Posted on 05/10/2012 2:50:36 PM PDT by NYer
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Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan is charging President Barack Obama with undermining the “very cornerstone of society” by supporting “gay marriage.”
Cardinal Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, described the president’s endorsement as “deeply saddening.”
The bishops “cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society,” he said in a May 9 statement. “The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better.”
Cardinal Dolan said that the announcement was “not surprising” based on the Obama administration’s previous actions, which “erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage.”
He called for prayer and efforts to “promote and protect marriage” in order to “serve the true good of all persons.”
In an unprecedented move, Obama announced his support for “same-sex marriage” in a May 9 interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts.
“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.
The announcement came just days after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's David Gregory that he is “absolutely comfortable” with the idea of homosexual couples marrying.
Previously, Obama had stopped short of endorsing “gay marriage,” saying instead that he opposes discrimination against gay individuals but that his views on the question of marriage were “evolving.”
However, his actions as president have won the praise of gay advocacy groups.
His administration announced in Feb. 2011 that it would not uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for federal purposes.
He also signed a law repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military.
Obama’s latest statement places him in firm disagreement with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has signed a pledge to uphold marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Romney was quick to voice his opposition to Obama’s stance.
"I have the same view on marriage that I had when I was governor and that I’ve expressed many times,” he said at a May 9 campaign event in Oklahoma. “I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.”
He explained that states can “make decisions with regards to domestic partnership benefits, such as hospital visitation rights,” but “marriage itself is a relationship between a man and a woman.”
Acknowledging that the issue is “a very tender and sensitive” one about which “other people have differing views,” Romney reiterated his own conviction, which he has held “since running for office.”
Several political commentators have suggested that Obama’s support for “gay marriage” does not reflect the views of the American people and could have a significant political impact in the November 6, 2012 election.
“Marriage was created long before any government came into existence,” said Catholic Advocate president Matt Smith.
He warned that if Obama’s advocacy for same-sex “marriage” succeeds, “Catholic institutions could be forced once again to violate our beliefs.”
“Many faithful Catholics were fooled by clever political rhetoric in 2008,” added Smith. “This year, the anti-Catholic record of the Obama administration should inform their vote.”
So far, 30 states have passed constitutional amendments banning “gay marriage,” including North Carolina, where voters approved such a measure by an overwhelming margin on May 8.
Tony Perkins, president of the D.C.-based Family Research Council, pointed to the recent North Carolina vote as evidence that “redefining marriage remains outside the mainstream of American politics, especially in the critical battleground states and among minority voters.”
He observed that the North Carolina amendment received over 60 percent of the vote in majority-black counties.
A Pew Research Center survey in April 2012 found that only 39 percent of African Americans are in favor of “gay marriage.”
Perkins noted that 10 of 16 key battleground states have passed amendments to protect marriage. He said that Obama’s announcement “ensures that marriage will again be a major issue in the presidential election.”
I'm harmless.
Well, you ain't kidding. The great analytical philosopher Lady Gaga says (with a danceable beat), "Whether transgender, bi or gay / (Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa) You were Born That Way!"
(I'm rolling my eyes so far I can see my brain.)
Primum, non nocere :o)
So much of what he warned about is actually happening now, it's so fitting that he gave us The Prayer to Saint Michael The Archangel..
PRAYER TO SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen..
I say this more than once daily and pray the chaplet of Saint Michael daily as well
The concept of Natural Law puts the concept of sex for procreation in an unique position where it relates to that special relationship between man and women. It says that the natural design that has made procreation between a man and a woman the natural order of things. It is that natural order that cannot be broken and must be protected.
The Christian thinking takes the natural order to a new level: The Divine Order. Man and women have been designed by God for the purpose of creating new human beings for His glory. That special purpose has been reinforced by that special relationship with marriage. Catholics have sanctified that special relationship with the sacrament of Matrimony. It is a divine creation by the author of the universe that cannot be amended by man. The gay community has other ideas about God. They will be judged by that rebelliousness.
Not all cultures have religion, but they all have marriage, and it always involves a man and a woman. For instance, even with polygyny and (much rarer) polyandry, the plural wives aren't married to each other, nor are plural husbands married to each other. It's always the male-female bond that consttutes marriage. Isn't that so?
I leave this exerpt from that monumental work:
50. How grievously all these err and how shamelessly they leave the ways of honesty is already evident from what we have set forth here regarding the origin and nature of wedlock, its purposes and the good inherent in it. The evil of this teaching is plainly seen from the consequences which its advocates deduce from it, namely, that the laws, institutions and customs by which wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence can and must be founded, changed and abrogated according to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power which is grounded in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range than matrimony — hence it may be exercised both outside as well as within the confines of wedlock, and though the purpose of matrimony be set aside, as though to suggest that the license of a base fornicating woman should enjoy the same rights as the chaste motherhood of a lawfully wedded wife.
51. Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label “temporary,” “experimental,” and “companionate.” These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.
52. Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern “culture” in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples.
For a link, I give that to all who want to be educated:
Am I correct, then, ithinking that the Church respects, in some measure, "natural" (man-woman) marriage among, for instance, the non-baptized, even if it is not sacramental?
I agree with your points completely.
Yes, we must rise to the challenge of defeating the socialist. I’m happy to finally see a leader like Cardinal Dolan that will lead the charge.
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