How to Vote Catholic
Marriage and Family
"A man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated" (CCC 2202).
The Catholic Church teaches that the institution of marriage comes prior to the state and therefore must be accepted as normative. Indeed, all the nations in the world over the past 20 centuries have never questioned this standard, until recently.
On February 3, 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the state laws restricting marriage to the union of one man and one woman were based upon a religious prejudice. This decision unleashed a national debate on the meaning of marriage and spurred many to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifying the legal meaning of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.
The pope and bishops around the world have directly rejected the idea of "same-sex marriage": "It is not based on the natural complementarity of male and female; it cannot cooperate with God to create new life; and the natural purpose of sexual union cannot be achieved by a same-sex union" (USCCB, Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers About Marriage and Same-Sex Unions).
The Church must defend traditional marriage not only because it was instituted by God, but also because the family is the foundation of all society: "The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society" (CCC 2207).
The Catholic view of marriage should inform public policy in several ways. As the U.S. bishops have said, "Policies related to the definition of marriage, taxes, the workplace, divorce, and welfare must be designed to help families stay together and to reward responsibility and sacrifice for children" (USCCB, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility).
The specific policies are a matter of prudential judgment, but what is behind them—the firm belief that marriage between a man and a woman should be protected by the state—is a non-negotiable principle of Catholic teaching.
The USCCB is strongly supportive of the constitutional amendment to defend marriage recently introduced in the Congress. A majority of Catholic senators, unfortunately, voted against it, in spite of the bishops' lobbying effort.
Politicians will disagree prudentially on how best to protect marriage through law and public policy. The option being considered by some states, that of recognizing "civil unions" between homosexuals and affording to them some or all of the benefits of married persons, should be judged by its impact on the common good and especially on marriage and children.
The Pontifical Council for the Family has criticized the prospect of civil unions: "This would be an arbitrary use of power which does not contribute to the common good because the original nature of marriage and the family proceeds and exceeds, in an absolute and radical way, the sovereign power of the State" (Family, Marriage and "De Facto" Unions, 9).
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