Carla Marinucci, writing for SFGate, reports: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took the lead this week in a high-profile lobbying effort to pressure San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone not to attend the controversial March for Marriage event, which she characterized as "venom masquerading as virtue." Pelosi, who is one of the country's most powerful Catholic politicians, made a passionate appeal to the archbishop in a letter obtained by The Chronicle not to participate in the National Organization for Marriage's June 19 march on the Supreme Court in Washington. Cordileone, who is one of the featured speakers at the event, was a leader in the campaign for Proposition 8, the 2008 California anti-gay-marriage initiative.
"We share our love of the Catholic faith and our city
of San Francisco," Pelosi wrote to Cordileone, who, as head of the
560,000-member Archdiocese of San Francisco, has become the Catholic bishops'
point man against gay marriage. She urged him to abandon an event in which some
of the participants show "disdain and hate towards LGBT persons.
Invoking the words of Pope Francis with regard to gays and
lesbians, she wrote, "If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and
has good will, then who am I to judge him?"
The goal of the second annual March for Marriage is to draw
thousands of supporters of what they call "traditional marriage" to
walk from the U.S Capitol to the Supreme Court. Conservative former
presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, as well as Cordileone,
are being billed as the star speakers.
The San Francisco Democratic leader is the most influential
in a parade of public figures who have come forward to protest the San
Francisco archbishop's participation in an event that is also backed by the
Family Research Council. Critics have called the organizers "hate
groups" that are targeting gays and lesbians.
Last week, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom, along with a host of Bay Area religious leaders, sent a joint letter to
Cordileone protesting his plans to attend the march.
Some 20,000 people have signed an online petition by
Faithful America demanding that the archbishop cancel his appearance.
The event comes at a time when same-sex marriage is
increasingly common and polls show that public opinion - once widely opposed -
has dramatically shifted in recent years. The most recent Gallup poll shows
public support for gay marriage at 55 percent, an all-time high.
Cordileone has nevertheless become a national leader in the
religious movement against gay marriage. He heads the Subcommittee for the
Promotion and Defense of Marriage for the politically powerful U.S. Conference
of Bishops and was instrumental in raising $1.5 million to get Prop. 8, which
banned same-sex marriage, on the California ballot in 2008.
The measure has since been ruled unconstitutional, allowing
same-sex marriages to be performed in California.
But Cordileone has remained outspoken in his opposition to
gay marriage, saying, "The ultimate attack of the evil one is the attack
on marriage."
Public officials, including Pelosi, have expressed respect
for the archbishop's religious views, but have taken particular issue with the
organizations sponsoring and participating in the event.
The Family Research Council has been labeled an antigay hate
group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It "blamed gay marriage for the
recent shootings at Isla Vista," the Faithful America petition notes.
Their protest characterized the event as "organized by
some of the nation's most virulently anti-LGBT organizations and leaders."
Pelosi, in her letter, told Cordileone, "While we may
disagree on the subject of marriage equality, we do agree that every person is
a child of God, possessed of the spark of divinity and worthy of respect."
Cordileone has publicly defended next week's March for
Marriage as "an important means to promote and defend marriage for the
good of our culture, to pray for our federal and state governments, and to
stand in solidarity with people of good will."
In a letter defending the event, he said, "This is a
critical time for marriage in our country, as marriage amendments are being
struck down by federal courts and appeals of these decisions are being
made."
Since a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in support of
same-sex couples, gay marriage has been declared legal in 19 states and the
District of Columbia.
Pelosi is living proof that sin nmakes one stupid. Having engaged for many years in sinful
dissent from the Church's teaching, she an no longer discern the truth which
has been recvealed by Jesus Christ and authoritatively interpreted by the
Church's Magisterium.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its
Instruction entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal
Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons," has this to say in nos.
2-4:
"The Church's teaching on marriage and on the
complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason
and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not
just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator
with its own nature, essential properties and purpose. No ideology can erase
from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man
and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves,
tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect
each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of
new human lives.
The natural truth about marriage was confirmed by the
Revelation contained in the biblical accounts of creation, an expression also
of the original human wisdom, in which the voice of nature itself is heard.
There are three fundamental elements of the Creator's plan for marriage, as
narrated in the Book of Genesis.
In the first place, man, the image of God, was created
"male and female" (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as persons and
complementary as male and female. Sexuality is something that pertains to the
physical-biological realm and has also been raised to a new level — the
personal level — where nature and spirit are united.
Marriage is instituted by the Creator as a form of life in
which a communion of persons is realized involving the use of the sexual
faculty. "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his
wife and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24).
Third, God has willed to give the union of man and woman a
special participation in his work of creation. Thus, he blessed the man and the
woman with the words "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:28).
Therefore, in the Creator's plan, sexual complementarity and fruitfulness
belong to the very nature of marriage.
Furthermore, the marital union of man and woman has been
elevated by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament. The Church teaches that
Christian marriage is an efficacious sign of the covenant between Christ and
the Church (cf. Eph 5:32). This Christian meaning of marriage, far from
diminishing the profoundly human value of the marital union between man and
woman, confirms and strengthens it (cf. Mt 19:3-12; Mk 10:6-9).
There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual
unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for
marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the
natural moral law. Homosexual acts "close the sexual act to the gift of
life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.
Under no circumstances can they be approved."
And in an Instruction entitled "Some Considerations
Concerning The Response To Legislative Proposals On The Non-Discrimination Of
Homosexual Persons," issued on July 22, 1992, the CDF had this to say:
"'Sexual orientation' does not constitute a quality comparable to race,
ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these,
homosexual orientation is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern."
(No. 10). And again: "Including 'homosexual orientation' among the
considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily
lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for
example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment
in hiring practices. This is all the more deleterious since there is no right
to homosexuality which therefore should not form the basis for judicial claims.
The passage from the recognition of homosexuality as a factor on which basis it
is illegal to discriminate can easily lead, if not automatically, to the
legislative protection and promotion of homosexuality. A person's homosexuality
would be invoked in opposition to alleged discrimination, and thus the exercise
of rights would be defended precisely via the affirmation of the homosexual
condition instead of in terms of a violation of basic human rights." (No.
13).
