Word: gayness
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When America's Catholic bishops gather next week in Baltimore for a four-day conference, they will hear an update on the Catholic Church's ongoing fight to convince the country that marriage as an institution should never include gay couples, and they'll get a sneak peek at how that fight will be waged in the coming year. Videos aimed at priests and deacons are being produced in English and Spanish to give the pastors better tools to reach their parishioners, especially young people, whom the church fears need reminding about its basic teachings on marriage, love...
...Baltimore, the church's continuing opposition to gay marriage will be part of a discussion by the bishops as they finish a formal letter on "married love" and reproduction, a document that will also spell out its position against abortion and in vitro fertilization. A draft of the document makes the case that marriage has been under assault for decades by secularists, feminists and others who see it as a social construction easily morphed into new shapes or ignored altogether. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, who leads the U.S. church's efforts to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage, was encouraged...
Today it is much too easy to conflate the awarding of rights to gay Americans with a government takeover of religious institutions. One fundamental problem is that our laws employ the religious term “marriage” to define what should be solely a legal concept. From Uncle Sam’s perspective, a union of individuals—gay or straight—should be treated as strictly part of the legal apparatus, and not related to a religious ceremony. If we can divorce religious terminology from our legal system, we can afford gay Americans equal rights?...
...individuals should be recognized as only a civil union, not a marriage, under the law. To use the term “marriage” equates a legal union with a religious one. This skews the debate over same-sex marriage for those who may not be opposed to gay unions but believe in a strict biblical definition of the word marriage. To remedy this, gay and straight couples could be treated as equals under the law in that both could receive a civil union, which has no religious implications...
...potential to separate questions of legal equality from religion. A more clear division will also help to ensure that the status of equality for all Americans is not dictated by religious sensibilities, but rather by civil rights. This simple solution could eliminate some of the current anger surrounding the gay marriage discussion...