Posted on 03/18/2007 6:12:58 AM PDT by NYer
The challenges of raising three children in the Maguire-Newman home are much the same as those faced in suburban America across the country. The Catholic household, two parents with three school-age children, springs to life at 7 a.m. on most days. While one parent makes breakfast and packs lunches, the other makes beds and monitors homework assignments.
"My observation is that children are a lot more receptive to work and instruction in the first 90 minutes before they have enough energy to be resistant," says Gregory Maguire, a celebrated author of children's literature. He is best known for the widely popular novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a bestseller written for adults that has been adapted into a Tony Award-winning hit musical.
Maguire is quick to explain, "It's not because we want them to be superstars" nor do they have "serious learning problems." Rather, he said, it's a matter of "keeping up in a highly functioning school system in which we find ourselves."
All three children -- two boys and a girl, ages 5, 6 and 9 -- were adopted from countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia. They are by Maguire's account "noisy, smart and obedient within a range," having settled comfortably into an all-American way of life, with interests varying from ballet and piano to soccer and computer games. They are well-liked by their friends, Maguire said, adding, "We have yet to hear or face in nine years living in Concord any resistance to us as a gay couple with a family."
Maguire and his partner, artist Andy Newman, are not only a gay couple raising children, but they are legally married under a new law in Massachusetts, the only state with equal marriage rights for lesbians and gay men.
Maguire was scheduled to give a talk on "Conscience and Same-Sex Marriage" at New Ways Ministry's Sixth National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality March 16-18 in Minneapolis. New Ways Ministry describes itself as "a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian and gay Catholics."
The Maguire and Newman clan is part of a changing landscape of contemporary American family life. More than 8,500 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts since May 2004, including many with children. Nationwide, estimates of lesbian and gay parents range from 2 million to 8 million.
But a political battle to roll back civil-marriage rights for gays looms. Massachusetts state lawmakers have voted to send a proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban to voters. If the legislature approves the measure again, this year or next, voters would have the final say in November 2008.
The local church has been an active player, with the Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and other local bishops lobbying lawmakers to restore a traditional definition of marriage.
Maguire and Newman are doing their part to prevent that from happening. Last year they testified at legislative hearings against the ban. This year they will host a fundraiser for MassE quality.org, a statewide organization dedicated to protecting same-sex marriage. The couple has joined thousands of others across the state who have signed an online statement for Roman Catholics supporting the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples.
Despite pronouncements from Rome and Boston, Maguire, a cradle Catholic, remains devout. Newman is a convert. Together, they are instilling in their children the basics of Catholicism. All three have been christened. The oldest has received first Communion. The family begins every meal by saying grace. The children know the Our Father, Hail Mary and the rosary. A cross hangs by the front door. "We are a Catholic family," Maguire said. "We go to church on a regular basis, are respected in our parish, and are healthy contributors financially and morally."
In an interview with NCR, Maguire extended an invitation for Pope Benedict XVI to share a meal and meet the family. He would like the pope to see "we're teaching by example how we must take care of each other, love each other," he said. "That is the heart of the Christian message."
Locally, many gay Catholics, as well as supportive clergy, hope for dialogue. A group of more than 700 interfaith clergy, the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, has asked for a meeting to discuss a civil marriage with O'Malley. The clergy wish to explain more fully a key distinction between civil and religious marriage and how a gay-marriage ban will discriminate against the religious liberties of gay people. But so far the chancery has not responded to the request.
"The hope is that the conversation occurs among the people in the pews," Maguire said. "If we can't get the message to the clergy that discrimination will not be tolerated, the people will go around" the leadership, and the "clergy will play catch-up."
A recent poll from Decision Research shows that a majority of Catholics in Massachusetts -- 53 percent -- favor same-sex civil marriage.
Raised in an orphanage by priests and nuns, as well as by a Catholic family, Maguire attended parochial schools in upstate New York. "The fact that I grew up as a Catholic, part of my system of thinking -- the grammar of how I frame the moral questions is Catholic grammar," Maguire said. "I have the great blessing and good fortune of finding myself during formative years in a very progressive church that was always eager to ask the next question rather than provide the next answer." And Maguire explained, "A parent's first obligation is to speak to his children with the most authentic language he has. For me, that is Catholicism."
His "intellectual and spiritual training" to "question, but not necessarily conclude," he considers a "birthright" and "inheritance."
