On Blessings

Can anyone - this isn't simply or merely a gay rights issue - receive a blessing when it's requested, no questions asked? This seems to me the core trouble with the recent document which the Vatican has released, which is being interpreted by many as allowing the blessing of illicit marriage. 

I don't pretend to be the best person to answer that question. Yet that doesn't mean that I, as a lay Catholic, cannot or should not mull over the implications. Indeed I should, and have the right.

Is the blessing of human beings without regard to their personal disposition analogous to priests blessing objects and animals? It strikes me that animals are innocents, so I don't think this applies to them. But I don't see that you can include objects in the same way. Objects often have intent behind them. Should a statue of Baal, or a Nazi flag, or a burning cross upon a lawn, be blessed? I should think not.

This raises an issue with offering a person a blessing no matter what. I don't see how their disposition cannot be a factor. If they ask for a blessing for themselves as they are, with no true intent of changing into a better person through the blessing, what's the point? 'Bless me as I am' appears arrogant in that light. Demanding that blessing seems to me effrontery and insolence. As such, I don't see how the person of whom the blessing is asked cannot consider the overt, and, indeed, the covert, disposition of the asker. 

That's just my two cents. And remember, I think this applies to anyone asking for a particular favor of anyone else, not solely towards the alphabet soup crowd and their loyalists. If you aren't trying to change for the better, there's no point to asking for a blessing. There's no obligation to grant it either.