USCCB decries Obama administration’s refusal to defend marriage law
February 24, 2011
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a statement lamenting the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
“Marriage has been understood for millennia and across cultures as the union of one man and one woman,” said Anthony R. Picarello, Jr., USCCB general counsel. “Today, the President has instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law reiterating that definition of marriage, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic President just fifteen years ago. The principal basis for today’s decision is that the President considers the law a form of impermissible sexual orientation discrimination.”
Picarello also said that decision is “serious threat to religious liberty”:
This decision represents an abdication of the responsibility of the Executive Branch to carry out its constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed. It is also a grave affront to the millions of Americans who both reject unjust discrimination and affirm the unique and inestimable value of marriage as between one man and one woman. Support for actual marriage is not bigotry, but instead an eminently reasonable, common judgment affirming the foundational institution of civil society. Any suggestion by the government that such a judgment represents ‘discrimination’ is a serious threat to the religious liberty of marriage supporters nationwide.
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Further information:
- USCCB Decries Refusal to Support Defense of Marriage Act (USCCB)
- Obama administration drops defense of traditional marriage (CWN, 2/23)
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Posted by: Defender -
Feb. 25, 2011 12:50 PM ET USA
What we need to try in this country is a Catholic (political) Party, since neither of the current two seem to exactly fit and it is certain that things are not going to get better.
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Posted by: unum -
Feb. 25, 2011 8:07 AM ET USA
So the USCCB is OK with the president's failure to enforce and defend our immigration laws, but upset at his failure to enforce and defend DOMA. That is the "moral clarity" that we have become accustomed to in the statements of the USCCB. I pray that the wannabe politicians in the USCCB will be soon replaced by bishops who understand their responsibility to teach as Jesus did.
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Posted by: Minnesota Mary -
Feb. 24, 2011 6:49 PM ET USA
So the USCCB decries Obama's refusal to defend marriage. The bishops will get over it soon and kiss and make-up with Obama because he embraces so many of their economic issues.
