Natural Law on Same Sex Marriage/Union

St. Thomas Aquinas stated, "the light of reason is placed by nature [and thus by God] in
every man to guide him in his acts." Therefore, human beings, alone among God’s creatures, use
reason to lead their lives. This is natural law. The Natural Law theory also adheres to the five
primary precepts; preservation of life, the order of society, nurture and education of the young, to
worship God and to reproduce.

At first, same sex marriage seems to not violate any of the primary precepts, however,
homosexual relationships will not be able to produce any offspring and therefore violates the
precept to reproduce. Moreover, Natural Law and Christian faith are closely tied to each other,
thus, many believers tend to view homosexuality as immoral and sinful. For these reasons, same
sex marriage will not be possible in the Philippines as we are most Christians and often
disapprove of homosexual relationships. However, this does not mean that the views of the public
on the matter would not change, it would be a question on whether we find homosexuality as
immoral and unnatural. And so, I interviewed two persons to give their insights on the topic.

My first interviewee (my neighbor) states that although she finds same sex marriage as
unnatural, she does not view it as immoral. Her reasons are that same sex marriage is unnatural
because this event/phenomenon does not occur in her environment. Moreover, despite being
from a strict Catholic upbringing she does not find homosexual relationships as immoral, quote,
“I don’t find it immoral because love is not restricted by gender, anyone should have the freedom
to love anyone regardless of gender”.

My second interviewee (my sister) also believes that same sex marriage is unnatural, but
it is not immoral. She says that in society, men should be with women and women with men, and
anything beside that does not conform to society’s order, thus she finds it unnatural. However,
she states that if there are cases that the same sex would fall in love with each other, it is not a
sin or an immoral act. She believes that marriage is a life-long act of devotion to each other and
that couples with the same sex is capable of that.

It is not a surprise that most Filipinos find same sex marriage unnatural. This is because
this event/phenomenon does not occur in our society. However, often times we do not see it as
an immoral act solely because we believe that love knows no bound. However, this does not
exclude the fact that it violates one of the primary precepts of Natural law and therefore not
accepted by those who believe in the theory.