"So I don't feel as much of a disjuncture as many people do," he said, "because when I sit in the pew and hear a letter from a bishop, or an injunction even from the pope about gay parents doing damage to children, I just say: Well, he has not asked the right question -- hasn't asked Andy and me, 'Why are you making so many sacrifices to take care of these orphans?' "
At New Ways Ministry's national symposium, Maguire plans to tell his story, leading a focused discussion on gay parenting in a sacramental church. "It means far less to them [his children] that they have two dads than two parents who are there when they go off to school and when they return," he said.
The tangible benefits and social status of marriage -- its legal, public and moral commitments -- also helps, Maguire explained. "We are able to say to our children honorably that we are married." Among all the differences they embody, "being brown-skinned, adopted and from foreign countries, at least they don't have to deal with that difference. Their parents are as married as any others."
Nonetheless, remaining in the church, Maguire acknowledges, is a struggle. "I run the great risk of being misunderstood or dismissed," he said. A declaration from the Vatican in 2003 that gay parents do "violence" by raising children caused us "grave distress," Maguire added.
But he explained, to "leave the church over what it's saying, I would have to pluck out my eyes because I don't like what I am seeing." For Maguire, that action would be tantamount to spiritual suicide, he said. "I would far rather be brave and sit in the pew" and "with a fair amount of respect, be the Rosa Parks of the situation. I am not moving. I didn't move before, and I'm not moving now. I am going to be buried from this church."
No matter what they say, they are not Catholics in a state of grace. Just because you have joined a church, that does not make you a member in good standing.
I think he's right - he should sit in his pew and not dare to approach communion. If he has a priest and bishop with a spine, he might learn something sitting there, though I suppose it seems unlikely at this point.
My thoughts, too. I shudder to think that they are receiving Communion and damning themselves even further.
"The couple has joined thousands of others across the state who have signed an online statement for Roman Catholics supporting the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples."
Just because there are a lot of CINO's in MA, doesn't mean the Church is going to restructure all of its teachings on homosexual behavior.
"'We are a Catholic family," Maguire said. "We go to church on a regular basis, are respected in our parish, and are healthy contributors financially and morally.'"
You are not a Catholic family. The Catholic Church considers this lifestyle contrary to families. Your priest should not be allowing you to recieve Communion, either. The Church doesn't accept civil unions regardless of the couple, but the Church will never accept homosexual marriage.
If this is the same Andy Newman, then the bishop had better act quickly. They live in Concord, MA. Anyone know who is their bishop?
He's as arrogant as the group of women priests who wrote to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to be more inclusive and allow them to serve in the RC Church. In case you missed it ...
14th annual dissident fest (Catholic feminists letter to Benedict XVI)
The problem with these folks is that they view themselves as heroes and heroines. They totally disregard the teachings of the Church (i.e. those of Christ), thinking these can be changed.
All gay adoption is child abuse. We kid ourselves if we think otherwise.
What makes this tough is that they have adopted and given the Faith to children. Yes, they ARE doing violence at the same time to them, which is why they never should have been allowed to adopt, but they have. That is the only redeeming thing I can see in their odd story of sodomy and heresy.
Cardinal Sean
Talk about a crisis of catechesis! And what more could we expect when people are raised on the notion that "God is love, so let's love one another" is all there is to their faith?
I believe this is now changing as more bishops are stepping up to the lectern to address the serious crisis of Catholic faith to which their congregations have been exposed over the past 40 years. This will not happen overnight ... we may not even see the full fruits of it in our lifetime, but the shift has begun.
Phew! For a second I thought this was going to be in a Catholic publication!
Just disgusting, isn't it?
It is my fervent prayer that he continues to remain close to the Church so that someday he'll be able to get past his wall of pride and repent of his sins, for the sake of his own immortal soul and those of his kids.
Yeah, well I'm a sinner too, but I don't expect the Catholic Church to say that my sin is not sin just because I do a lot of other things well. "Hey we adulterers can still be good decent parents and raise our kids with good Christian morality" (I don't think so, Joe.)
Apparently mothers are completely unimportant as far as these "men" are concerned.
On the whole, there are those who worship at the altar of God and those who worship at the altar of State. And State will trump God every time. We've said goodbye to prayer in school, welfare replaced charity, the courts replaced morality, and raw power has replaced love. "O brave new world that has such people in it..."
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