Posted on 12/01/2003 6:07:08 AM PST by NYer
In a strongly worded letter to be read at Mass this weekend, the bishops also said the Supreme Judicial Court's mid-May deadline for the Legislature to rewrite marriage laws to provide benefits for gay couples is too rushed.
The bishops, among the leading opponents of the ruling, urged parishioners "to contact the governor and their state legislators to urge them to find a way to give our citizens more time to deal with this issue."
Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley and Bishops Thomas Dupre, Daniel P. Reilly and George Coleman also complained that the state high court ruling promotes "divisions in society by villainizing as bigotry the legitimate defense of thousands of years of tradition.
"Marriage is a gift of God ... it is not just one lifestyle among many," the bishops wrote in the letter, which was published in the Boston Archdiocese's newspaper, The Pilot.
Gary Buseck, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the letter's language disappointed him.
"I don't think the court villainizes anyone. The Roman Catholic Church is being very clever to try to cast themselves as the victim here," Buseck said.
David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the case that led to the ruling, said the bishops are confusing civil and religious marriage. The court ruling will not require any religion to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.
State Rep. Philip Travis, who supports amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, said the May deadline won't change unless the court re-enters the case. The earliest such an amendment could go to voters is November 2006.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Mitt Romney, who also supports the proposed amendment, declined comment on Saturday.
I fully agree. I think all healthy societies do recognize marriage, and those who don't are headed for huge social trouble.
My point was that state recognition of marriage and religious recognition of marriage are inextricably linked. It makes no sense to support gay "civil marriage" on the one hand, and hetero-sexual only "religious marriage" on the other. The end result is a society in which gay marriage is accepted as normal, and opposition is viewed to be as irrelevant as a remote sectarian dispute.
| 1660 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (cf. CIC, can. 1055 § 1; cf. GS 48 § 1). |
| 1625 The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means: - not being under constraint; - not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law. |
He's a cafeteria priest, unfortunately. Give him an inch and he takes a mile. Raised in the '60s...
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