Washington D.C., Jun 29, 2011 / 23:13 pm
The New York legislature’s recognition of same-sex “marriages” undermines the common good and will place officials in a position to “retaliate” against those who uphold basic truths about marriage, the U.S. bishops’ point man on the defense of marriage said.
“Making marriage law indifferent to the absence of either sex creates an institutional and cultural crisis with generational ramifications yet to be seen,” Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland said on June 28.
“To eliminate marriage’s very essence – its essence as the union of husband and wife – from its legal definition is to ignore not only basic anthropology and biology but also the purpose of law generally.”
Law is meant to uphold the common good, not undermine it, stated Bishop Cordileone, who heads the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.
He pointed to children as one group that will suffer the consequences of the vote, since their “basic right” to be raised by their mother and father ignored by the state.