Abp. Charles Chaput: Civil unions not about love, equality; they are doorways to "gay marriage"

From Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's most recent column, "Voice your support for marriage and thank these lawmakers" (April 4, 2011) on the Archdiocese of Denver website:

Christians believe in the dignity of all human life, without exception.  But the civil unions debate is not about ensuring the basic rights of homosexual persons. Those rights are already guaranteed under law. Nor is it finally about love or personal equality. Civil unions ensure neither of these any better than marriage does.

The civil unions debate is finally about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience—and that a great many people see as morally troubling, not because they are "haters" or "frightened" or "bigots" or "uneducated"—that kind of language is the real bigotry in this debate—but because they've carefully thought through the implications for society at large.

Senate Bill 172, quite shrewdly, did not limit its definition of "civil unions" to same-sex couples. But same-sex couples would inevitably be the main beneficiaries—as was obvious even at the committee hearings. It's also worth noting that in every state where civil unions have become law, the political pressure for "gay marriage" has not declined; it has increased. Same-sex unions, whatever legal form they take, cannot create new life. They cannot duplicate the love of a man and woman. But they do copy marriage and family, and in the process, they compete with and diminish the uniquely important status of both.

Read the entire column.