N.J. bishops target same-sex unions - NJ.com

so here we go again the Catholic church puts its two sense in What happened to separation of church and state?

N.J. bishops target same-sex unions - NJ.com

N.J. bishops target same-sex unions
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Jeff Diamant
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

Catholic bishops in New Jersey have begun a campaign against same-sex marriage in anticipation of a possible vote on the issue by state legislators sometime after the November election.

The bishops directed Catholic priests throughout the state to distribute in parish bulletins last Sunday a 2,300-word letter opposing same-sex marriage. The priests are also expected to speak about the issue from the altar after Labor Day.
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"The Catholic Church teaches today and has always and everywhere taught for 2,000 years that marriage is the union of one man and one woman," the letter reads. "This great truth about marriage is not some obscure doctrinal fine point but a fact of human nature, recognized from time immemorial by people of virtually every faith and culture."

Official Catholic teachings against same-sex marriage are widely known, although polls indicate U.S. Catholics don't collectively heed church teachings. In a Washington Post/ABC poll this spring, 46 percent of white Catholics favored legalizing same-sex marriage, compared with 49 percent of the general population.

The official Catholic teaching "needs to be reinforced often," said the Rev. Marc Vicari, vicar for family life in the Newark Archdiocese, explaining why the state's bishops are pressing the issue for at least the third time in the last two years. "I don't think people understand what marriage is from a Catholic perspective -- even some Catholics who are getting married."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has supported past efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

The letter distributed last Sunday mentions Vatican writings and a verse straight from the catechism of the Catholic Church, a text that spells out official Catholic teachings.

The bishops reason that, given that God "bestowed" the gift of marriage on humanity, "governments, therefore, have a duty to reinforce and protect this permanent institution and to pass it on to future generations, rather than attempt to redefine it arbitrarily for transitory political or social reasons."

The document, signed by bishops of the dioceses of Newark, Metuchen, Trenton, Paterson and Camden, and by the Byzantine bishop of the eparchy of Passaic, takes a less critical view of civil unions -- legal arrangements designed to grant same-sex couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples -- that are legal in New Jersey .

"Same-sex civil unions may represent a new and a different type of institution, one in which government grants to same-sex couples benefits and protections, but same sex unions are not marriage," the bishops' letter says.

The document's language complies with church teachings against gay sex, said James Goodness, a spokesman for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.

"Certainly the church does not approve of sex outside of marriage," he said.

Not all Christian religious leaders in the state agree with the Catholic bishops. Mark Beckwith, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, has vocally supported same-sex marriage for several years.

"From my faith perspective, we need to do all that we can to support lifelong relationships that are marked by commitment and fidelity and to bless the gift of people who have discovered love with each other," Beckwith said yesterday.