Catholic World News: Scottish cardinal: same-sex marriage a ‘grotesque subversion,’ a ‘great wrong’

The bishops of Scotland have pledged their “strenuous opposition” as the Scottish government considers a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage.

Urging the government not to heed “a vociferous lobby group,” the bishops said on September 7 that “no government can rewrite human nature; the family and marriage existed before the State and are built on the union between a man and woman. Any attempt to redefine marriage is a direct attack on a foundational building block of society and will be strenuously opposed.” Cardinal Keith O’Brien repeated the words of the statement in a homily to Scottish politicians.

In a September 11 newspaper column, Cardinal O’Brien called same-sex marriage “madness” and a “grotesque subversion of a universal human right.”

“At the heart of this debate however there is one perspective which seems to be completely lost or ignored, it is the point of view of the child,” the cardinal wrote. “Same-sex marriage means same-sex parenting, and same-sex parenting means that our society deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father.”

Cardinal O’Brien added:

    There is no question, that normalising gay marriage means normalising homosexual behaviour for public school children. In November 2003 after a court decision in Massachusetts to legalise gay marriage, school libraries were required to stock same-sex literature; primary school children were given homosexual fairy stories such as King & King; some high school students were even given an explicit manual of homosexual advocacy entitled “The Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century”, which the Massachusetts Department of Health helped develop. Education suddenly had to comply with what was now deemed “normal”.