[mobglob-discuss] Vatican announces 21st-century Inquisition

[Graeme Bacque]

The language being used by the Church is extremely frightening. The enemy is
clearly prepared to emerge swinging on this one. - Graeme
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July 31, 2003 01:17 PM The Toronto Star

Vatican launches campaign against gay marriage
RC politicians have 'moral duty' to oppose laws; non-Catholics urged to join
fight

FROM CANADIAN PRESS AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican urged Roman Catholics and non-Catholics alike
today to unite in campaigning against gay marriages and gay adoptions,
seeking to stem the widening legal recognition of same-sex unions and the
increasing acceptance of homosexual lifestyles.

One Canadian bishop went so far as to predict that Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien will go to hell if he makes same-sex marriage legal.

Catholic politicians have a "moral duty" to oppose laws granting legal
rights to gay couples and non-Catholics should follow their lead since the
issue concerns "natural moral law" and not just Roman Catholic teaching,
said the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, in its latest effort to rally public opinion on the issue.

The 12-page document, which was issued in seven languages, was immediately
criticized by gay groups across North America and Europe, where politicians,
including some conservatives, are increasingly granting homosexual couples
the same legal status as heterosexual couples.

"This new document is intended to intimidate public officials across the
globe into doing what the Vatican has not been able to do on its own: stem
the growing tide for justice," said Marianne Duddy, executive director of
Dignity USA, an organization of gay Catholics.

"It is a tremendous shame that the leaders of our Church are becoming the
vocal proponents for intolerance and continuing discrimination."

But the document was welcomed by some conservatives and the clergy,
including those in Pope John Paul's native Poland, where Roman Catholic
bishops read out excerpts of the text at a news conference to condemn a
proposal by leftist legislators to legalize homosexual unions.

"The idea is immoral and hurting to families and marriages," said Bishop
Stanislaw Stefanek. "We strongly object to it."

The document, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition
to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, sets out a battle plan for politicians
confronted with legislation legalizing same-sex unions and also rails
against gay adoption, saying children raised by same-sex parents face
developmental "obstacles" because they are deprived of having either a
mother or a father.

"Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would
actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their
condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that
is not conducive to their full human development," it said.

The document says Catholic politicians must vote against laws granting
recognition to homosexual unions. If the laws are already on the books,
politicians must speak out against them, work to repeal them and try to
limit their impact on society.

"To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely
immoral," it added, although it didn't provide for specific penalties for
Catholics who fail to oppose such laws.

However, one Roman Catholic bishop from Alberta is warning that Chrétien,
who is Catholic, risks burning in hell if he makes same-sex marriage legal
in Canada, the Globe and Mail reported Thursday.

"He doesn't understand what it means to be a good Catholic," Bishop Fred
Henry of Calgary told the newspaper yesterday.

"He's putting at risk his eternal salvation. I pray for the Prime Minister
because I think his eternal salvation is in jeopardy. He is making a morally
grave error and he's not being accountable to God."

A spokeswoman for Chrétien said the PM's primary responsibility is to serve
the Canadian public — not his church.

"As Prime Minister of Canada, he has the moral responsibility to protect the
equality of Canadians," Thoren Hudyma told the newspaper. "There needs to be
a separation between the church and state."

The federal government drafted legislation that redefines marriage as "the
lawful union of two persons," after two provincial courts ruled it is
unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. The Supreme
Court is reviewing the legislation after which time a free vote will be held
in Parliament.

In the United States, the state of Vermont has a "civil union" law, giving
same-sex couples the rights and responsibilities of traditional marriages,
and the highest court in another state, Massachusetts, is weighing whether
to legalize such unions.

In reaction, some Republican politicians in Washington are calling for a
constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages nationwide, despite
recent polls showing that opposition to gay marriage had diminished in
recent years.

Yesterday, U.S. President George W. Bush weighed in on the issue, telling a
news conference that marriage was defined strictly as a union between a man
and a woman and that he wants to "codify that one way or the other."
Government lawyers are exploring measures to enshrine it into law, the White
House said.

Over the past two years, the Netherlands and Belgium extended marriages
rights to all couples, no matter the partners' gender. Germany, France,
Sweden and Denmark also have "civil union" laws.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, the proposals were backed by conservative
Christian Democrat parties, which stressed today that they respected the
Vatican's viewpoint but had decided that its teaching on the issue wasn't
appropriate.

In Belgium, where three-quarters of the population is Roman Catholic, the
Flemish Christian Democrats who voted in favour of the law said the issue
boiled down to supporting all kinds of families.

"For us, what's important is sustained relationships," said Luk Vanmaercke,
a party spokesman. "We do not want to exclude gay couples from sustained
relationships. On the contrary, we want to encourage them to take that
responsibility too."