+J.M.J.+

By Monsignor Charles M. Mangan

One day you may well look back upon these past few months and think: “I lived in that period when the issue of same-sex marriage was ‘resolved’ by the civil authorities. Now I realize what it was like right before the January 22, 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade was promulgated and the strictures against legalized abortion were smashed.”

Yes, this has been a frightening time. What has been held sacred for millennia, namely that marriage involves a man and a woman, has been summarily dismissed. Various reasons for tampering with the traditional definition and practice of marriage have been proposed from different quarters.

One such motive is that advanced by the new mayor of San Francisco, a young man of Irish-American lineage who claims to be a Catholic. When he openly opposed and disobeyed the law of California and made provisions for his city to issue marriage certificate to same-sex couples, he averred that this was the right thing to do because it counters unjust discrimination. No one, he continued, can tell him in good conscience that a same-sex couple should not have the same prerogatives that he and his wife enjoy.

The mayor protests strenuously that same-sex marriages are inevitable. Hence, he wants to lift once-and-for-all the “bias” practiced against gays and lesbians and grant them what they have coming to them: legal acknowledgment that their unions are on a par with marriage between men and women. Anything less would be blatantly unjust and immoral.

Such an assertion that to deny marriage licenses to same-sex unions is discrimination is truly mind-boggling. How can a civil official change what God our Creator has decreed? How can a public authority who is elected to office today but tomorrow will resign or be defeated by another candidate or perhaps recalled alter an essential requirement for marriage that the human community has accepted without variance for centuries?

Those who favor same-sex marriage proclaim the importance of having the option to marry in a public forum just as heterosexual couples; however, one need not study the issue very long to see that something else is at stake here. That something clearly is the prevailing prejudice against procreation. Same-sex unions, whether or not recognized by civil authorities, are not fecund; even the revisionism at play regarding the “right” to marry cannot make same-sex unions to be childbearing.

Procreation is considered by some to be a heinous obstacle to contentment. It is the bane to sexual expression. If the "threat" of procreation can be controlled, thwarted or even abolished, then happiness will reign supreme, some contend. The fact that same-sex unions are not childbearing only heightens the satisfaction of those who have an animus against babies.

The Natural Law condemns homosexual comportment because it is an abominable sin in the sight of the Almighty. It is contrary to the plan of God for sexual union It fails to convey that which is essential for the love between husband and wife—the two dimensions of authentic conjugal love: a.) the unitive; b.) the procreative. Clearly, homosexual behavior is incapable of bringing forth the best gift of marriage—offspring.

We pray for all those who promote same-sex marriage and those in same-sex unions. But we disagree charitably and firmly with the notion that marriage can be transformed in our image, regardless of how the Lord established it.

Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for us!

Contact

Mary's Field
http://www.catholic.org  , VA
Monsignor Charles M. Mangan - Official, 390 66616-1125

Email

fathermangan@catholic.org

Keywords

Same-Sex Unions