Friday October 23, 2020
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 23, 2020
Pope Francis should have a talk with Amy Coney Barrett about same-sex marriage
Pope Francis’s call for civil unions for same-sex couples is a welcome departure from the Roman Catholic Church’s long reluctance to embrace everyone as children of God regardless of their sexual orientation.
September 21, 2013
The pope’s remarks in the documentary “Francesco” reverberated everywhere as a major contradiction to the Vatican’s stance that marriage is between a man and a woman.
“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” the pope said in the documentary aired this week, in which he emphasized his views that gay people are children of God.
The puritans within the Catholic Church immediately asked for clarification, though Pope Francis was pretty clear that the marriage of gay people should be recognized under the law.
October 9, 2014
What Francis didn’t say is whether the Vatican will finally recognize and embrace gay people’s marriage just as it does with the union between a man and woman. That would be revolutionary.
It’s thrilling to hear the pope open his arms to everyone as children of God and lending support for same-sex couple civil unions.
It isn’t enough to settle the conflicting views of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics who look to the Vatican for guidance over morality, which they in turn use to sponsor, promote or oppose laws governing us here on earth.
October 3, 2013
But it is an important statement at a moment when many people in America are genuinely worried about the future of gay marriage and LGBTQ rights when the ultimate arbiter – the U.S. Supreme Court – will soon be packed with conservatives.
Those conservatives on the high court – and especially Amy Coney Barrett, the Catholic judge soon to be confirmed to the Supreme Court – should heed the pope’s advice.
After all, it’s what America wants.
Most Americans – 70% – support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marrylegally, according to the American Values Survey released this week. Twenty-eight percent oppose it.
Democrats and independents overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage, 80% to 76% respectively, while 50% of Republicans support it, the survey showed.
That tells me same-sex marriage has a good chance of remaining the law of the land. But just in case, Pope Francis should invite Amy Coney Barrett to the Vatican for a chat.
Good Catholics listen to the pope, right? (Arizona Republic)
By Graeme MacKay, the Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, October 9, 2014
