Catholics Face Growing Intolerance of Homosexual Equivalency Activists

In the midst of this age of relativism Catholics assert there are objective truths which can be known

Like our position on the fundamental human right to life from conception to natural death, the truth concerning the nature of marriage is rooted in the Natural Law which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason.

P>CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - Two stories point to a foreboding trend as the Homosexual Equivalency Activists use recent legislative and judicial actions to advance their cultural revolution. First, Bill Donohue, the President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights issued a comment entitled "Gay Marriage and Religious Rights". Here is an excerpt:

"The right of homosexuals to marry in New York begins on Sunday, and already the religious rights of those who conscientiously object are being threatened. The threats come from two New York public officials, both of whom identify themselves as Catholic: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

"When Cuomo was recently asked about the right of clerks, invoking their religious rights, not to issue marriage licenses to gays, he said, "The law is the law. You enforce the law as is; you don't get to pick and choose those laws." (Ironically, this could be read as an indictment of President Obama: he is under oath to enforce federal legislation, yet he manifestly refuses to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.)

"Rice is even bolder. She has put clerks on notice: either grant homosexuals marriage licenses or else. In a letter she wrote to municipal clerks, she warned that not complying "may constitute official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor." Bill notes the obvious disregard for religious liberty in this action. You can read his full comment here. 

Next, the Associated Press reported the use of anti-discrimination legislation against Catholic Innkeepers in a story entitled "Lesbian couple: Vt. resort barred reception."  The ACLU represents the lesbian couple who have sued two Catholic Innkeepers who would not host their wedding reception.

The innkeepers noted "We have never refused rooms or dining or employment to gays or lesbians.Many of our guests have been same-sex couples. We welcome and treat all people with respect and dignity. We do not however, feel that we can offer our personal services wholeheartedly to celebrate the marriage between same-sex couples because it goes against everything that we as Catholics believe in."

In the past I warned of the "Two Step" of the New Censors. The effort seeks to exclude our positions from being heard in the public square or from influencing the positive/civil law. Those who oppose our positions on matters such as the Right to Life for every human being from conception to natural death and the normative nature of the two parent, marriage bound family seek first to relegate our truth claims to being "religious positions." Then they take the next step, they require that these truth claims be confined to expression only within our Church Walls - or else we will face the Police power of the State.

We live in what Pope Benedict XVI called a "Dictatorship of Relativism." Some Catholics do not understand the danger we face as a result. The relativists of this age have managed to persuade even some Catholics that there are no objective truths; there are only "my" truths and "your" truths. Further, they have relegated the authentic Catholic position on the very existence of truths and rights to only being "religious" positions in order to then marginalize their importance in informing the social order. 

Catholic Christians insist that there is a Natural Law, "present in the heart of each man and established by reason." This law "is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties." (CCC# 1956) It is here that we find the ground for the moral truths which should inform our life together in a truly just and free society. It is here where we also find those fundamental and foundational human rights which we insist must be recognized by the civil or positive law as rightfully belonging to all men and women.

The Catholic position on homosexual sexual practices as objectively disordered and our opposition to all efforts to undermine true marriage through the "Homosexual Equivalency Movement" - the movement which wants to call what can never be a marriage a marriage and then use the Police Power of the State to force all of us to do the same - is rooted in this Natural Law which binds all men and women. 

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church wrote in 2003, "The Church's teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose.

"No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives."

Like our position on the fundamental human right to life from conception to natural death, our position concerning the definition of marriage is not simply a "religious" position. We claim that the truth concerning the nature of marriage - and the family founded upon it - is rooted in this Natural Law which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason. Catholics also insist that these objective truths should inform a true humanism which will help us live together in peace by promoting human flourishing.

In the midst of this age of relativism Catholics assert there are objective truths which can be known and that those truths are the only solid basis for building a truly free, just and human society. This is why some of us raised concerns about legislation calling itself "Hate Crimes" legislation. We asked the question, "would it soon place Catholics within its sites?" As the Vermont case demonstrates, those who engage in homosexual behavior are increasingly included as a "protected class" in the same manner as gender and race in legislation and Catholics in commerce are being singled out.

