Sean Penn and Shame

Sean Penn recently won the Oscar for best actor in the movie, "Milk." He portrayed Harvey Milk, member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first openly gay, non-incumbent man in the United States to win an election for public office. A year later, in the fall of 1978, Milk and Mayor George Mascone were assassinated by Dan White, a supervisor who had resigned, then wanted his job back, and was told no.

In his acceptance speech, Penn singled out supporters of Proposition 8: “…for those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone” (emphases added).

First, if there were hateful signs outside the Oscar’s venue, the sign carriers were interested in insults rather than the truth. The for-Prop-8 signs I saw prior to the election could have papered the walls of any kindergarten.

Second, Proposition 8 was for something, namely, the recognition of the meaning of marriage as a conjugal covenant between one man and one woman. Indeed, the inherent truth of marriage excludes all other possible partnerships, including same-sex unions, polygamy, and bestiality. And that’s because marriage, by its very nature, is different than any other kind of love. Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand says it well:

There is a widespread error, even in Catholic circles, that conjugal love is distinguished from love of friends or love of parents and children merely by its connection with the sensual sphere. Quite independent of sensuality, conjugal love in itself constitutes a completely new kind of love [that] involves a unique mutual giving of one’s self….

The difference between a man and a woman is a metaphysical one…. These two types, man and woman, have a unique capacity for complementing each other…. Marital love…can exist only between two types of the spiritual person, the male and the female, as only between them can this complementary character be found (Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love, pp. 5, 11-12).

Third, shame first came to be when sin caused a “constitutive break,” a “fundamental disquiet” between the first man and the first woman. In plain terms, shame was the result of Adam being able to look at Eve as an object rather than as a subject, and vice versa, a perception problem we’ve inherited. Feeling shame, therefore, is a signal that something is terribly wrong with what was meant to be wonderfully right. 

For John Paul II, shame both indicates a threat to a value (in this case, the inherent dignity of the beloved) and preserves this value interiorly (Theology of the Body, 28.6). In other words, shame is an internal, corrective shock, triggered by what is awry in our vision and actions relative to another.

Penn sees no shame in making marriage fit any relational role on the world stage. On the other hand, Prop 8 supporters are supposed to feel shame that they don’t have that kind of versatile, sophisticated imagination.

Verily, the truth is 180 degrees out from Penn’s tack. Knowing that, from the very beginning, marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman (Mt 19:1-8), real shame for us would be in choosing not to support a proposition like 8. 

   

Comments

[Dan Cairns]

Thanks John,
You help make clear the case that this is an issue of being and essence rather than an issue of civil rights. In California an individual has the right to enter into marriage, or another type of relationship. To argue that they are the same type of relationship is a significant failure to grasp the essence of each relationship.