Scumbags In vatican Launching A Campaign Against Gay Marriages

Here is another article, about the vatican's campaign against gay marriages. 

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VATICAN CITY (July 31) - The Vatican urged Catholics and non-Catholics alike 
Thursday to unite in campaigning against gay marriages and gay adoptions, 
seeking to stem the widening legal recognition of same-sex unions and the 
increasing acceptance of homosexual lifestyles.

Catholic politicians have a ``moral duty'' to oppose laws granting legal 
rights to gay couples, and non-Catholics should follow their lead since the issue 
concerns ``natural moral law'' and not just Roman Catholic teaching, said the 
Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 
in its latest effort to rally public opinion on the issue.

The 12-page document, which was issued in seven languages, was immediately 
criticized by gay groups across North America and Europe, where politicians - 
including some conservatives - are increasingly granting homosexual couples the 
same legal status as heterosexual couples.

``This new document is intended to intimidate public officials across the 
globe into doing what the Vatican has not been able to do on its own - stem the 
growing tide for justice,'' said Marianne Duddy, executive director of Dignity 
USA, an organization of gay Catholics. ``It is a tremendous shame that the 
leaders of our Church are becoming the vocal proponents for intolerance and 
continuing discrimination.''

But the document was welcomed by some conservatives and the clergy, including 
those in Pope John Paul II's native Poland, where Roman Catholic bishops read 
out excerpts of the text at a press conference to condemn a proposal by 
leftist lawmakers to legalize homosexual unions.

``The idea is immoral and hurting to families and marriages,'' said Bishop 
Stanislaw Stefanek. ``We strongly object to it.''

The document, ``Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition 
to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,'' sets out a battle plan for politicians 
confronted with legislation legalizing same-sex unions and also rails against 
gay adoption, saying children raised by same-sex parents face developmental 
``obstacles'' because they are deprived of having either a mother or a father.

``Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would 
actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition 
of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not 
conducive to their full human development,'' it said.

The document says Catholic politicians must vote against laws granting 
recognition to homosexual unions. If the laws are already on the books, politicians 
must speak out against them, work to repeal them and try to limit their impact 
on society.

``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,'' the document said.

``To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely 
immoral,'' it added, although it didn't provide for specific penalties for Catholics 
who fail to oppose such laws.

It wasn't clear what impact, if any, the new document would have on Catholic 
lawmakers grappling with demands from gay groups for equality in issues such 
as inheritance rights and being allowed to make health care decisions for 
incapacitated partners.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who is Catholic, has supported a 
proposed law that would conform to court rulings in defining marriage as a union 
between two people, rather than a man and a woman.

``As prime minister of Canada, he has the moral responsibility to protect the 
equality of Canadians,'' a spokesman, Thoren Hudyma, told the Globe and Mail 
newspaper in explaining that Chretien's duty was to the public, not his 
Church.

In June, an appeals court in Ontario ruled that Canada's definition of 
marriage as only between a man and a woman was unconstitutional, paving the way for 
legalized gay unions there.

The U.S. state of Vermont has a ``civil union'' law, giving same-sex couples 
the rights and responsibilities of traditional marriages, and the highest 
court in another state, Massachusetts, is weighing whether to legalize such 
unions.

In reaction, some Republican lawmakers in Washington are calling for a 
constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages nationwide, despite recent 
polls showing that opposition to gay marriage had diminished in recent years.

On Wednesday, U.S. President George W. Bush weighed in on the issue, telling 
a press conference that marriage was defined strictly as a union between a man 
and a woman and that he wants to ``codify that one way or the other.'' 
Government lawyers are exploring measures to enshrine it into law, the White House 
said.

Over the past two years, the Netherlands and Belgium extended marriages 
rights to all couples, no matter the partners' gender. Germany, France, Sweden and 
Denmark also have ``civil union'' laws.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, the proposals were backed by conservative 
Christian Democrat parties, which stressed Thursday that they respected the 
Vatican's viewpoint but had decided that its teaching on the issue wasn't 
appropriate.

``It's the Vatican's good right to make statements like this, but here in the 
Netherlands, we have separation of church and state,'' said Kathleen Ferrier, 
a spokeswoman for the largest Dutch conservative party, the Christian 
Democrats.

In Belgium, where three-quarters of the population is Roman Catholic, the 
Flemish Christian Democrats who voted in favor of the law said the issue boiled 
down to supporting all kinds of families.

``For us, what's important is sustained relationships,'' said Luk Vanmaercke, 
a party spokesman. ``We do not want to exclude gay couples from sustained 
relationships. On the contrary, we want to encourage them to take that 
responsibility too.'' 


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