So, homosexual behavior and sexual practices have now been given "rights." It is a step much like the Supreme Court's discovering a "Right" to abort children in a "penumbra" of the 14th amendment to the Constitution and the "right to privacy". The act of aborting an innocent child was given "rights." Note the shorthand of the cultural revolution. Abortions have no rights; only human persons do, and those rights also belong to our youngest neighbors in the womb. Every child has that first right taken away in every procured abortion when they are intentionally killed. So what is called a "right" actually takes away a true Right in this world of Orwellian newspeak and age of relativism.

Some people think we can rely on "religious exemptions" language which will somehow protect those with "religious beliefs" like the clerks in New York and the innkeepers in Vermont. Perhaps it is better than nothing - but it may soon push us into new religious ghettos. This is why I raised the concern that a "two step" was underway. It is also why I claim that these trends could have the effect of not only censoring our right to contend in the Public Square for our positions but of keeping us from engaging freely in commerce and culture and effectively out of the public square.

There is a Cultural Revolution underway in the West with two conflicting visions of the human person, human freedom, human flourishing and marriage and the family founded upon it as the first cell of a truly just society. The real possibility looms that today's Catholic positions on matters of importance for all men and women, including those of other faiths or no faith at all, will not only be censored from the public debate but subjected to punitive legal sanctions.

We need to remember our history. The early Christians were not persecuted for "religion" but for being "enemies of the State". They were charged with "odium humani generis" [hatred of the human race]. We are witnessing contemporary Catholics and other Christians being accused of creating a climate of hate.

This charge of "Hatred of the Human Race" was directed by those within an ancient Rome which had lost its respect for the dignity of all human life while claiming to be enlightened. They practiced primitive forms of abortion as well as "exposure", the killing of unwanted newborns. The Emperor Nero in the first-century A.D. was overt in his homosexual relationships. He even sought to make such relationships normative in the empire by giving an equal status between homosexual relationships and true marriage.

First and Second century Rome were the first mission fields of the early Christian Church. Rome proclaimed itself the shining example to the world of its age while it embraced debauchery. In an eerie parallel, the history of ancient Rome reveals that the hostility toward the Christians grew as the citizens of this once great empire continued in their own spiraling moral decline.

They simply did not want to hear the Christians and their opposition to abortion and the practice of "exposure" (the killing of newborns). Their infatuation with hedonism was threatened by the Christian insistence that monogamous family was the first society and the foundation of civilization.

One of the ancient Christian manuscripts from that age, written to a pagan inquirer named Diognetus, spoke of the distinctly different practices of the Christians in these words: "They reside in their respective countries, but only as aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and put up with everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their home, and every home a foreign land.

"They marry like all others and beget children but they do not expose (kill or abandon) their offspring. Their board they spread for all, but not their bed." The commitment of these Christians to the dignity of every human person as well as the witness of their faithful monogamous marriages eventually transformed ancient Rome. But it was not without hostility.

We are called to build a culture of life and a civilization of true love in our day. We cannot support the efforts to give promiscuous heterosexual or homosexual relationships the same status as monogamous marriage, period. When such practices become enforced by the civil law of the State, we must be ready to experience hostility in opposing such laws and proposing a better way.

In so doing, we may also become more and more annoying to some as the West proceeds on a march toward a new paganism. The irony is that some call such a march "progressive" when, in fact, it is regressive.

The new censorship tries to diminish our truth claims by insisting that our positions are "religious" and therefore must be confined within our Church Walls. The ante is being raised as new Caesars seek to compel compliance from Catholics against their consciences in New York and the Court system is used in an effort to close down the businesses of Catholics - such as the incident in Vermont.

So far those who today insist upon professing that such truth positions are rooted in the Natural Law have not been charged with "hatred of the human race'. Instead we face the brunt of censorship of our speech and efforts to marginalize our participation in the culture.

However, the efforts to compel compliance in violation of conscience in New York and the use of the Courts to impede participation in commerce in Vermont may be an ominous step in that direction. Catholics face the growing intolerance of Homosexual Equivalency Activists as the Cultural Revolution continues.

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