USCCB: ‘confusion and error triumph’ in court decisions on same-sex marriage

December 24, 2013

Following recent court decisions striking down Utah’s marriage law and compelling New Mexico to issue same-sex marriage licenses, the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage said that “confusion and error triumph.”

“In a visit to the United States of America, Pope John Paul II – who will be canonized by Pope Francis – declared, ‘Vast sectors of society are confused about what is right and what is wrong, and are at the mercy of those with the power to “create” opinion and impose it on others,’” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. “Both the New Mexico Supreme Court and the Federal Court in Utah imposed a wrong decision about the meaning of marriage onto the people of their respective states.”

Archbishop Cordileone added:

We must start off with the right question. It is not, ‘Is there a government interest in not recognizing alternative types of relationships as marriage?’, but rather, ‘Is there a public interest in societal recognition and regulation of the only kind of relationship that brings children into the world?’ Every human society in history has recognized that there is. By losing sight of this fundamental reality, confusion and error triumph.

 

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Further information:

• USCCB Subcommittee Chair Responds To Recent Court Decisions (USCCB)
• Same-sex marriage becomes legal in New Mexico following court decision (CWN, 12/23)