Tag: Defense of Marriage Act

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Trudi Jenny

Knowing difference between just and unjust laws

To the editor:

What is a just law? In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which had passed in the Senate by a vote of 85-14 and in the House of Representatives by a vote of 342-67.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down a major portion of DOMA, which has led to an onslaught of federal judges striking down DOMA laws in many states, including Wisconsin. Which action was just?

In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a letter from his Birmingham jail cell in which he talked about just and unjust laws. The great civil rights leader quoted from St. Augustine, “an unjust law is no law at all.”

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George Weigel

Continuing to fight for marriage

The Catholic Difference column by George Weigel

Responses from right-minded marriage proponents to the Supreme Court’s June 26 decisions in two cases involving the (re)definition of marriage seemed to come in three waves.

The immediate reaction, influenced no doubt by a partisan press, was that the friends of marriage had suffered a severe, and perhaps lethal, blow when the court first struck down the key provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and then denied standing to those challenging the judicial overturn of California’s “Proposition 8,” an initiative that restored the classic meaning of marriage to California law.

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Patrick Hardyman

Concerned about powers of the U.S. Supreme Court

To the editor:

Thomas Jefferson had some very grave concerns about the powers of the United States Supreme Court. In a letter he wrote in 1820 he voiced his concerns: “You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges . . . and their power [are] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”

In 1962 the Supreme Court removed state-sponsored prayer from public schools (Engel v. Vitale). In 1965 it tossed a law preventing married couples from buying contraceptives by creating a “right to privacy” (Griswold v. Connecticut).

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Call to prayer: For life, marriage, and religious liberty

Besides praying for the cardinals who are electing a new pope, the Catholic bishops of the United States have also called for a nationwide effort to advance a movement for life, marriage, and religious liberty.

In this Year of Faith, the bishops are encouraging Catholics across our nation to pray for rebuilding a culture that is more favorable to life and marriage as well as for increased protections for religious liberty.

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Patrick Hardyman

Think about what it means to be true disciple of Christ

To the editor:

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a series of meditations that became the book On The Way To Jesus Christ. In a chapter titled “Communication and Culture,” our future pope talked about what the Church faces in today’s society. “Ever since the Enlightenment, Western culture has been moving away from its Christian foundations with increasing rapidity. The disintegration of the family and marriage, the escalating attacks on human life and its dignity, the confinement of faith to the realm of the subjective, and the consequent secularization of public awareness, as well as the fragmentation and relativizing of ethical values demonstrate this all too clearly.”

Cardinal Ratzinger was talking to the bishops of Italy but certainly his remarks were intended for all of the Western world, including the United States.

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Patrick Hardyman

We must stand up against efforts to weaken morality

To the editor:

Earlier this year President Barack Obama instructed his Attorney General and the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which recognized marriage as between one man and one woman. This piece of legislation was overwhelmingly passed in the House and Senate and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Last month the New York State legislature passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage which was immediately signed into law by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a professed Catholic. As the push for same-sex marriage escalates in the weeks, months, and years ahead with the help of the media, Hollywood movie stars and musicians, the courts, and the intellectual elites of our country, with the blessing of many so-called Catholic and other Christian politicians, I wonder as we celebrate our “independence” as a country what God thinks of this nation as it continues its moral decay.

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Mary C. Uhler, editor

Marriage between man and woman: One judge cannot overrule the will of God and the people

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Can one federal judge overturn God’s natural law and the votes of nearly seven million citizens of California regarding the definition of marriage? No, I don’t think so!

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled recently that California’s voter initiative, known as Proposition 8, was unconstitutional. Voters approved this proposition in 2008 by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. It defines marriage as between a man and a woman, thus banning same-sex marriage.

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