http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=3191
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Q: What about same-sex couples? Should marriage be redefined to include them?
Gallagher: Same-sex marriage teaches the next generation that there is nothing special or unique about husbands and wives who can become mothers and fathers. It separates marriage from its great, historic, cross-cultural task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together.
A loving and compassionate society comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless children, but no compassionate society intentionally deprives children of their own mom or dad. Same-sex marriage announces that society has repudiated this goal and has placed adult desires for diverse family forms as its core goal.
Q: How do you respond to people who say our marriage laws are discriminatory?
Gallagher: Laws against interracial marriage were about keeping two races apart, so that one race could oppress the other -- and that is wrong.
Marriage is about bringing male and female together, so that children have mothers and fathers, and so that women aren't stuck with the enormous, unfair burdens of parenting alone -- and that is right.
Q: How would same-sex marriage hurt any one's marriage?
Gallagher: This is not just a discussion of benefits. If it were, we could come to some accommodations.
The logic of gay marriage is that there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is either irrational or bigoted.
Same-sex marriage advocates thus seek to use the law to force everyone to dramatically and permanently alter our definition of marriage and family. The law will teach your children and grandchildren that there is nothing special about mothers and fathers raising children together, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot.
It's going to be extremely hard to raise, say, young men to be good family men in a society that teaches the idea that anyone who thinks fathers and mothers should raise children together is a bigot.
And anyone who says otherwise may get subjected to legal punishments of various kinds.
Q: What do you mean by that? And what is the threat to religious liberty posed by same-sex marriage?
Gallagher: It's very real. Right now in the state of Massachusetts, for example, the government is set to strip Catholic Charities of its adoption license unless Catholics agree to place children with same-sex couples.
If you follow the racial analogy being made here -- that opposing gay marriage is akin to racial bigotry -- then ultimately the law is going to pressure Catholic and other religions' institutions and punish those that fail to conform to its new vision of marriage. I'm talking about things like broadcasting licenses and ultimately tax exempt status for Catholic schools and other faith-based organizations.
This may sound incredible. But who would ever have imagined that here in the United States a government would prevent Catholics from helping poor, abandoned, needy babies, unless they agree with the government's position on gay adoptions?