Taking a Stand With Christ

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 16, 2006

On June 7, 49 U.S. Senators voted in favor of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect marriage as a heterosexual institution. 48 Senators opposed it. The procedural tally fell far-short of the 60 votes needed to bring the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) to a final vote on the Senate floor and shorter still of the 67 to pass it and send it to the states for ratification.

While the final outcome did not come as a surprise —supporters and opponents both were aware that a two-thirds majority in favor of the amendment does not yet exist — the vote was scheduled by the Senate Republican leadership in order to put senators on the record, prior to this fall's election cycle, as to where they stand with respect to the institution of marriage.

Of the 24 Catholic members of the Senate, we learned that fifteen of them do not stand with the Church. We learned that those fifteen, including both Massachusetts senators, do not stand with any of the eight American Cardinal Archbishops, all of whom as a unanimous body urged them to support the amendment.

We learned that they do not stand with Pope Benedict, who last month reiterated the call for Christians to defend marriage and procreation as a "pillar of humanity" in the face of movements to legalize same-sex unions, and who particularly urged "politicians and legislators to safeguard the rights of the family."

We learned that ultimately they do not stand with Jesus Christ, who, when referring to marriage in God's plan, said that God "created them male and female." It is for this reason, he continued, that a man leaves not two dads or two mommies, but his father and mother in order to cling, not to whomever he wants, but to his wife (cf. Mt 19:4-5).

It wasn't enough, however, for the most lionized of these Catholic senators merely to stand in opposition to the successors of the apostles, the heir of St. Peter, and the one whom Christians believe is the way, the truth and the life. He also for some reason wanted to show his disdain for their position. "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple," he declared, adding that those who support the amendment are intent on "writing bigotry into the Constitution."

In other words, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who supported the amendment, is a bigot, "pure and simple." So is Pope Benedict. So are most of the readers of this newspaper. So are the more than 170,000 Massachusetts citizens who signed a petition last Fall to bring a state amendment in defense of marriage to the ballot in 2008. So is almost the entire human race for nearly all of human history. So is a well-known and rather convincing Jewish carpenter.

The man who made these inflammatory statements is not some distant bomb-thrower, but the senior senator of our Commonwealth, whose famous family for decades has profited from the electoral support of so many faithful Catholics whom he now seems to be rewarding with epithets. The only apparent reason, in his opinion, for believing in marriage as a monogamous, heterosexual institution and for seeking a constitutional amendment to prevent it from being eviscerated by agenda-driven judges is transparent, straightforward, "homophobic" prejudice.

The main and most consequential issue here is not that a Catholic politician chose to act in opposition to the authoritative teachings and teachers of the faith that he publicly professes. It's not even that a senator —our senator — chose to insult his coreligionists and the sixty percent of U.S. citizens who support the MPA, by implying that they constitute a marital Ku Klux Klan. It's that he, in his position of great power and influence, really seems to believe that those who support the traditional understanding of marriage are, in fact, "pure and simple" bigots.

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a proponent of the MPA and recent convert to Catholicism, crisply and cogently described why such an attitude endangers not just traditional marriage but the freedom of those who believe in traditional marriage to practice their faith. "Same-sex marriage proponents," he said on the Senate floor, "argue that sexual orientation is like race, and that opponents of same-sex marriage are therefore like bigots who oppose interracial marriage. Once same-sex marriage becomes law, that understanding is likely to be controlling."

Supporters of same-sex marriage, in other words, begin with a call for tolerance, but once their position becomes enshrined in law by judicial fiat or other means, there quickly arises an absolute intolerance toward those who oppose their position. There is no room, they assert, for the perpetuation of discrimination: all modern versions of sexual Jim Crow laws must be eliminated.

"So in states with same-sex marriage," Senator Brownback continues, "religiously affiliated schools, adoption agencies, psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, etc. will be forced to choose between violating their own deeply held beliefs and giving up government contracts, tax-exempt status, or even being denied the right to operate at all." To show that this slippery-slope argumentation is not hypothesis and hyperbole, Brownback noted that this denial of the right even to operate is "already happening, as we've seen in Massachusetts with Boston's Catholic Charities being forced out of the adoption business entirely rather than violate church teaching on marriage and family."

The stakes, therefore, are extraordinarily high. While the federal Marriage Protection Amendment will not pass this year, that does not mean that the effort to defend marriage is over. Here in Massachusetts, much urgent work remains to be done to ensure that at least fifty state legislators vote during the July 12th constitutional convention to allow the state protection of marriage amendment to move forward toward the 2008 ballot. This amendment is perhaps the best and only way to prevent activist judges from continuing to extirpate what they view as biased heterosexism from the institutions across our commonwealth.

It is also an occasion for Catholics across our state to go on the record and declare where they stand on the issue of marriage. Last week, 15 of 24 Catholic U.S. Senators chose to stand in opposition to Christ and his Church. In the next few weeks, those who consider themselves faithful Catholic citizens and legislators in Massachusetts have a chance to make a different stand — astride Christ, Benedict, the U.S. Cardinals, and the bunch of "bigots" who love Christ enough to consider it an honor, pure and simple, to be called names along with him.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.