The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society.
President Bush says Americans should respect homosexuals, but he wants to make sure marriage is defined strictly as a union between a man and a woman. Government lawyers are exploring measures to enshrine that definition in the law, the president said Wednesday. ``I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other,'' he said.