News

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, May 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Douglas Kmiec, a prominent Catholic law professor and Obama supporter, is now proposing that legal marriage be abolished to avoid conflict with the homosexual movement. He has also said that homosexual unions should be “accommodated.”

In a recent interview with Cybercast News Service, Kmiec suggested abolishing marriage, saying that “as awkward as it may be, I think the way to untie the state from this problem is to create a new terminology that would apply to everyone – straight or gay – call it a 'civil license.'”

“The net effect of that, would be to turn over – quite appropriately, it seems to me – the concept of marriage to churches and a church understanding,” he added.

Kmiec, the former dean of the Catholic University of America's law school, became famous during the 2008 presidential elections when he endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency in spite of his strong pro-abortion position.

He justified his position by claiming that Obama would seek to reduce abortions, a position for which he was roundly criticized by pro-life advocates. 

Kmiec's statements endorsing civil unions for homosexuals directly contradict Catholic doctrine on the subject, formulated by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger before becoming pope in 2005.

“In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty,” wrote Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, as Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”

Kmiec's remarks were denounced by Princeton University law professor Robert George, who called the proposal “a terrible idea.”

“Family is built on marriage, and government – the state – has a profound interest in the integrity and well-being of marriage, and to write it off as if it were a purely a religiously significant action and not an institution and action that has a profound public significance, would be a terrible mistake,” George told CNS.

Kmiec began to advance his novel ideas on marriage in a recent editorial for the San Francisco Examiner. Although he claimed to support Proposition 8, which banned homosexual “marriage,” he said he opposed revoking “marriages” granted to state homosexuals under a state Supreme Court ruling mandating the practice.

In the article, Kmiec also urged the California Supreme Court to require the government to cease to use the word “marriage” in its terminology, and claims that “religious freedom” requires homosexual unions to be “accommodated.”

Related Links:

Equality in substance and in name, by Douglas W. Kmiec, Shelley Ross Saxer
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/01/EDFU166H0A.DTL

Catholic Obama Campaign Adviser Wants to Replace All Legal ‘Marriages’ with ‘Civil Licenses'
https://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48652