The Defense of Marriage

I was asked to preach this morning at a parish other than the two to which I am assigned. As you may know, the Gospel from Mark was all about marriage.

Since I hadn’t anticipated preaching, I spoke without more than a few minutes preparation. Here was the gist of what I said:

We have been hearing in the news the past couple of weeks of all the people speaking up loudly in Madison, Wisconsin about things they find of great importance. It is getting national news coverage. We are hearing of people speaking and acting up in North Africa. Yet we scarcely see anyone rallying others to defend marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

Why aren’t we as vocal about this extraordinarily important issue? Why aren’t we rallying others to make our voices heard at the capitols of our statehouses? Why are we so silent?

We heard yesterday that our federal government will no longer defend marriage. It will no longer enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. It is abrogating its consititutional obligation to uphold the laws of the United States.

Marriage is being attacked on all sides, and for all intents and purposes we remain silent. Do we think these attacks will go away on their own?

Perhaps we are more concerned about our finances than about the foundation of our social order.

We need to speak up, people.

Tonight as we return home, let us look at our husband or wife and thank God for the great gift of marriage and the person who He has put into our lives.

I’d suggest an article for you to read. It won’t take much time. It is written by Andrew Haines and succinctly describes why we support marriage as a union of a man with a woman: Catholic News Agency.