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‘Have your voices heard over marriage'
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| By Damir Govorcin
12 December, 2010 |
THE Catholic community has been urged to respond to the motion passed in the Federal Parliament calling on MPs to gauge their constituents’ views on ways to achieve equal treatment for same sex couples including marriage.
The campaign, jointly co-ordinated by The Knights of the Southern Cross, the Catholic Women’s League, and the Sydney archdiocese’s Life, Family and Marriage Centre, calls on all Catholics to “have their voices heard” and write to their Federal MPs in support of marriage.
Petition forms were sent to all parishes last week with the campaign having the support of the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, and reflecting the wishes of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference at their recent plenary meeting.
Parishioners are being invited to sign the petition which requests their local Federal MP to “protect the unique institution of marriage as traditionally understood and actually lived as the complementary love between a man and a woman.”
A letter co-signed by The Knights of the Southern Cross, the Catholic Women’s League, and the Sydney archdiocese’s Life, Family and Marriage Centre, read: “Over the summer parliamentary break, Members of the House of Representatives have been asked to “gauge their constituents’ views on ways to achieve equal treatment for same sex couples including marriage.” This is a direct challenge to the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman and calls for an urgent response from the Catholic community.
“Accordingly, we have enclosed both parish petitions (for all members of the parish community to sign) and individual petitions (for those who would like to personally contact their MP) in support of marriage.
“We recommend asking one or two trusted parishioners to take responsibility for organising the signing of the petitions at Sunday Masses and dispatching them to MPs afterwards. The Knights of the Southern Cross and the Catholic Women’s League have asked their members to be ready to assist with the petitions in their local parishes.
“The petitions need to be returned to your Federal Member of Parliament at their local electorate office preferably by Monday, December 20.”
Chris Meney, director of the Life, Marriage and Family Centre, said: “We know that marriage is likely to be debated next year in Federal Parliament and that MPs will report back to the Parliament their constituents’ views on marriage.
“It is vital that we encourage MPs to affirm the unique meaning and value of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
“We hope they will be able to say that they have heard a strong andpositive message about marriage from the Catholic community in their electorates.
“Marriage is already under sustained pressure due to inadequate support for its constitutive elements of exclusivity and life-long commitment.
“If our politicians decree that sexual complementarity, orientation to life and the capacity to perform marital acts are no longer regarded as important there will not be much left of marriage as a legal or social entity.”
Some suggested discussion points for raising with local MPs include:
• Marriage between a man and a woman is not a religious construct, but a natural institution found across all cultures and religions. Marriage is a unique kind of sexually complementary union with a natural orientation to life.
• Marriage attaches men and women to each other in a faithful,
life-long partnership and enables the children who will be conceived and born through their union to know the secure, stable love and attachment of both their father and their mother. Marriage enables children to receive the distinctive benefits of fathering and mothering to the fullest extent possible.
• Keeping marriage between a man and a woman is not a matter of unjust discrimination against same‐sex couples, as the welfare of persons in these relationships is already recognised and provided for by existing laws on domestic partnerships.
• If marriage is separated from its public purpose of the having and nurturing of children, the essential meaning of marriage will be changed for everyone. Marriage will no longer retain a connection to its public purpose, but will be instrumentalised to its private purposes of expressing sentimentality.
For more information contact the Life, Marriage and Family Centre on 9390 5283 or email
mary.joseph@sydneycatholic.org
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