WASHINGTON (CNA/EWTN News)—Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, urged President Obama and his administration to end their attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the religious freedom of those who support it.
Archbishop Dolan warned in his Sept. 20 letter that by continuing its current course of action, the administration would “precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.”
In an accompanying analysis, the bishops’ conference said it is concerned that if the administration continued its fight to redefine marriage, Catholic individuals and institutions would face lawsuits for supposed “sexual orientation discrimination” in their efforts to serve the common good in areas including employment, education and adoption services.
“Society will suffer when religious entities are compelled to remove themselves from the social-service network due to their duty to maintain their institutional integrity and not compromise on basic moral principles,” it said.
The archbishop reaffirmed “the immeasurable personal dignity and equal worth of all individuals, including those with same-sex attraction” and rejected “all hatred and unjust treatment against any person.”
At the same time, he wrote, the Church’s “profound regard for marriage as the complementary and fruitful union of a man and a woman does not negate our concern for the well-being of all people but reinforces it.”
“While all persons merit our full respect, no other relationships provide for the common good what marriage between husband and wife provides,” Archbishop Dolan said. “The law should reflect this reality.”
“I urge yet again that your administration end its campaign against DOMA, the institution of marriage it protects, and religious freedom,” he said.
With his letter, the archbishop sent the president a bishops’ conference analysis of recent federal threats to marriage. The analysis expressed alarm at several actions taken by the administration to attack traditional marriage in recent months.
Last spring, the Department of Justice announced that it would not defend the marriage act in court. Now, the analysis noted, the department has taken a “more aggressive position” against the law. The conference’s report referenced a brief filed by the Department of Justice in July arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act should be rejected as a form of “sexual-orientation discrimination.”
In addition, the analysis expressed concern over reports of efforts to institute a sexual orientation “sensitivity training” program for all federal agencies. This program, it said, tells employees that support for the marriage act is to be treated as “an actionable form of ‘heterosexism,’ which is explained as being “an ‘ism’ like sexism or racism.”
“According to the government’s view, support for a definition of marriage that recognizes that sexual difference as a defining and valuable feature of marriage now constitutes a forbidden intent to harm a vulnerable class of people,” said the analysis.
The bishops’ conference further rejected the claim “that animus is at work” when people promote marriage as “the union of man and woman as husband and wife” and support the complementary differences between the sexes.
The Obama administration was also criticized for disregarding the will of the American people. “In every state where citizens have been allowed to vote on state constitutional versions of DOMA, 29 states in all, voters by sizable majorities have affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” it stated.
Additionally, 41 states now have “statutory or constitutional DOMAs on the books.”
The bishops also contended that the administration’s approval of same-sex adoptions contradicts President Obama’s own acknowledgment of the importance of both mothers and fathers in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations this year.
In those proclamations, President Obama recognized “the extraordinary importance of mothers in our lives” and observed that a “father’s absence is felt by children, families and communities in countless ways, leaving a hole that can have lasting effects.”
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I suspect the 6 catholics on the supreme court will not overturn the SSM in various states and leaving it to the States to decide. With this in mind, SSM advocates will never give up and those against it will die out since young people really don’t care. Doma could be overturned by the SCOTUS just like sodomy laws with Loving vs. Virgina.
America, the land of the free. Let freedom ring.
Where was the good Archbishop Dolan when the legislature in New York was
down to the wire with his good friend Gov. Cuomo twisting arms to get the same sex marriage bill passed? Speaking to the assembly? No. He was out of town in Washington to attend a meeting of the same organization (USCCB)
that in September payed tribute to the pro-abortion Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis whoi has a 100% pro-abortion voting record with a laudatory profile by Catholic News Service, an independent division of the USCCB as reproted by Catholic Culture (Spet. 2, 2011). Tough speeches are fine however, they need to backed up with strong action even if it
means being politically unpopular. Just ask Archbishop Chaput. Now he puts his actions where his words are.Pax
Obama+Democrates=Satan’s Crue
@rover serton said,
That will happen only as long as people can pretend they don’t know what marriage is and get away with it. The arguments against same-sex “marriage” are unassailable. The challenge is making them heard.
