Editorial: 2009, A Year for Life, Marriage and Freedom

This is not the first time that the great ideas informed by faith have been under siege. Our struggle has just begun. Let's get to work. Now it begins.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - We have begun a New Year. These first days are a time for reflection and resolution. I have noted a deep depression in the ranks of some committed to the great human rights struggle of our age, the struggle to defend and protect the first right, the right to life from conception to natural death. Similarly, I have noted weariness among those committed to defending true marriage - and the family founded upon it - against the new cultural revolutionaries who seek to compel society to grant a legal equivalency between homosexual partnerships and marriage and enforce their new order with the Police Power of the State.

It is true, the verbal engineers have made progress.

The media routinely reports on the so called "abortion rights" movement. There is no such right. How can any truly civilized society allow one group of human persons to kill another group of human persons at will, in the name of choice, and then give such an evil act the status of a legal "right"? Some choices are always wrong and we all know it. The true right is the pre-eminent right to life. Medical Science has confirmed what our conscience and the natural law have long confirmed that the child in the first home of the whole human race is our neighbor. It is a violation of our obligation to one another in solidarity to kill them.

The media routinely reports on the "Marriage Equality" movement. This is a misnomer. Homosexual sexual acts, even if engaged in with one partner for a long time, can never be the equivalent of true marriage. In addition, efforts of some within the homosexual movement to equate how one engages in non-marital sexual practices with a member of the same sex with being a member of a particular race, or gender for civil rights purposes is legally wrong.

Disordered appetites - and the actions engaged in by those who give into them - cannot be called civil rights. Homosexual sexual acts are simply homosexual sexual acts. Our bodies do not lie, they speak the language written within their constitution and confirmed in the Natural Law which binds us all. Marriage - and the family founded upon it - is not an antiquated institution but paves the path to the future. Any efforts to use the Police Power of the State to force all citizens to give the same legal status to homosexual paramours and true marriage do not serve the common good.

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However, this can be a year for progress in the struggle for life, marriage and true freedom. We need to recover our energy and learn how to articulate our message in a compelling manner. By their very nature, people hunger for freedom. We must insist that freedom does not consist in doing whatever one wants to do; it must be exercised in relationship to the truth concerning the human person. Freedom brings with it responsibility, such as our obligations in solidarity to one another and, in particular, to the least among us such as our first neighbors, children in the womb who have no voice but our own to defend them.

The children killed by procured abortion in our Nation are the victims of an unjust war which has been unleashed against them. And, make no mistake about it; this is a war, being fought with surgical strikes and chemical weapons in the name of "choice". The field of operation was once the safest place on earth, the first home of the whole human race, the womb.Those who seek to defend them are the peacemakers.

We, who know the truth about life, marriage and freedom must learn how to present our positions more persuasively, utilize the media more effectively, elect representatives who have the courage to defend human life, protect true marriage and promote freedom and engage those misusing the Courts to compel adherence to their new cultural revolution on their own turf. Now is not the time to withdraw from political and cultural engagement. It is time to learn from our mistakes and redouble our efforts.

Our positions are not narrow minded but rational. They form the foundation of every truly just and human society. They should also inform both major political parties in the United States. They are neither "liberal" nor "conservative", they are true. Even making that claim requires that we once again assert the fact that there is such a thing as truth in an age given over to the libertine excesses and errors of relativism.

This is not the first time that the great ideas informed by faith have been under siege. Our struggle has just begun. Let's get to work. Now it begins.Let us make 2009 a year for life, marriage and freedom.

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