bishop Henry. Instead of seeking to persuade Canadians of the Catholic position on homosexuality, he has restricted himself to 1) seeking protection for the Church to lead its followers (i.e., to mind its own business) and 2) defending the traditional notion of marriage.

Instead of viewing Henry has the great defendent of religious freedoms, his move is analogous to the military tactic of giving up ground to fight another day. If so, then Henry’s clarification amounts to a partial capitulation to human rights tribunal ideology that is getting increasingly aggressive on this question (and here).