It is all about Church leadership. With bishops telling their flock one thing, and giving the politicians a free pass, even giving them Holy Communion in the Cathedral in Albany where the Gov. of New York recieves,
to the delight of the liberal press, despite the fact that he is an outspoken pro-choice, pro gay marriage and divorced while having a live in girl friend, and no one says a word. Then the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops issues an article via their news organization that goes out to diocesan newspapers across the country presenting the Labor Secretary Solis as a model Catholic politician while ignoring her 100% voting record and uncompromising support of legalized abortion and even opposing restrictions on partial-birth abortion, it becomes obvious to
Catholics something is not right in the Church. When you make deals with politicians, the ends do not justify the means and in my view is the same thing as making deals with the devil.If Jesus did that, He may not have been crucified, then where would we be?
“WASHINGTON (CNA/EWTN News)—Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, urged President Obama and his administration to end their attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the religious freedom of those who support it.”
*
IOW the Abp. wants people to have the religious freedom to follow Catholic ethics, even if they are not Catholic, and don’t want to touch anything Catholic with a ten-foot pole. This is nothing but the freedom for one religion to make itself obnoxious to everyone else. The USA is not a Catholic State, it is not ruled by the Pope, and it never will be. If he wants to revive Know-Nothingism, Abp. Dolan is going the right way about it :( In a plural society such as the US is, the CC can’t always have what the bishops want it to have; other people have their values and convictions too, and it’s high time that he and the hierarchy realised that. The only “attack” is coming from him and his kind; they badly need to shut up, until they have recovered some of the moral authority they have so foolishly destroyed. It’s typical of cowards and bullies like them to call resistance to their attacks on others by the name of attacks on religious liberty. If they had any shame, they would resign.
@Kevin Rahe. I have never heard a single argument against SSM that was both sound and valid. Can you provide one?
Rille’s Granddaughter, most of the reasons that people offer for finding same-sex “marriage” acceptable are based on ignorance of things that most people have taken for granted for some time but are so out of practice defending that it’s taking us a while to figure out how to articulate our arguments. Examples are the reason that marriage exists as an institution in the first place and why we expect even couples who are past the age of childbearing or suspect may have fertility problems to commit to each other in marriage. Others find same-sex “marriage” acceptable on the basis of societal attitudes that are themselves a mistake, such as the apparent lack of an expectation that couples commit to each other in marriage before beginning an intimate relationship. The character of the debate is accurately illustrated by a quote from G.K. Chesterton:
Steven D. Greydanus has an excellent series of marriage-related blog entries on this site, which you’ll find at the link below. Some of the challenges related above are addressed in the articles, and Steven, myself and others have also addressed those and many others in the comments attached to them.
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/redefining-marriage-10
I have also addressed some of these questions on another news site more recently:
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/09/gop_talking_point_fail_domesti/3203/comments-2.html
The guiding light for the US is our Constitution, not religious dogma. The Equal Protection Clause stops people like Dolan from turning us into a “Christian nation”. Besides, MY religion supports gay marriage, so I don’t appreciate Dolan’s efforts to have his religion imposed upon mine. Dolan has every right to bar same sex couples from the Catholic Church door, but he has NO right to bar them from the Courthouse Door!!!
Archbishop Dolan is only doing what many others are doing in that they are
trying to get this administration to enforce laws that the voters wanted and alredy exist. Since the beginning of human civilization socialogical structure for the benefit and good of society has defined marriage as an institution that creates a union between a man and a woman for the propagation of humanity. Unfortunately this administration picks and chooses the laws it wants to enforce ie: immigration, health care, marriage act even if the laws are the will of the people and they do it to further their own political advantages. Poll after poll in almost all the states and yes, even California no matter what their homosexual supreme court justice rules, demonstrates the will of the majority of people believe and want marriage defined as a union between a man and a woman. If anything most people believe Archbishop Dolan did not do enough
to stop the same sex marriage act of New York to the dismay and surprise
of gay rights activists. Picking and choosing the laws you only care to enforce even if it is not the will of the majority only leads to Marxist
socialism and a form of dictatorship that would be the demise of our constitution. It is after all the law (DOMA) and it is not only a Catholic belief but a wide spread belef that spans many religions. All he is asking is, that it be enforced. Pax
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