The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to the United States House of Representatives expressing displeasure with H.R. 8404, the “Respect for Marriage Act.”
And now, the Iowa Catholic Conference is encouraging people to contact their senators in opposition to H.R. 8404.
The letter from the bishops said that people who experience same-sex attraction should be treated with the same respect and compassion as anyone. And they should never be subject to “unjust discrimination.”
“It was never discrimination, however, to simply maintain that an inherent aspect of the definition of marriage itself is the complementarity between the two sexes,” the letter states. “This corresponds with Pope Francis’s recognizing children’s right to a mother and a father.”
Archbishop Kurtz, the USCCB president at the time of Obergefell, said the law has a “duty” to support every child’s “basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home.”
“Same-sex civil marriage has further diminished that fulfillment of that right, both directly and indirectly as — like contraception — it disassociates marriage and sexual actions from the responsibilities of childbearing,” the letter states. “This, in turn, reinforces existing negative dynamics in our society that have already done so much damage, such as with respect to fatherlessness.
“The ‘Respect for Marriage Act,’ would do the opposite of what its name implies, codifying a demand for states and the federal government to honor whatever may be deemed ‘marriage’ by any other state. In the case of the latter, in section 4 of the bill, there is a question whether it would even be limited to two persons. We therefore must ask you to vote no on this measure as well.”
The letter was signed by the Archbishop of San Francisco, Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, and the Archbishop of Baltimore, Most Rev. William Lori.
The bill has passed the House and there is a real chance the bill will become law. You can find out additional information here as well as a sample message.
