HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNA)—A Hawaiian lawsuit asking a federal court to instate same-sex “marriage” shows that the recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships and civil unions is just a stepping stone to redefining marriage, several critics say.
“Same-sex unions and domestic partnerships are never a compromise, because they’re creating pseudo-marriages which confuse and undermine the understanding of young people about what marriage is all about,” William May, president of the California-based Catholics for the Common Good, told CNA March 6.
Hawaiian Gov. Neil Abercrombie has said he will not defend several parts of a state law defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman against a legal challenge from a same-sex couple living on east Oahu.
He said he agrees with their December lawsuit’s charge that not granting marriage rights to homosexual partners violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
The suit also claims that the state’s new civil-unions law, which took effect Jan. 1, is unequal because an opposite-sex couple may contract a marriage or a civil union while a same-sex couple may only contract a civil union.
May said the legal challenge is similar to that mounted in California based on its domestic-partnership laws.
California Supreme Court judges reasoned that since same-sex couples “already had the rights and privileges of marriage, but not the word, then the word was important for equal treatment,” May said.
“Going the domestic partnership and civil-union route is just a stepping stone to the civil redefinition of marriage,” May stated.
The Hawaii Family Forum, represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund, is petitioning for permission to intervene against the legal challenge.
“Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it, as this lawsuit clearly seeks to do,” Holly Carmichael, Alliance Defense Fund litigation counsel, said March 2.
“Anyone who believes so-called ‘civil unions’ will preserve marriage need only look at this lawsuit and countless others. Civil unions are a Trojan horse used by activists to undermine marriage, not protect it,” she said.
“Hawaii’s marriage statute and constitutional amendment uphold marriage, and we are seeking to give those protections an adequate defense.”
James Hochberg, an ADF-allied attorney who is local counsel for the Hawaii Family Forum, said Hawaii has been fighting against the redefinition of marriage since 1993.
“Our state should not now succumb to demands that we ignore marriage as society’s time-tested way to bless as many children as possible with both a mom and a dad. Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life.”
May also emphasized the need to recognize the reality of marriage between a man and a woman.
Marriage, he said, “creates an institution that unites kids with their moms and dads.”
“When it’s redefined merely as a committed relationship, there is no longer any public institution that connects kids with their moms and dads.”
Under these circumstances, he warned, “it becomes discriminatory to promote that unique relationship, to promote men and women marrying before they have children. They have to be taught in schools that there is no relationship between marriage and children and family.”
May observed that when same-sex unions are legally equivalent to marriage, “gay-rights groups maintain that it’s discriminatory to promote one kind of family over another or to promote one kind of relationship over another.”
For those who believe public policy and school curriculum should promote “the unique relationship between a man and a woman,” the proposal for civil unions or domestic partnerships is “really no compromise.”
The consequences of not promoting marriage are already apparent and “horrendous,” he added, citing statistics showing that unmarried births to women under 30 are now a majority: “More and more children are deprived of fathers. This is wrong. We need to promote the unique value that marriage brings to our society.”
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Well let me start off by calling it what it really is before liberals “sanitized” the definition. It is not same sex marriage. The proper definition for it by Catholic standard is homosexual adultery because that by Catholic definition is what it is. Since marriage is defined by one husband one wife anything outside that is not a marriage, therefore adultery. What frustrates me to no end is the silence among Catholic Clergy in preaching in homily and in educational formats the evils of homosexuality. As a result of that we are paying the price of increased practicing of homosexuality and a plethora of bizarre illogical arguments supporting homosexual lifestyle, behavior and immoral unions. Homosexuality and bizarre immoral abnormal sex has taken over pop culture especially in music videos that are revolting and disgusting. Let me say that homosexuality in addition to being an “abomination before the Lord? leads to satanism. Since most “homosexuals” realize that God? will never accept their behavior they go down one of two roads, atheism or satanism both as a rebellion against God? Some even try to live a denial by trying to compartmentalize both homosexuality and catholicism and have them both this is prevalent in the liberal wing of catholicism even including Catholic Clergy. I believe Homosexuality to be a mental defect and it was until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders. This decision was a significant victory for homosexual activists, and they have continued to claim that the APA based their decision on new scientific discoveries that proved that homosexual behavior is normal and should be affirmed in our culture.
This is false and part of numerous homosexual urban legends that have infiltrated every aspect of our culture. The removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder has tragically given homosexual activists credibility in the culture, and they have demanded that their sexual behavior be affirmed in society.
Prior to the APA’s 1973 convention, several psychiatrists attempted to organize opposition to the efforts of homosexuals to remove homosexual behavior from the DSM. Organizing this effort were Drs. Irving Bieber and Charles Socarides who formed the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Deletion of Homosexuality from DSM-II.
The DSM-II listed homosexuality as an abnormal behavior under section “302. Sexual Deviations.” It was the first deviation listed. Suffice to say that radical homosexual activism politics was the reason it was removed. What many people do not realize is that homosexuals are prone to more diseases than normal hetrosexuals I am not just talking about STDs and hiv-aids but also diseases such as hepatitis and now more serious strains resistant to anti biotics that can and is passed on to normal hetrosexuals believe me that is just the tip of the iceberg. People need to wake up! Homosexuality is a grave mortal sin a violation of God’s? law of “Be fruitful and multiply” By allowing homosexual marriages to be lawful will destroy the family unit in America erode moral constraints of sexuality and allow for even more bizarre abnormal sexual unions, America will go back to the days of Caligula’s Rome and they way Rome had its downfall so to America may follow that path, thats how it is for a nation that refuses to follow God’s? Laws
May God? Bless You All And God? Bless America
Heather—
Does anyone else find themselves thinking that we need some sort of Marriage Amendment conferming the definition of marriage? It’s nessasary, but sad when you need something like that when a mere dictionary would suffice. I can’t help but be sympathetic to homosexual people: Right or wrong it is never easy being a social rebel.
I most ardently agree with Heather,s comments above. I haven’t been a practicing Catholic for many years but find myself with a spiritual need to come back. I first left the church out of apathy. There seemed to be no guidance during mass from the priests on moral matters. As I watched other young Catholics wander away with no guidance on these matters except from the media. I like many others felt lost with no moral compass. All we heard at church was the importance of helping the poor and similar messages. Yes the scriptures encourage love and kindness but they also give us moral guidance that has been lacking in Catholic churches. I wandered trying to find that compass that, looking in protestant churches, science, the philosophy but finding my spiritual need unfulfilled. I pray for the only true church to once again give us guidance and help in this time of a moral minefield because if they won’t give it to us, we will look somewhere else and Satan will be happy to give us guidance.
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