Surrendering the Marriage Fight
Blogged by James Preece on 29th June 2011
Sound familiar?
Three votes, and now every state in the Union faces the choice of acknowledging gay marriages made in New York, or violating the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution. What is worse, gay marriage in New York was not imposed by judges, as in Massachusetts, but by the free deliberations of a duly elected legislature, in accord with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. This means that (barring an extremely unlikely constitutional amendment, for which we should fight, of course) gay marriage is here to stay. The institution of marriage — which has been so disfigured by the sexual revolution, and feminism, then the lax divorce laws born of both — now bears no resemblance at all to the natural, sacramental reality that Western laws once were written to acknowledge and support. We really should call it something else. May I suggest “frenemies with benefits”?
What made the victory possible, analysts told the New York Times, were the pitifully tepid efforts of its religious opponents, in particular the local Church. As the Times reported, “It was befuddling to gay-rights advocates: The Catholic Church, arguably the only institution with the authority and reach to derail same-sex marriage, seemed to shrink from the fight.” Instead of pulling out all the stops and calling in all its chips, the Church shrugged off the effort to defend the natural law as a good thing for all New Yorkers — and went scrambling for exemptions to guard its institutional interests. Republicans who were wary of gay marriage spent their political capital not fighting against the bill, but carving out little enclaves of protection for such oddball cults as might not want to solemnize same-sex rites. Indeed, as the Times reported, inserting these exceptions won the bill the votes it needed to pass.
[link]
This is exactly what happened in England and Wales over government plans to make sex education compulsory. The Catholic Education Service didn't oppose the bill because they had negotiated some almost meaningless exceptions. We were very lucky to dodge that bill in the 'wash up'.
Once upon a time a Catholic Bishop lost his life defending the sacrament of marriage. Meanwhile, other Bishops somehow found a way to live comfortably with the new regime.
Who knows what's down the road?
I reckon Archbishop Vincent Nichols probably does.
Reader Comments
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Cavalier said...
Now, now, James. Archbishop Nichols has a very nuanced understanding of gay relationships. Stop being such a Taliban Catholic.
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Cavalier said...
Link fail. Let's try again.
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Chrysostom said...
This will happen in Britain unless lay Catholics do something. The Bishops are worse than useless. The Archbishop Nichols interview you put on is a disgrace. The bishops did not oppose compulsory sex education; they did not oppose "gay" adoption ( they only asked for exemptions); they do not lift a finger to oppose abortion and only next month the National Justice and Peace gang have invited as two of the main speakers at their Conference flagrant supporters of abortion.
I write this very carefully but please note it: anyone who supported the forcing on innocent children of homosexual propaganda and information of how to get contraceptives and procure an abortion is showing the characteristics of the Anti-Christ, as, for example, Cardinal Manning described him. Manning did not mention those who corrupted children in school by forcing propaganda for sodomy on them but he could never have foreseen that such wickedness would happen in Britain, let alone by supported by Catholic bishops.
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Cavalier said...
The bishops did not oppose compulsory sex education
This is unfair. If I remember right, some (e.g. Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue) did oppose compulsory sex education. That said, others not only didn't oppose compulsory sex education, but received praise from Ed Balls for supporting it.
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Nicolas Bellord said...
Chrysostom: Have you any suggestions as to what lay Catholics can do? Is there a case for some sort of association? Pro Ecclesia has unfortunately been tarred with extremism. How does one avoid that?
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St John Smythe said...
I think it's incorrect to imply that the US Bishops have not taken a firm stand on the "gay marriage" issue. In 2004, for example, they issued a document ahead of the Bush-Kerry election identifying 5 key issues for Catholics to consider when voting. One of them was marriage. Another was abortion. They actually received heat for doing so because the document was thought to imply support for Bush, but they certainly can't be accused of dodging those issues. The USCCB also has an excellent website called "For Your Marriage" (http://foryourmarriage.org/), and something similar here in the UK would be very welcome.
Specifically on the question of NY's legalisation of gay "marriage", Archbishop Dolan (who is an excellent, prayerful, robust and orthodox bishop) has worked hard in opposing the measure. See this article: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/archbishop-dolan-on-same-sex-marriage-vote
Sadly there are not a few Catholics in America who are very liberal and go with the permissive tide, and they should be held to account for cooperating in the evils of abortion, embryo research, gay "marriage", etc. There are, however, other very positive movements there too and, as always, we must look forward in hope not fear.
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Chrysostom said...
I do not usually come back for a second comment on this excellent website but since Nicolas Bellord asks me what I recommend, then I will make some suggestions.
First must be prayer and we know that Our Blessed Lady has overcome all heresy. In "Faith of our Fathers" we sing that Mary's prayers "Will win our country back to thee."
Then we must try to motivate the English Bishops to do something. I do not like to say this but I have found over the years that moral arguments to them and letters are a waste of time. They hate bad publicity. I despise much of the media, especially the BBC, but I have to admit that the bishops did nothing about child abuse until the media exposed them. Don't give them any money nor their agencies. I am afraid that I do not give a penny to CAFOD. Among other evils, it is sponsoring the notorious Justice and Peace conference in July where two of the main speakers are flagrantly pro-abortion.
Websites like this do a lot of good by revealing things that people try to keep secret.
Our Lady Help of Christians - pray for us.
Ss Peter & Paul - pray for us.
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Kathleen Lundquist said...
It's times like these that try our souls... :-/
The view from my perch here in the forest of the Western wilderness of the United States is this:
Archbishop Dolan had already made a strong public statement in favor of traditional marriage several months ago, when the Obama administration declined to defend a currently embattled Clinton-era law called the Defense of Marriage Act (1996): http://ethicsculture.blogspot.com/2011/03/obama-defies-congress-attacks-marriage.html This set the stage for the debate in the NY legislature.
I think the bishops and the Church are perceived in the press as not having vigorously fought against the NY bill because: 1) they've already released several public statements, both individually and as a conference, over the last decade and perhaps they assumed that people knew where they stood on the issue; 2) they expected people (both Catholics and non-Catholics) to take these statements seriously, but nearly everyone either ignored them or put up the usual red herring retort that "you guys harbored pedophile priests, so we don't need to listen to anything you say about morality"; 3) they didn't say what the media expected them to say. I think most journalists were hoping the Archbishop would quote the Catechism's description of homosexual acts as "objectively disordered" and then they would make hay with that, painting the Church as 'hateful' and 'intolerant'. Instead, he said something along the lines of "love the sinner, hate the sin" - and since that just confuses them (with their view of homosexuality as an identity), they just ignored it.
That said, of course, no one in the US bishops' conference has yet gone so far as to risk their neck in defense of marriage. Like the 'restrictions' on abortion and assisted suicide, I think that the religious exemptions the NY legislators obtained will be stamped out in time - after all, there have already been cases where people have been sued and fined for not supporting gay couples in principle (e.g. a photographer unwilling to photograph a lesbian union, a Knights of Columbus hall unwilling to rent for a gay union ceremony).
One writer has identified two reasons for gay 'marriage' gaining ground in our culture: the prevalence of 1) the contraceptive mentality and 2) pornography. I think that's spot on.
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