Before the Supreme Court rulings on two marriage equality cases expected in June, American Catholic Bishops are urging Catholics to pray, fast and sacrifice “for life, marriage, and religious liberty,” warning that these cases are the “Roe. v. Wade of marriage.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has prepared a nationwide insert for Catholic Church bulletins entitled, “Marriage and the Supreme Court,” to be used in May and June. The USCCB represents an exhaustive list of Catholic Church officials including 19 American Cardinals and 454 Bishops along with 195 archdioceses and dioceses. The Bishops warn that a “broad negative ruling” from the Supreme Court could “redefine marriage in the law throughout the entire country, becoming the ‘Roe v. Wade’ of marriage” [their emphasis].
The publication clearly defines marriage as “the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman.” It also makes a point to stipulate that “everyone has inviolable dignity and deserves love and respect,” but then continues on to say “redefining marriage serves no one’s rights, least of all those of children.”
The Bishops argue that marriage equality erases the idea of gender in a family, asserting that mothers and fathers “aren’t interchangeable.” The USCCB insists that protecting traditional marriage is “pro-woman, pro-man, (and) pro-child. Redefining marriage in the law says many false things: women – mothers – are dispensable; men – fathers – are dispensable; what adults want trumps what a child deserves and has a basic right to.”
The USCCB has created a special website on this issue called, “Marriage: Unique for a Reason.” In a post on that site, the Bishops promise to deliver “a set of ‘lead messages’ on marriage redefinition” in a later blog post to accompany this bulletin insert.
Nick Ramsey
Nick Ramsey is a senior producer with MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”