Comments for On the Fear of Christmas at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 1 out of 1 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 11:06:01 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/on-the-fear-of-christmas.html#comment-5458 The author's comment about our increasing denial that "marriage is of a man and woman" follows largely, I think, from thinking of marriage as a legal arrangement under the aegis of the state. Even in Church marriages, the priest functions partly as a surrogate officer of the state. But the modern nation state is an anti-social institution as its history attests, and so we might not wonder that legal marriage and the state's approach to it crawls along the ground. The state does what serves its interests. One is up against it to explain why God would find the sexual intimacies of a man and a woman to be offensive unless they first took a license to delve from the godless state, but with the license framed over the marriage bed, that corner of the home becomes holy. Perhaps we should consider letting the state do with its licenses as it wishes, and look to the Church alone for the blessings of the sacrament. - James Danielson Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:44:39 +0100