Archbishop Cordileone states case against gay marriage

[livingwordunity]

Abp. Cordileone & Gay Marriage–A Tutorial

Thanks to Kathryn Lopez for highlighting this interview in USA Today with Archbishop Cordileone on gay marriage.

Anybody who wishes to enter into a debate about gay marriage with friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, or anyone else should read this interview and memorize each and every answer by the Archbishop.

This, folks, is how it is done. Do not accept their premises at all.

This is not a debate about tolerance or a live and let live mentality. If it was, some form of civil union or benefit structure would have been sufficient. This is about criminalizing the opposing views and driving Christianity further into the cubby hole.

Read this. Memorize it. Regurgitate.

Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry?

A:The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife?

I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.

To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship.

How can we do this to our children?
...
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged?

A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people's right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing.

But the larger picture that's becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it's a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination.

If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son's education, and they were told they had no right to do so.

Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don't allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). ... Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts.... Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. ... Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of "anti-discrimination" is trumping liberty and compassion. ...

When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won't hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. ... It's not kind, and it doesn't seem to lead to a "live and let live" pluralism.

Full USA Today article

 

[livingwordunity]

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” - 2357, The Catechism of the Catholic Church

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings” - 2 Timothy 4:3

“and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” - Romans 1:27

“but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!” - Matthew 18:6-7

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” - Isaiah 5:20

Love the sinner, but hate the sin.

 

[IBombAtomically]

Wow, he is GOOD! Thanks for sharing.

 

[DevotedChild]

Thanks for sharing. This helps explain what I was trying to say to someone but was misinterpreted and misunderstood, partially due to wording.

God Bless.

 

[BigBlueCane]

Its a very simple legal question having nothing to do with an “attack” on christianity. No one is suggesting that churches be forced to perform homosexual marriages. However, under the law you can’t discriminate and that is what is being done when you indicate only people belonging to a specific group can enter into a legal marriage.

 

[RobbyS]

Its a very simple legal question having nothing to do with an “attack” on christianity. No one is suggesting that churches be forced to perform homosexual marriages. However, under the law you can’t discriminate and that is what is being done when you indicate only people belonging to a specific group can enter into a legal marriage.

Of course the law may discriminate. It discriminates between a rich man and a poor one by making the rich man pay a larger proportion of his income than the poor man. It discriminates between a horse and a cow. It discriminate between a man and a woman. To discriminate is basically to distinguish between one class of persons and things and another. You draw a false inference from the civl rights act. its purpose is to implement the intent of the authors of the Civil War Amendment, which was to include black men as part of the body politic, an action made necessary by the language of the Dred Scot decision and by the actions of most of the states. They do not abrogate any right of the state to protect any institution except slavery and institutions like slavery. They do not impose a uniformity of rights.

 

[JohnTomHoc]

Its a very simple legal question having nothing to do with an “attack” on christianity. No one is suggesting that churches be forced to perform homosexual marriages. However, under the law you can’t discriminate and that is what is being done when you indicate only people belonging to a specific group can enter into a legal marriage.

I agree that no one would be obliging churches to perform such marriages, but it is an attack on the Church, every bit as much as Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy, which he issued simply because he didn’t think the pope had any business telling him he couldn’t marry who he wanted to marry. But in fact, the animating spirit is the devil’s, because the whole design of marriage naturally is to be the image of the union of God with His children through His Church.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Full USA Today article

Everyone should read and memorize this article as an essential and basic primer on marriage.

If the Supreme Court can overturn California’s Proposition 8, then we no longer need states [Article 10 of the Constitution], nor do we need an Executive Branch [the President], nor do we need any elected legislators [Congress: The Legislative Branch] … instead we only need FIVE lawyers to run the entire country and make every decision. Because at the Supreme Court, it takes only a 5-4 decision to decide everything.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is SUPPOSED to be determined by CONGRESS. [Article III; Section I]

Read the Constitution; it is a very brief and comprehensive document.

