SSM10-08

Celebrating 35 Years of Ministry in the LGBT Catholic Community!

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September 25, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For further information, contact:
Francis DeBernardo, 301-277-5674 (office)

Catholic Voters Urged to Protect
Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Statement of Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director, New Ways Ministry

     New Ways Ministry urges all Catholic voters to oppose any electoral measures which attempt to ban same-sex marriage laws.

     Such measures are on the ballot in the Fall of 2008 in California, Florida, and Arizona. Some Catholic organizations, including the Catholic bishops of each of these states, will be encouraging church-goers to support such measures. We disagree.

     New Ways Ministry views the legalization of same-sex marriage as a matter of equal justice, not as a matter of sexual ethics. We believe it is important for the greater common good to protect the rights of couples in ALL adult, committed relationships based on the values of caring, compassion, love, mutuality, respect, and justice. Such Catholic values are more important than gender.

     New Ways Ministry finds the notion that heterosexual marriage will be devalued and harmed if same-sex marriages are approved to be illogical and blind to empirical evidence. Problems with the traditional nuclear family as an institution began decades before the notion of same-sex marriage was raised as a political reality. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples skyrocketed many years before legislation to approve same-sex marriage was discussed. For centuries same-sex marriage has not been legal, and yet such a legal absence has had no positive effect on heterosexual marriages.

     Instead of scapegoating same-sex marriage as causing the decline of the family and heterosexual unions, religious leaders should examine the economic, social, and cultural changes that have recently occurred to find the real causes of problems to these institutions. Only by finding the real causes will these leaders be able to start addressing real solutions.

     We call on all Catholics to examine the social justice tradition of our Church—a tradition which values the freedom of conscience, the dignity of all human beings, and the protection of the common good—and to learn how these traditions have long been applied by Catholic leaders and thinkers to the protection of lesbian/gay people and their rights.

     Catholic teaching on sexuality is not the basis of secular law when it comes to divorce or birth control. It should not be the basis of law when it comes to same-sex marriage, either.

     New Ways Ministry is a 31-year-old national Catholic ministry of justice and reconciliation for lesbian/gay Catholics and the wider Church community. For more information, call (301) 277-5674.

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