Marriage amendment misguided
At the risk of our good standing as well as being dismissed as perennial critics, we must in good conscience speak up against the proposed use of our churches and pulpits to lobby politically for a constitutional amendment to define marriage. Surely the better part of our lives’ ministry work and energy in promoting and building strong marriages and families has amply shown our commitment to these values.
This proposal, however, does not really help build good marriages and furthermore, given the Church’s recent history of its handling of gender and sexuality related issues, it could provoke an understandable and undesirable backlash.
Catholics do not need law to proscribe or protect marriage and there is no justification for defining it for others. Our marriage and good marriages in general are not threatened in any real way by the alternative choices of others. On the other hand, our society needs all the encouragement of committed relationship it can find.
This proposal is neither about loving God nor our neighbor but an unfortunately misguided, defensive reaction, and manipulation by narrow political interests. Constitutions are amended to protect rights, not to delineate them. This proposed approach is contrary to basic democratic concepts and the separation of church and state. Further, to use the power of our pulpits for an ideological purpose when real injustices, such as arbitrary detentions and deportation of stable families, are destroying marriages under our very noses is . . . well, just wrong.
We cannot support such an effort and urge others likewise, and further; respectfully request our bishops to reconsider this idea.
Arlene and Richard Sroczynski
Piscataway
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law