Catholic League: Tuesday was a 'Big Night for Catholic Values'

NEW YORK, NY (Catholic League) - Catholic League president Bill Donohue offers the following observations on Tuesday's electoral results:

"The Catholic Church led the fight in Maine against those seeking to reinvent marriage, and won: the vote was 53-47 to repeal the state�s gay marriage law. Bishop Richard Malone deserves credit for fighting against those who sought to restructure this vital institution.

"Those who favor the right of two men to marry are now 0 for 31 in the states. The people have spoken. The time has come for homosexuals to pack it in.

"Those who champion gay marriage and abortion-on-demand lost in New Jersey and Virginia, posting more wins for Catholic values. Jon Corzine supports the right of two men to marry and is a radical on the question of abortion.

"Creigh Deeds is worse: he once opposed partial-birth abortion but later switched in favor of it; similarly, he said he was opposed to gay marriage but then campaigned against a state constitutional amendment to ban it. At least Corzine was honest. In any event, the defeat of Corzine and Deeds is a victory for marriage and children.

"There is one piece of unfinished business: the defeat of health care legislation that forces the public to pay for the killing of children in utero, and eliminates conscience rights for doctors and nurses.

"The bishops have spoken clearly on this subject. While they want health care reform, and are especially vocal about the need to help the poor, they will not support any bill that funds abortion. Nor will they support any legislation that vitiates conscience rights.

"President Obama, who says he is opposed to any health care bill that funds abortion, and is against nixing conscience rights, has never once registered any displeasure with current bills that do just that. Deeds tried to fool the people, and look what happened to him�he got creamed.

It was a big night for Catholic values. Hope everyone gets the message."

You might want to rethink the admonishment to "pack it in." Issue 1 passed, but not exactly by a huge margin. The mere fact that it required so much work to achieve passage by a meek margin indicates that the people, as a collective, are not so strongly opposed to same sex marriage. The balance continues to shift over time. Were this to take place 10 years from now, I would actually expect the opposite result. It's really only a matter of time.

And really, I think that's fine. After hearing every argument against gay marriage, I honestly don't see how it affects society as a whole adversely. The Yes on 1 ads felt like they were relying heavily on scare tactics (particularly the one that cited case law for propositions that weren't supported by the citations), and some even purported to support the rights of gay people for pretty much everything _but_ marriage (though this came off as disingenuous).

What actually sickens me is how often the issue of abortion is given equal weight to gay rights issues. I mean, how are the two even comparable? Abortion involves the termination of a life. Gay rights issues, here gay marriage, involve the ability of individuals to live the way they choose to without censure by society.

As you might be able to tell from the above, I support gay rights. But even if you unequivocally believe that it's a sin, I still don't see how it compares to abortion. I've always been under the impression that following God's will had to be a personal choice to have any meaning. What's the point of coercing that behavior? It actually makes for a rather terrible selling point as well.

Molly | 11/5/2009

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