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Catholic and Episcopal Leaders on Opposite Sides of Moral Divide over Gay Marriage
Pennsylvania State’s ban on same-sex marriage declared unconstitutional
By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
May 21, 2014
An Episcopal bishop and a Roman Catholic Archbishop were on opposite sides of the moral, spiritual, theological, and political divide when a federal judge in Pennsylvania John E. Jones III declared the state’s ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.
The Rt. Rev. Sean W. Rowe, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and bishop provisional of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, commented, “Today is a joyful day for Pennsylvanians who believe as I do that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry in our state. These couples work hard, raise children, volunteer for good causes and pay taxes. Pennsylvania would be poorer without them, and I am pleased that Judge John E. Jones III has moved them one significant step closer to equality under the law.
“The Episcopal Church has struggled faithfully with the issue of same-sex relationships for more than three decades, and in that struggle most of us have come to understand that same-sex couples and their families are blessings to their communities and to their neighbors and friends. Like opposite-sex couples, their love draws them more clearly into fidelity to one another and service to the world. Like opposite sex couples, they are signs and sacraments allowing us to see the boundless love of God more clearly.”
Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia called it “a mistake with long-term, negative consequences” and urged a quick appeal. Bishop Rowe called same-sex marriage ruling “a step toward justice.”
“We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history,” wrote Judge John E. Jones III of Federal District Court in a decision posted on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Jones, who is based in Harrisburg, Pa., was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002.
“I am aware that faithful Episcopalians in the Dioceses of Bethlehem and Northwestern Pennsylvania disagree with me on this issue. I want to assure them that our dioceses will remain places where people of good conscience can differ charitably and remain united in the hope and healing of Jesus Christ,” wrote Rowe.
“After reflection and consultation, I will write to both dioceses with guidance for clergy who want to officiate at same-sex marriages. For today, I am grateful to live in a state that has taken a step toward justice.”
Pennsylvania is the last of the Northeast states with a ban on same-sex marriage. If Tuesday’s ruling is not successfully challenged, it will become the 19th state to permit gay and lesbian couples to marry.
Judge Jones did not issue a stay, writing, “By virtue of this ruling, same-sex couples who seek to marry in Pennsylvania may do so, and already married same-sex couples will be recognized as such in the Commonwealth.”
Gov. Tom Corbett said he was studying the decision and considering whether to appeal it even as state officials began issuing marriage licenses to overjoyed gay couples on Tuesday afternoon.
Outside City Hall in Philadelphia, several hundred people gathered to celebrate the decision, waving rainbow flags and holding up placards reading “Love Wins.” At the Register of Wills office, which issues marriage licenses, same-sex couples started to arrive shortly after the decision was announced.
Over the last few months, judges have struck down marriage limits in several states: Arkansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and, on Monday, Oregon. Courts elsewhere have said that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed outside their borders.
In most of the cases, courts have delayed the carrying out of the rulings until appeals can be argued in federal circuit courts and, perhaps, the Supreme Court. But state officials in Oregon said they would not appeal, and the opening of marriage to same-sex couples appears to be settled.
The lawsuit in Pennsylvania, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and a private law firm on behalf of 11 couples, a widow and two teenage children of one couple, is one of more than 70 cases that have been filed around the country since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act in June.
A succession of federal judges, now including Judge Jones in Pennsylvania, have instead relied on the Supreme Court’s finding last year that same-sex marriage bans are fueled by animus and inflict stigma on gay and lesbian families.
Sadly, Archbishop Chaput is impotent in the face of this onslaught. He can thank that “Catholic” Anthony Kennedy of The Supremes for this moral travesty.
The homosexual steamroller in America is now so powerful nothing it seems can stop it. Fueled by a bottomless pit of money and political power in Washington, it seems nothing can stop the gay marriage bulldozer. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania joins the Left Coast in this hedonistic and libertine celebration that will, in time, bring about the destruction of traditional marriage, further distort the meaning of family, and, from an Anglican perspective, further alienate Western Anglicanism from the Global South. Nothing good can come from this. Nothing. It will further cement the notion that the Anglican Church in North America was right in forming a separate Anglican province.
This unnatural “marriage” has no ontological or cosmological basis. It defies Scripture, history and, more recently DOMA, which is still the official law of the land. Furthermore, it repudiates the maleness and femaleness established by God in the Torah and affirmed later by Jesus. Rowe is wrong. He is defying 2,000 years of church teaching and Scripture for a false inclusivity and diversity. This is another nail in the coffin of The Episcopal Church as it hurtles towards the abyss.
This judge’s ruling will only increase the growing secularization of the West, further pushing heterosexual marriage onto the ash heap of history.
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