Bishop Cordileone: Obama’s actions on same-sex marriage threaten democracy

March 16, 2011

The Obama administration’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court is “an egregious violation of the separation of powers” that “puts the future prospects of our democracy at stake,” according to Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland.

The bishop-- who leads the US bishops’ ad hoc committee for the defense of marriage-- wrote in a diocesan newspaper column that

it is a curious irony that in this moment of history, when people in a number of countries in the Middle East are agitating for change from dictatorship to democracy, here in our own country, the oldest democracy with a written constitution in the world, there is a movement of the ruling class toward taking more and more power into its own hands. The flashpoint for this movement? The hot-button issue of our day: marriage.

“When the City Council of Washington, DC, passed a local ordinance to allow same-sex ‘marriage,’ the citizens organized to put it to a vote so they could decide for themselves,” the bishop added. “The City Council obstructed them from doing so every step of the way. Bear in mind that the city of Washington has a very large African-American population. Thus … a small group of political elites (almost all of them white), in a claim to expand rights, deny one of the most fundamental rights in a constitutional democracy — the right to vote — to the masses of black citizens.”

 

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Further information:

• Bishop Cordileone: Future prospects of marriage, democracy go hand-in-hand (Catholic Voice)