Le couple homosexuel et la formation morale des sujets chrétiens : approfondir la vie baptismale comme école de capacités et de responsabilités

From the point of view of the one who is favorable to it, the path of the institutionalization of the homosexual conjugality is allowed to be apprehended by a staggering in three levels. The first level is the defense of individual rights. Marriage has consequences for social benefits and retirement, consequences for the status of potential children involved in the relationship. The second level is around the desire to formalize a commitment for the duration. The phenomenon of societal acceptance of homosexuality entails a desire to formalize and humanize a relationship that is accepted in a logic of acceptance towards legitimation. The third level is that of the assumption by recognition. For homosexuals, laws can offer an effective symbolic springboard in their path of legitimacy. They help to strengthen social recognition that is not won on all fronts. This level of recognition engages the ultimate meaning that society can give to homosexual conjugality. It is the concern for the full inclusion of people that calls for its institutionalization. But recognition, much more than the acquis of social rights or the need for formal commitment, vigorously solicits in return the various affiliations which people adhere to. What does the civil marriage of two homosexual persons who identify themselves as catholics mean? How can they formulate their membership in the institution? How do they understand obedience to a doctrinal teaching that formally contradicts their commitment? To put it bluntly, how do they manage with seemingly contradictory identities and how do they negotiate their inscription? It is necessary therefore a sufficiently significant space to identify in a christian existence what allows such creative daring. Trials in other more liberal christian denominations have largely invested for some decades the reference to baptism to integrate ecclesiastically and liturgically these new situations. But is it not possible to apprehend also this baptismal space to state the good from which any human being can be built, without being immediately gagged by the register of narrow norms still often relayed as repressive even disqualifying? This last question makes sense only from a perception of homosexuality as a datum on which a humanizing dialogue is open and possible. It therefore seems legitimate to turn to the associative milieus that accompany such trajectories, which give "voice to the chapter" to itineraries still atypical of christian life. By listening to these associations, we hope to carry the weight of a question carried not by isolated people but relayed by experiences with shareable intuitions.