by Patrick B. Craine
Archbishop Charles Chaput
DENVER, Colorado, April 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Laws permitting same-sex civil unions are directly aimed at legitimizing homosexual behavior, not advancing human rights, wrote Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver this week.
“The civil unions debate is not about ensuring the basic rights of homosexual persons,” the archbishop wrote in his latest column for the Denver Catholic Register. “The civil unions debate is finally about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience.”
The Colorado Senate had passed a bill creating civil unions for the unmarried, including homosexuals. But the House Judiciary Committee tabled it last week, meaning it’s dead for this legislative session. The vote was 6-5 along party lines, with Republicans voting against the bill.
The archbishop praised the committee members who opposed the bill for their “courage” despite “unfriendly media coverage and heavy political pressure.” He urged supporters to thank them and offered contact information.
“Same-sex unions, whatever legal form they take, cannot create new life. They cannot duplicate the love of a man and woman,” he wrote. “But they do copy marriage and family, and in the process, they compete with and diminish the uniquely important status of both.”
The prelate noted that allowing same-sex civil unions only heightens pressure for homosexual “marriage,” which Colorado voters rejected in 2006 along with domestic partnerships. “In every state where civil unions have become law, the political pressure for ‘gay marriage’ has not declined; it has increased,” he wrote.
The drawn-out battle in California over Proposition 8, which enshrined true marriage in the state’s Constitution, shows that in the struggle over marriage “the ‘will of the people’ is rarely sovereign,” he said. “On the contrary: The mass media, the courts and aggressive special interests treat an annoying popular vote as not much more than modeling clay that needs to be reworked.”
He warned that homosexual activists will continue to press for legal recognition. “Coloradans who want to ensure and protect the privileged status of marriage need to remain actively engaged in the discussion,” he said.
Find Archbishop Chaput’s column here.
House Judiciary Committee members who opposed the civil unions bill:
Representative Bob Gardner, Chair
HD 21 R
Phone: 303-866-2191
E-mail: bob.gardner.house@state.co.us
Representative Mark Barker - Vice Chair
HD 17 R
Phone: 303-866-3069
E-mail: mark.barker.house@state.co.us
Representative Brian DelGrosso
HD 51 R
Phone: 303-866-2947
E-mail: brian@briandelgrosso.com
Representative B.J. Nikkel
HD 49 R
Phone: 303-866-2907
E-mail: rep.nikkel@gmail.com
Representative Jerry Sonnenberg
HD 65 R
Phone: 303-866-3706
E-mail: jerry@repsonnenberg.com
Representative Mark Waller
HD 15 R
Phone: 303-866-5525
E-mail: mark.waller.house@state.co.us
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