The May 2010 Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter can now be found at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/Newsletters/Newsletter108(May2010)(RGB).pdf Bill C-384 was soundly defeated by a vote of 228 to 59. Check how the Members of Parliament voted at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/HowTheyVoted.pdf On June 5, 2010, we are co-hosting the US/Canda Push-Back Seminar at the Radisson Gateway Hotel at the Seattle/Tacoma Airport. The overwhelming defeat of Bill C-384 proved that we can Push-Back the euthanasia lobby in the US and Canada and convince people that euthanasia and assisted suicide are a dangerous public policy. Register for the Seminar at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/2010SeminarFlyer(RGB)(LetterFormat).pdf The Schindler family are being attacked by a Florida television station and Michael Schiavo. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is standing in solidarity with the Schindler family. My blog comments: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/05/att...
Reflections from the pastoral ministry of an Evangelical Catholic Priest.
Here's the comment I left on Fr. Barron's article but they aren't showing comments (I assume he's getting a lot of negative one).
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Fr. Barron. A couple of points - First legal issues are not moral issues and we should all be glad for that because the last thing any of us wants, believer or not, is to legalize morality. There is significant overlap, to be sure, but the legal code is mostly what is not allowed, rather than what is allowed, what is the consensus of society, rather than the opinions of a few and most importantly in this era of rights, the preservation of rights.
I am an atheist and if it was up to me I would allow people to get married once and after that they have a civil union (like Prince Charles had to do in his marriage to Camilla). I treat my marriage very seriously and would want others to do the same. But it is not up to me and I can not demand that other follow my moral code.
Gay marriage is like that. Beyond the fact that many churches support and preach gay marriages, some do not and it is up to civil society to accommodate them all, within reason. It's a difficult task but the solution to to allow churches to make their own decisions (as they do on issues like divorce and mixed marriages) and to have the civil law be neutral.
And yes, preaching against homosexual marriage does raise eyebrows, but only because the Catholic Church is actively seeking to stop gays from marrying who are not even Catholic. The same reaction would occur if the Church were trying to stop all people from remarrying (as they did recently in Ireland and Malta but not in the rest of the West). People will accept you having your own rules within your church and atheists like me will strongly support your right to have them but when you seek to impose those parochial rules on society as a whole, then we object and we view that as you being intolerant of the rest of society.