Tuesday, April 26, 2011
What is the Catholic perspective on a transgendered person's right to marry?
Should the transgendered be permitted to marry? Texas is apparently on verge of saying "no." From a Catholic perspective, how should the secular law respond to a transgendered person's desire to marry? The Church's position (I think) is that gender is not susceptible to reassignment through surgical procedures. As such, let's say a person born a man but living as a woman after surgery desires to marry a man. Would the Church deny that marriage (as essentially a same-sex union) but affirm the person's marriage to a woman (which would be, judging by outward appearances, a same-sex union)? How should a Catholic advise the Texas legislature on this issue?
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/04/what-is-the-catholic-perspective-on-a-transgendered-persons-right-to-marry.html
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Fascinating question. Great mental exercise.
Logically, a transgendered person cannot marry in the Catholic Church because he or she cannot make the marital vows in good conscience. If the person started as a man, let's say, and is now lacking his masculine parts, he cannot promise to be a good husband and he cannot promise to be any kind of a wife. The same is true reciprocally if she was initially a complete woman, I think. I'm not actually sure what is entailed in "transgendering" a woman. but in any case her behavior gives the lie to any kind of marital vows; she has made it clear that she doesn't want to be married.
The question is not principally one of a right to marry. It is a question of the legitimacy of the marital vows. Someone who for any reason indicates that he or she cannot or will not take the vows seriously is not able to marry. That would apply for instance to a nun, except in very special circumstances in which she has obtained relief from her religious vows from the appropriate higher ecclesiastical authority.