US Supreme Court to hear arguments in marriage cases

(Vatican Radio) The US Supreme Court is to consider two landmark cases on same-sex marriage in hearings this week. On Tuesday, the justices consider a California constitutional amendment preserving the traditional definition of marriage, which the people of the state passed by popular referendum after judicial imposition of same-sex marriage in that state. Listen:

Speaking to a recent conference of the Knights of Columbus in California, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, explained that, although the marriage debate is often couched as a contest between claims to personal rights on the one hand, and people who support “traditional values” on the other, what is really at stake is the notion that government is naturally limited in the scope of its power – that there are some things a government simply cannot do. “[A] government that presumes to redefine marriage is perilously close to considering itself – not God – as the almighty one,” he said.

On Wednesday, a federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman only, for the purpose of taxes and benefits, is up for review. The so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” was passed by a large majority in both houses of the US federal legislature and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996. There were questions raised on technical grounds even at the time the DOMA was passed, regarding its pursuance to the federal constitution. Now the law is being challenged as unjustly discriminatory. Speaking to the same K of C group, Cardinal Dolan explained that there are proven reasons for supporting traditional marriage as sound social policy. “[It is] not just saints, pontiffs, or theologians who predicate marriage and family as the central, love-promoting cell of the human project,” said Cardinal Dolan, “but historians, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists.” He went on to say, “They demonstrate that, when the normative relationship for a man and woman’s existence is that of a husband, wife, father, and mother, well, then, home, industry, finance, culture, society, and governing structures are more easily directed to virtue, responsibility, and the restraining of the primitive lust and selfishness that destroy civilization.” The Supreme Court is expected to hand down opinions in the two cases by the end of term in June.