I’m liberal enough, with enough awareness that the American involvement in transatlantic slavery—even pre-USA—was uniquely bad enough that it still has an impact today. It’s not wrong to feel bad about it; it’s not wrong to wish it never happened.
I’m conservative enough to think that the outcome of your life—insofar as you have agency—is down to you and no one else.
Saw a thing on the Twitter of someone asking for opinions on interracial couples. To be clear, the picture was of a conventionally attractive white man and Black woman. No one seems to care if Asians marry non-Asians. I don’t think there’s much fuss about what Hispanic people do, though I could be wrong, and bigotry is horrifying.
It was illegal in the United States for a man and woman in a mixed-race couple to marry until 1967. A person born in 1967 isn’t even old yet. My Mom spent most of that year being 11.
So it’s not odd to me, but it’s still novel. If that a—hole Ray hadn’t killed MLK, there’s a chance you could have spoken to him yesterday. He was barely older than my Dad was when Dad died way too young.
Aquinas might be my favorite dude not in the Holy Family. Just saying. If you’re still Christian today, he probably said something that helped you to understand life and Jesus, even if you don’t realize it. Anyway, one day here on the blog, I wrote an article in the style of Thomas Aquinas defending interracial marriage. Catholics do have a sort of checkered history with standing as a whole against race prejudice, but once again, many saints were beacons of hope in really evil situations. Ahead of their times, but not surprising, if you think about it. Living life with extraordinary virtue requires grace—the very life of God—and I know God is fond of all humanity.
I said basically that if two people could procreate and they weren’t already married to someone else, Aquinas wouldn’t utter a word of protest. In other news, a Catholic priest would definitely marry an illegal immigrant and an American citizen to prevent a deportation, provided no other crimes were committed. And if he wouldn’t, he’s no good priest.
A lot of people mistakenly advocate for homosexuality out of some misguided duty of loving as Jesus would, but again, Jeff and Steve or Melissa and Barb can’t procreate. Sex not ordered to procreation is porn. That’s literally the Greek word for any sex pair that the Church won’t bless as a marriage. In fact, if some couple had a Catholic wedding and contracepted every time they had sex, they aren’t indissolubly married until they have procreative sex. That’s true.
The passage in Matthew where Jesus talks about marriage doesn’t say “except for sexual immorality” as an exception between the dashes. It says, “unless the marriage is unlawful.” Like, you’re adulterers, or it’s incestuous, or one of these people can’t consent to marriage at all. You have to harmonize Jesus from both Matthew and Luke. This is where Protestantism makes people less what Jesus wants for us, and it doesn’t happen that often. Ordinarily, I’ll take a church full of Protestants over some cafeteria Catholics any day. But the Church is right. She’s been right all along, because Jesus and the Holy Spirit made her that way. Remember John the Baptist. Why he died. Remember Thomas More, and why he died. I digress.
Anyway, I hope we’re all medium-brown at least, after I’m gone. I’m still hoping Brandy Norwood will come marry me and have my children. I still get the flutter when I watch her play Cinderella. She should have gone to my prom, Kobe Bryant! She loves me! (Rest in peace, Black Mamba and Gianna. And the pilot. And everyone else.)
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