Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Archbishop Niederauer and the Reaction to the Passing of Proposition 8

An excerpt from His Excellency's column of this week:

"Proposition 8 on November’s ballot added fourteen words to the Constitution of the State of California: 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.' In the weeks since the adoption of this amendment the media have carried many speculations about the role of the Catholic bishops in California, and about my role in particular, in the passage of this proposition."

The full column can be read here.

2 comments:

Kingfisher said...

Thank you for posting this. I particularly loved this excerpt from the Archbishop's reaction:

"Indeed, to insist that citizens be silent about their religious beliefs when they are participating in the public square is to go against the constant American political tradition. Such a gag order would have silenced many abolitionists in the nineteenth century and many civil rights advocates in the twentieth. Quite a number of important political issues regularly touch upon the ethical, moral, and religious convictions of citizens: immigration policy, the death penalty, torture of prisoners, abortion, euthanasia, and the right to health care are some such issues."

Too often lately we are told that religious convictions are not valid points with which to argue an issue. This astounds me - especially considering the fact that the issue we are debating is a moral one.

Anonymous said...

You know, I think one of the most beautiful things of this election for me was the sifting that happened among the voters. So many of us got together irrespective of creed, religion, sex or color and fought tooth and nail for families.

I am so thankful this marriage amendment in California passed, and for the wide based support it found among the hearts of so many.

Our critics are fierce, that’s for sure. I’ve been blogging about the marriage issue in all it’s facets since October, I’m just a newbie to the issue, but boy is it interesting seeing how we got ourselves in this mess, and how homosexuality has crept up while we were looking the other way.

Amazing.

http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/religious_freedom/