Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York wrote a wonderful post on the archdiocesan blog regarding marriage. You can read it entirely at: The Gospel in the Digital Age. I want to present a lengthy quote for those of you who choose to not link over.
“…I hear Catholics, — and, I am quick to add, Jews, other Christians, Muslims, and men and women of no faith at all — who have thoughtfully expressed grave disapproval of the current rush to redefine marriage, branded as bigots and bullies who hate gays.
Nonsense! We are not anti anybody; we are pro-marriage. The definition of marriage is a given: it is a lifelong union of love and fidelity leading, please God, to children, between one man and one woman.
History, Natural Law, the Bible (if you’re so inclined), the religions of the world, human experience, and just plain gumption tells us this is so. The definition of marriage is hardwired into our human reason.
To uphold the traditional definition, to strengthen it, and to defend it is not a posture of bigotry or bullying. Nor is it a denial of the ‘right’ of anybody. As the philosophers remind us, in a civilized, moral society, we have the right to do what we ought, not to do whatever we want. Not every desire is a right.
To tamper with that definition, or to engage in some Orwellian social engineering about the nature and purpose of marriage, is perilous to all of us. If the definition of marriage is continually being altered, could it not in the future be morphed again to include multiple spouses or even family members?
Nor is is ‘imposing’ some narrow outmoded religious conviction. One might ask just who is doing the ‘imposing’ here: those who simply defend what the human drama has accepted from the start, a belief embedded in nature and at the core of every civilization — the definition of marriage — or those who all of a sudden want to scrap it because ‘progressive, enlightened, tolerant culture’ calls for it.
Sadly, as we see in countries where such a redefinition has occurred, ‘tolerance’ is hardly the result, as those who hold to the given definition of marriage now become harassed and penalized.”
As usual, Archbishop Dolan says it well.
This issue is before many state legislatures at this time. We need to speak up.