 

[Faithdancer]

Thank you for posting Archbishop Cordileone’s remarks. Unfortunately, as true as they are, there are obviously some “Catholics” who think they know better than the Church on this issue. *No Catholic knows better than the Church *about the abomination that is same sex “marriage.” All Catholics must oppose same sex “marriage” every time it comes up for a vote. Since marriage between one man and one man is a Holy Sacrament and de fide, those who willfully and obstinately oppose Church teachings on the sanctity of marriage as taught by the Church are committing heresy. 'Nuff said.

 

[livingwordunity]

Everyone should read and memorize this article as an essential and basic primer on marriage.

If the Supreme Court can overturn California’s Proposition 8, then we no longer need states [Article 10 of the Constitution], nor do we need an Executive Branch [the President], nor do we need any elected legislators [Congress: The Legislative Branch] … instead we only need FIVE lawyers to run the entire country and make every decision. Because at the Supreme Court, it takes only a 5-4 decision to decide everything.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is SUPPOSED to be determined by CONGRESS. [Article III; Section I]

Read the Constitution; it is a very brief and comprehensive document.

 

[livingwordunity]

Thank you for posting Archbishop Cordileone’s remarks. Unfortunately, as true as they are, there are obviously some “Catholics” who think they know better than the Church on this issue.

That’s because of this…“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings” - 2 Timothy 4:3

 

[Faithdancer]

That’s because of this…“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings” - 2 Timothy 4:3

Yep, and I heard the Unitarians, Quakers, etc. have an open door policy for itchin ears.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

In addition to Archbishop Cordileone’s interview article, today on the Catholic Answers Blog, there is a FABULOUS response to the gay marriage issue:

The author is Trent Horn

same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

 

[livingwordunity]

In addition to Archbishop Cordileone’s interview article, today on the Catholic Answers Blog, there is a FABULOUS response to the gay marriage issue:

The author is Trent Horn

same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

I shared that and the Archbishop Cordileone USA Today interview on my Facebook page. I know that most of my secular friends will probably ignore it, but I at least gave them the opportunity to see the other side of the argument.

 

[Faithdancer]

In addition to Archbishop Cordileone’s interview article, today on the Catholic Answers Blog, there is a FABULOUS response to the gay marriage issue:

The author is Trent Horn

same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/same-sex-marriage-and-the-infertility-objection

Mr. Horn could go even farther. Does marriage dissolve as soon as one of the parties is in a medically induced coma, or in a likely permanent coma? If not, then why can’t someone marry a corpse, or an inanimate object? If marriage can be between multiple parties, as Mr. Horn suggests same-sex couples must logically support, than why can’t it also involve just one party? In other words, why can’t I marry myself?

 

[NowHereThis]

1. Conflating children of broken relationships or single parenthood with stable gay couples is misleading at best, dishonest at worst. This is the same problem the recent Regnerus study had. In the comparison between children of gay relationships and straight relationships, the gay side included children who experienced broken relationships, but the straight side had only stable married couples.
2. David Parker is a long-time anti-gay activist who got himself arrested as a publicity stunt. The book in question was not required reading, and all parents have a chance to examine books the school uses at the beginning of the year. But Parker nonetheless continued to demand that he be given personal prior notification of every book with a gay character. His wife was not arrested because she agreed to leave after the police arrived. He did not, and got arrested for trespassing. It had nothing to do with “having no right to protect his son’s education”.

boston.com/news/specials/gay_marriage/articles/2008/10/09/us_supreme_court_refuses_lexington_case/

1. Religious adoption agencies are not being banned, they are just being denied public money if they want to discriminate against gay people. Those agencies could have gone on using their own money, but apparently that was too much to ask, and placing kids in families wasn’t really a priority if they couldn’t use other people’s tax dollars to do it.

Why the need to rely on bad studies and discredited persecution narratives? That would seem to be a sign of bearing false witness.