Gay marriage victories toughen Vatican’s opposition

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is digging in after same-sex marriage initiatives scored big wins last week in the United States and Europe, pledging to never stop insisting that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

In a front-page article in Saturday’s Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Holy See sought to frame itself as the lone voice of courage in opposing initiatives to give same-sex couples legal recognition. In a separate Vatican Radio editorial, the pope’s spokesman asked sarcastically why same-sex marriage proponents don’t now push for legal recognition for polygamous couples as well.

Catholic teaching holds that homosexuals should be respected and treated with dignity but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The Vatican also opposes same-sex marriage, insisting on the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman as the foundation for society.

The Vatican’s media blitz against same-sex marriage came after three U.S. states — Maine, Maryland and Washington — approved same-sex marriage by popular vote in the election that gave President Obama another four-year term; Spain upheld its same-sex marriage law; and France pushed ahead with legislation that could see same-sex marriage legalized early next year.

The article insisted that Catholics were putting up a valiant fight to uphold church teaching in the face of “politically correct ideologies invading every culture of the world” that are backed by institutions like the United Nations, which last year passed a nonbinding resolution condemning antigay discrimination.

“The church is called to present itself as the lone critic of modernity, the only check … to the breakup of the anthropological structures on which human society was founded,” it said.