Eric asked:Why is the Catholic church against gay marriage?Patrick Madrid replied:"The way I approach this subject is to point out that the Catholic church is not intervening with some novel idea or seeing people doing something and coming in and trying to stop that. Rather the Catholic church on this point is saying marriage pre-dates religion. God created marriage all the way back in the garden, with one man and one woman. And so the nature of marriage as an institution that even precedes religion and precedes the Catholic church and Judaism and so forth. It is a natural union between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman. It gives rise to the continuation of the human race obviously homo-sexual unions, or unions of some other combination can not be fruitful, in other words they don't produce children in themselves.So basing it on a natural law argument even before getting to questions of morality the Catholic church is saying this is the definition of marriage as it's always been understood in all places everywhere. It is not really, and that's actually an understatement, the Catholic church's position here is that nobody can decide, well we're going to modify that now and legalize something that is actually, it's never been understood by cultures before this way. So the Church is trying to preserve something rather than go in there and meddle and change something. The Church doesn't want to take any rights away from anybody... I think the issue at stake here is not, once again, that the Catholic church is trying to disrespect anyone or to stop them from believing what they want to believe, but the Catholic church has to be true to itself and I'm sure you Eric would not me to violate my conscience. I'm positive of that. And my conscience even just at the natural level tells me that marriage is between a man and a woman. I can see it in nature. I see the way in which nature itself manifests that. So in conscience I feel compelled to speak my mind and that's what the Catholic church does. We recognize...that we Catholics are not assuming that we can force anyone to do anything. We're simply standing up and advocating what we believe is true...We have the right to speak out and say here are our reasons why we think this is a bad idea. ... One final thought I'll offer... If you're looking at this from the standpoint that the majority of people, if they vote for it, let's say in a given state or even in the country as a whole if there were a plebiscite where everyone voted in an election ... if the majority of people vote that gay marriage should be legal then my guess is that you would say the people have spoken so this is what should happen. But what if the trend went in the other direction? ... what if the majority of people in the state said, no there should not be gay marriage. I wonder if you, and other folks who take the same point of view that you do would, if you would say well the majority has spoken we should just let it rest and move on. My guess is that you would say no. This is something that we feel strongly about and we should continue to make an effort to try and turn people in that direction. The reason I offer this hypothetical scenario ... is because that's precisely what the Catholic church is doing..." Mark's take:One thing I will say in Patrick's argument that falls flat for me is his comment on marriage pre-dating religion and then citing Adam and Eve as the example. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think everyone who isn't religious (or doesn't believe in God) would say Adam and Eve and God are all religious characters. Patrick I'm on your side of the argument, but this doesn't sound like a good defense to me.Not to go off on a tangent here but it's interesting how people who support gay marriage are always quick to say why isn't the Church tolerant and accepting of our beliefs? This is what we want. I respect other people's opinions, as does the Church, but let me ask you why is it that pro gay marriage people can't be tolerant and accepting of Church beliefs? Why is it our rights get usurped in the place of others' rights? It's as if pro gay marriage people are thinking, you know the Catholic church has been around for over 2,000 years now and it's time for this way of thinking to come to an end. We need a new line of thought on this. Uh no, we don't. While it's okay for new ideas, it's not okay to just ignore those who don't agree with them. Pro gay marriage people will say why are you Catholics bigots? I would ask them why the pro gay marriage people are bigots against the Catholic church? This cuts both ways folks. Why are your beliefs suddenly more important than my beliefs just because gay marriage is en vogue in pop culture these days? On a related note, every time I hear about this Freedom from Religion group suing for causes like this I think we need a Freedom from Freedom of Religion group to sue them right back. Another point I hear brought up is well if gay marriage was allowed everywhere how does this hurt you directly? I would say you need to look at the bigger picture. While this doesn't hurt me directly, it will hurt society. A man and a woman come together and through the marital embrace can create a new life. A gay couple will never be able to do that. Sure you can adopt a child, but that isn't anywhere near the same thing. You can't continue the human race if you can't procreate. I don't care how much that "couple" "loves" each other. What happens to society when hetero-sexual people stop producing children? Do we hatch new humans in a lab? At what point does the right to redefine marriage end? There are certain marriages that pro gay marriage people would say no to like a father marrying his son or daughter or a mother marrying her son or daughter I'm sure. As a society we don't allow this. We also don't allow patients in mental institutions to get married. Can I marry a toaster or a computer? I know that there are people who are trying to get laws written supporting multiple people marrying each other. Can we also have laws that allow for government recognition of friendships too while we're at it? At what point does this insanity stop? It seems people who want to marry someone of the same sex are going after the benefits they see opposite sex marriages receiving: health care benefits, Social Security benefits, et cetera. If all they're after are legal benefits, fine but call it something other than marriage. Call it a civil union and leave it at that. It's not a marriage. This is not negotiable in my opinion. The people have spoken time and again in voting down changes to marriage at the state level yet liberal judges across the country continue to ignore the voters and make their own rulings forcing states to accept what the voters don't want. We need to vote these judges out of office at the soonest available opportunity where possible. If Catholics could come together we would be an AMAZINGLY powerful force in this country and could restore it to moral normalcy. Copyrights:© 2012 Immaculate Heart Catholic RadioEditor's note: This is an excerpt of the answer provided. For the complete response download the podcast. |  Click icon for archived podcast answering this question in its entirety. Show air date: November 30, 2012 Question appeared in show: 12:14 |
