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Prop. 8 Judge: Pope Hurt Homosexuals
LifeSiteNews.com -- Your Life, Family, and Culture Outpost ^ | August 9, 2010 | By James Tillman

Posted on 08/09/2010 8:06:35 PM PDT by topher

Monday August 9, 2010


Prop. 8 Judge: Pope Hurt Homosexuals

By James Tillman

SAN FRANCISCO, California, August 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- In the 136-page ruling overturning California's ban on "gay marriage," Judge Vaughn Walker cites a document signed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to show that "religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful" can "harm gays and lesbians."

William May, chairman of Catholics for the Common Good (CCG), told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that it was shocking for a federal court to rule that "Catholic teaching and [that] that of other religions are harmful to anyone." 

He also said that Walker's ruling demonstrates how "freedom for religious expression and the private interests and feelings of individuals" are on a collision course.

"Religion has always been seen as a good," he said, but "now it is being seen by an increasing number of people as harmful.”

The document that Judge Walker quoted, entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons," was issued in 2003 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and signed by Cardinal Joseph  Ratzinger, who was then prefect.

The ruling quotes the document's statement that "Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts 'as a serious depravity.'"

The ruling also quotes the statement that there "are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family," as well other short statements summarizing Catholic theology.

These quotations are offered in support of the ruling's 77th "finding of fact": "Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians."

Walker's ruling has fully 80 findings of fact, which are separated from the "conclusions of law" in which he decides the case.  Appellate courts are typically deferential to a lower court's findings of fact, which has lead most commentators to agree that Walker's ruling was specifically written to withstand appeal.

As evidence that religious beliefs harm homosexuals, Walker also quotes resolutions from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the Orthodox Church of America.

None of these resolutions recommend violence against homosexuals; all of them generally state only that homosexual behavior is contrary to God's will.

Many of Judge Vaughn Walker's quotations from the CDF document were indirectly pulled from the website of Catholics for the Common Good, an apostolate for the evangelization of the culture.  It runs training and formation programs to prepare Catholics to deal with the current corrosive influence of the culture on marriage and family.

Chairman William May of the CCG told LSN that although the Church "is threatened by attitudes like Walker’s, the response must be love” instead of a response that others interpret “as merely ideological."

The battle for marriage is not simply in the courts, he explained, but in people's minds and imaginations.

"New ways must be discovered for inculturating the truth and beauty of our faith to help people understand the reality of the human person in God’s plan for creation and the path to true love, true freedom, and true happiness.”

In his ruling, Judge Walker did not note that the CDF document he quotes also condemns unjust action against homosexuals.  The document says that the "whole moral truth" is contradicted "both by approval of homosexual acts and [by] unjust discrimination against homosexual persons."

It also condemns any attempts to redefine marriage between a man and a woman to include same-sex "unions."

"If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good," the document states. "By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties."

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10080907.html


Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: California
KEYWORDS: caglbt; catholic; faggots; homosexual; homosexualagenda; judicialactivism; pope; prop8; samesexmarriage
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Judicial Activism...
1 posted on 08/09/2010 8:06:39 PM PDT by topher
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To: Salvation; Mrs. Don-o; NYer; markomalley

Ping - your Christian/Catholic beliefs are against the law... So says this activist Judge...


2 posted on 08/09/2010 8:08:23 PM PDT by topher (Let us return to old-fashioned morality - morality that has stood the test of time...)
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To: wagglebee; little jeremiah

ping


3 posted on 08/09/2010 8:08:26 PM PDT by aposiopetic
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To: topher

This Judge is more than just wrong. He’s hideously wrong. It goes beyond activism. His ruling reads like a valley girl rant. So criticism by PERSON A of GROUP A “could be harmful”. You can go anywhere with that kind of logic.


4 posted on 08/09/2010 8:11:03 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule (NYC to Jihadist: WE SURRENDER!)
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To: topher
From the Gospel of Matthew:

Matt 19:4-5 (NIV) 4 "Haven't you read," [Jesus] replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'
5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?
(NIV)

I guess the Judge does not understand why God [the Creator] created them as man/woman... Maybe someone should have a talk with him...

5 posted on 08/09/2010 8:12:08 PM PDT by topher (Let us return to old-fashioned morality - morality that has stood the test of time...)
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To: topher

This judge has no place on a bench.


6 posted on 08/09/2010 8:14:20 PM PDT by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule
Judge Vaughn Walker is so far off the Constitutional Path I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him just off himself out of despair of changing things in time for his own personal benefit!

The guy is Rubber Room material.

7 posted on 08/09/2010 8:15:11 PM PDT by muawiyah
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: topher

“Walker also quotes resolutions from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the Orthodox Church of America.”

In addition to those church bodies and of course the Catholic church, how about the Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Amish, and who knows how many more religions?

All of them draw lines for sinful behavior. Why did this judge concentrate on mainline Christians?


9 posted on 08/09/2010 8:16:52 PM PDT by freemama
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To: Venturer

You aint seen nothing yet.

Wait until Sotomayer and Kegan get themselves in high gear.


10 posted on 08/09/2010 8:17:40 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: pnh102
Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan who nominated him.

He initially riled the gay community with a case against the Gay Olympics saying the Gay community was infringing on the use of the Olympic label for a Gay event... But that was a long time ago...

11 posted on 08/09/2010 8:29:13 PM PDT by topher (Let us return to old-fashioned morality - morality that has stood the test of time...)
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To: topher

138 pages is reason alone to disrobe the fellow. And we wonder why the justice system doesn’t work...


12 posted on 08/09/2010 8:37:46 PM PDT by LastNorwegian
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To: topher

According to news reports, the “judge” is a queer. Therefore by definition he is mentally ill.

One of the sure symtoms of mental illness is ranting against Christians!


13 posted on 08/09/2010 8:43:28 PM PDT by texican01
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To: Venturer
What do you expect from a fag?

When I smoke a fag, I expect superior, smooth taste. That's why I call for Phillip Morris...!

14 posted on 08/09/2010 8:44:35 PM PDT by freebilly (No wonder the left has a boner for Obama. There's CIALIS in soCIALISt....)
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To: topher

What if a judge ruled on a marijuana legalization case, while it was known that he had a sophisticated hydroponic pot farm in his garage? How is this judge’s conflict of interest any less?


15 posted on 08/09/2010 8:44:57 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: topher

Sure, go ahead and attack Christians. Have at it, judges. But remember - everything you rule goes a thousandfold against Muslims, because they actually kill.

And eventually, your rulings are going to have to apply to them, too - O brave liberal judges.

LOL


16 posted on 08/09/2010 8:50:10 PM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: freemama
Homo marriage will never be accepted. They can legalize it all they want. The hearts and minds of the citizenry will laugh at a homo man and wife. It is unnatural and that fact can never be changed.

Let them pretend all they want. We will never accept their phony marriages. It is like going to the store to buy goods with “Monopoly” money. It is laughable and impossible to be taken seriously.

17 posted on 08/09/2010 8:52:32 PM PDT by libertymaker
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To: topher

Awww, that’s why Congress gets to establish a Church of Tolerance. Oh, wait....


18 posted on 08/09/2010 9:02:42 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: freebilly

Caller to drugstore: “Do you have Phillip Morris in the can?”

Answer from clerk: “Yes”

Caller to drugstore: “Well, let him out!”


19 posted on 08/09/2010 9:04:32 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: freemama

Quite often judges don’t just pull these things out of the clear blue sky. They quote from the filings that have been furnished to them in the course of the litigation. This sounds like garbage that was fed to the case by the rabidly pro-gay participants (directly or as amici).


20 posted on 08/09/2010 9:07:48 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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