The holy state of matrimony is also now under vicious attack by secularism and evil forces both within and without our Church. How is the holy state of matrimony being attacked? These are not attacks. They are denigration, insults, blasphemes and perhaps a few other things, but attacks? No. My marriage is not being attacked. The marriages of my children are not being attacked. The one who is married is not being attacked.; The one who is not yet married is certainly not being attacked. So what is all this "attack" business. Is marriage going to disappear? Of course not. Is marriage going to go crumbling into total desuetude because someone is going to insult it so badly that we are all going to quit? No. It is total intellectual short-circuiting to think that marriage is going to be destroyed because the state of marriage is being insulted. It is the apex of idiocy to think that an institution as closely related to the nature of humans is ever going to fall under the weight of the insults and disparagement and completely crumble.
Do I agree with homosexual marriage? No.
Do I think that it attacks the state of my marriage? No.
Do I think that divorce attacks the state of my marriage? No
Do I think that institutionalized co-habitation without marriage attacks the state of my marriage? No.
Do I think that the state has the power and the authority to legalize homosexual marriage? Yes.
Do I think that the state has the power and the authority to coerce religious groups to perform and legalize homosexual marriages? No.
People have to open up their ears and listen to what they are saying when they talk about these things. People have to realize that marriage is a covenant between two people which is ratified by the state. If the state doesn't want to ratify marriage as a valid object of legislation at certain, or all levels, then the union between two people depends on the consent of the two people involved. It is not the state (nor the Church) that creates marriage and then is able to dissolve it.
Never! It is the two human beings involved with each other and with the consent that they proffer to one other for their mutual welfare who create a marriage...no matter of what sex they are. It is up to the state to accept the covenant as valid according to the state's outline of who qualifies and who doesn't. That's it. Marriage is what it is and no church or government can change its essence. All they can do is to validate the union or not validate the union. Churches and governments are nothing but ratifiers of a personal covenant that creates a stable union between two human beings who freely and mutually consent to the union. Period.
