Scumbags In vatican Launching A Campaign Against Gay Marriages

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

---------------

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.''