The Family Research Council reports:
This week, Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter to President Obama asking his administration to "end its campaign against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), the institution of marriage it protects and religious freedom." The New York-based Archbishop, speaking on behalf of his brother Catholic Bishops, praised Obama for his Presidential declarations on both Mother's Day and Father's Day, yet pointed out the inherent hypocrisy of the Obama administration's other actions, which seek to diminish the truth that "every child has the right to be loved by both a mother and a father." The letter to the President included detailed documentation of the administration's assault on marriage and related religious liberty issues. It is well worth the read.
Me: Those of us who aren't Roman Catholics readily join Archbishoop Dolan in seeking to persuade the Obama administration to cease its attacks on marriage. The appended detailed analysis of administration policies included these concerns:
In particular, the Administration‟s efforts to change the law—in all three branches of the federal government—so that support for authentic marriage is treated as an instance of “sexual orientation discrimination,” will threaten to spawn a wide range of legal sanctions against individuals and institutions within the Catholic community, and in many others as well. Based on the experience of religious entities under some state and local governments already, we would expect that, if the Administration succeeds, we would face lawsuits for supposed “discrimination” in all the areas where the Church operates in service to the common good, and where civil rights laws apply—such as employment, housing, education, and adoption services, to name just a few.
Even if religious entities prevail in such cases, we will face an additional layer of government punishments, such as the cessation of long-standing and successful contracts for the provision of social services, and other forms of withdrawn government cooperation. Society will suffer when religious entities are compelled to remove themselves from the social service network due to their duty to maintain their institutional integrity and not compromise on basic moral principles.
Thus, the comprehensive efforts of the federal government—using its formidable moral, economic, and coercive power—to enforce its new legal definition of “marriage” against a resistant Church would, if not reversed, precipitate a systemic national conflict between Church and State, harming both institutions, as well as our Nation as a whole.