THE SAD CONSEQUENCE OF MORAL COWARDICE

Antipathy toward same-sex “marriage” is over.

And the Catholic Church lost on this issue.

According to recent surveys, Americans—especially younger generations—are more supportive of gay “marriage” than ever before. 

One research firm, the Barna Group, recently reported that teenagers today are at least twice as likely as adults to identify as LGBT.

How is it possible that in the few short years since 2011, when the overwhelming majority of States had defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, could State after State strike down such prescriptions?

The impact of the 2015 US Supreme Court Obergefell Decision, which invented and bestowed rights to same-sex couples seeking recognition of their marriages, has yet to be fully determined.  But it’s clear that some three years later, clearly 64% of Americans approve of the decision.

That the entertainment industry has had a profound affect upon societal acceptance of homosexuality is evident.  

Now, it seems that the latest LGBT initiative to have garnered the attention and support of social platforms and corporate sponsorship is transgenderism.

The success of the Human Rights Campaign in pressuring companies to actively promote LGBT causes is, well, incredible.  

From a clearly transexual co-anchor of the Olympic Games on NBC to the myriad commercials which include transgender individuals, the LGBT movement is actively engaged in its successful effort to reshape the collective conscience of America.

Politicians have eagerly “evolved” on the issue, especially Democrats whose base—which was already largely pro-gay—have responded with a fast and radical leftward swing.  Government leadership in state after state, with rare exceptions like North Carolina, caved to the corporate financial leverages that were being threatened against them.

I suggest, in agreement with others, that decades before all that happened in entertainment, politics, and business, there was something else that made the LGBT revolution inevitable: the formal divorce of Marriage and procreation.

Fifty-years ago, Blessed Pope Paul VI lamented that acceptance of artificial contraception would be enough to change how Catholics would embrace Church teaching regarding Marriage and the essential link between the conjugal act and procreation.

Many Catholic Clergy and laity chose to ignore the Holy Father’s wisdom and counsel.

In the five decades that have transpired since Humanae Vitae, Catholic Clergy and laity have accepted the social and cultural transformations brought about by the LGBT advocacy groups with hardly a murmur. 

In today’s brave new sexual world, the last few vestiges of Marriage are quickly becoming stigmatized.  The words “father", “mother", will quickly fall by the wayside as ultimately will “male" or “female".

Pity our children, whom we as Church and as citizens have so miserably failed.

This Lenten Season, each of us has much to regret in our moral failings.  

Our cowardice in not defending the sanctity of Holy Matrimony should be high on our list of transgressions.

Father, forgive us for our complacency and indifference.