Scottish Archbishop Expects Government To Cater To Church’s Opposition To Marriage Equality

Archbishop Mario Conti

Not expecting to be outdone by the many other bishops who’ve attacked same-sex couples already this month, Scottish Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti penned a letter this week to the Catholic journal The Tablet expressing his own opposition to marriage equality. In fact, he believes the Catholic Church’s stance must “surely be worthy of consideration” by the government because it helps “promote the moral well-being of society.” Here’s how Conti framed that position:

While it is true, certainly within Catholic social teaching, that governments are not required to make all immoral actions illegal, to many it is unhelpful, unnecessary and indeed profoundly unwise for political action to do quite the opposite, namely to attempt through the law, by equating homosexual unions with heterosexual marriage, to render moral what is in itself morally defective.

So far in 2013, members of the Catholic hierarchy have already referred to same-sex marriage as “morally defective” and an “immoral activity,” and claimed that gay people don’t really exist, but if they claim to, then God obliges them to a life of chastity. And Conti’s implication here isn’t just that he wants to prevent same-sex marriage, but that his preference would be to make homosexuality itself “illegal.”

Combined with Pope Benedict’s multiple malignant statements in December, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has established itself as the archenemy of loving same-sex families in 2013. These religious leaders provide no argument against marriage equality except their own moral judgment, but then expect the governments of the world to cater to their whims when even their own followers largely do not agree. They imagine a universe where there is no such thing as gay people or same-sex marriage, but with each passing day that false reality becomes more delusional.

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