Old Stuff

What think ye?

Here's part of a note I received from a friend yesterday, and my reply. Comments?

First the note:

IMPORTANT...please take a few seconds to vote TRULY -- It only takes SECONDS. CNN is trying to prove the President wrong on his anti-gay-marriage stand... and we are losing 2-1. If this concerns you, go to the site below...follow your conscience ... and VOTE. Then forward it on to all your friends, because this poll will be used by CNN to show how "out of date" the President is in his beliefs. CNN Poll asks: Should marriage be legally defined as only a union between a man and a woman? http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/30/bush.gay.marriage/index.html

And my reply; basically "they have no right -> slippery slope". It's a sloppy off-the-cuff answer, but aside from that what's your take on this?

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I've been wondering about this. The poll question is: "Should marriage be legally defined as only a union between a man and a woman?"

I think there is a valid Catholic reason to answer "no". As Cardinal George, our Metropolitan, recently wrote - http://www.archdiocese-chgo.org/cardinal/letter/letter_080403.shtm

The Holy Father, through the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, approved a statement about the nature of marriage, a statement which repeats what every Pope has taught for two thousand years: marriage is the life-long union of a man and a woman who enter into a total sharing of themselves for the sake of family. This is not first of all a religious teaching, although Christ raised marriage to the level of a sacrament. This is an understanding of marriage from nature itself. Marriage predates our present government or any other and predates, as well, the founding of the Church. Marriage is not the creature of state or church, and neither a government nor the church has authority to change its nature. A government that claims such authority becomes totalitarian.

I don't think government should claim any authority over marriage, which is not only a sacrament but an integral part of the natural law, which precedes and supercedes any claims of government. The government has no more right to define the nature of marriage than it has to define the nature of, say, the Eucharist.

Give the government that power, and soon enough it will attempt to define the nature of the Eucharist; it will define our prayers and worship as child abuse, our Scriptures as hate speech, our acts of charity as crimes against humanity, and so on.

I don't know what should be done - I'm no brainiac - but this doesn't seem to be a step in the right direction.

Posted by billw at August 19, 2003 01:35 PM