Rhode Island Civil Unions Response

This is really just a comment to Pete's earlier blog RI Civil Unions but, since I can't put an image in a comment, it must be a separate entry.

Despite what Catholic bishops like Thomas J. Tobin are saying, the real Catholics -- the rank and file who sit in the pews, do the volunteer work and write all the checks -- support same sex marriage, and do so more strongly than Americans overall. A May 2011 survey by Public Religion Research Institute found that 56 percent of Catholics favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry, compared to 51 percent in the general population. A March 2011 ABC/Washington Post poll found 60 percent of Catholics support marriage for same-sex couples, compared to 53 percent of the general population. No other major religious group supports same sex marriage more vigorously than Catholics.

And I always thought that Ellen was exaggerating when she said that she didn't know of a single student in her Catholic high school who didn't support same sex marriage.

Anyway, here are the results from the Public Religion Research Institute poll:

I wish the bishops would quit teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. It just gives the rest of us Catholics a bad name.

Battle over Family

Another heart-wrenching personal story that puts a face on the gay rights movement. This article exemplifies why I don't argue for Gay marriage-to argue you must concede the fact that there is another side and it may have a legit point(s). Debate is not needed when there is a right and a wrong-the wrong obviously being that the government is allowed to tear loving stable families apart. I am pretty sure no hetereosexual couple has to take that into account when starting a family.

It also illustrates that gay couples wishing to start a family are told to wait until the majority decides its okay, which is an indeterminate amount of time. Another point as to why reform through legislation-only is ludicrous.

Finally, no offense to Albanian but it is embarrassing that the United States is falling behind Albanian in the civil rights department.

Same Sex Marriage Redux

Just a little update on gay marriage and the question of whether we want change by judicial fiat or by majority vote.

I believe my earlier position has gotten some vindication by the fact that the Vermont legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Jim Douglas’s veto of a bill allowing gay couples to marry. That step makes Vermont the first state to allow same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of a court ruling.

Waiting in the wings, however, are New York, New Jersey, Maine and New Hampshire, where proposals to permit gay marriage have gained legislative support in recent months.

Now, the Freakonomics people report that polling guru Nate Silver has built a regression model, based on demographic and political trends, to forecast when a majority of the voting public in each of the 50 states might vote against a gay-marriage ban, or vote to repeal an existing one. His findings (Will Iowans Uphold Gay Marriage?) show that by 2016, most states will have legalized gay marriage, with Mississippi alone holding on until 2024. He predicts legalized gay marriage in Pennsylvania by 2012. If we can trust this forecasting, gay marriage may be inevitable.

There are two problems with letting the judiciary be the engine of change, rather than the rabble. The first is an abstract one: it does violence to our quaint notion that we have a government by the people. The second is more practical: judicial activism frequently results in creating the unintended consequence of a backlash from folks who might have agreed with you but just resent being told what to do.

The reason people will come around to allowing same-sex marriage is the reason James stated earlier: there is absolutely no good reason to oppose it. I happened to run across this sermon – maybe a lot of you already knew about it – from Fr. Geoffrey Farrow, a chaplain at University of California Fresno, which was delivered on October 5, 2008, opposing Prop 8. The whole thing is worth reading. See Geoffrey Farrow's last homily. I share part of it:

[In directing the faithful to vote yes on proposition 8], the bishops are asking gay and lesbian people to live their lives alone. Why? Who does this benefit? How exactly is society helped by singling out a minority and excluding them from the union of love and life, which is marriage? How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives? What is accomplished by this? Worse still, is to intimidate a gay or lesbian person into a heterosexual marriage, which is doomed from its inception, and makes two victims instead of one by this hurtful “theology.” This “theology,” which is parroted by clerics in polished tones from pulpits, produces the very prejudice and hatred in our society which they claim to abhor. . . .

There is an expression in theology: “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” If your son or daughter is gay or lesbian, let them know that you love them unconditionally. Let them know that you are not ashamed or embarrassed by them. Guide them as you would your other children to finding true and abiding love. Let them know that marriage is a union of love and life and is possible for them too.

Of course, Fr. Farrow was immediately suspended as a priest.

“It is better to die excommunicated, than to violate one’s conscience.” -St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate