Gay marriage and democracy -- how they are related

The March 7th issue of The Catholic Voice features a leading article by the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Bishop of Oakland CA, in which the bishop calls the Obama administration’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court "an egregious violation of the separation of powers" that "puts the future prospects of our democracy at stake".

In America, the bishop writes, the oldest democracy with a written constitution in the world, there is a movement of the ruling class toward taking more and more power into its own hands. This, he says, is a curious irony at this time, when people all over the Middle east are fighting for change from dictatorship to democracy.

The prime example to which the bishop points is the hot-button issue of our day: gay marriage.

"When the City Council of Washington, DC, passed a local ordinance to allow same-sex ‘marriage,’ the citizens organized to put it to a vote so they could decide for themselves," the bishop states. "The City Council obstructed them from doing so every step of the way. Bear in mind that the city of Washington has a very large African-American population.

"Thus … a small group of political elites (almost all of them white), in a claim to expand rights, deny one of the most fundamental rights in a constitutional democracy — the right to vote — to the masses of black citizens."

Later in the article, Bishop Cordileone makes what Walt considers an irrefutable argument. Wherever “gay marriage” has become the law of the land, he says, it has happened in a way that avoids the democratic process, and sometimes even goes directly against it.

On the other hand, whenever the people have had the chance to vote on the issue, they have consistently affirmed the traditional view of marriage -- a union between a man and a woman. And this, despite the proponents of true marriage being outspent (sometimes by huge margins), and facing opposition from the "cultural elites" and the bias of the lamestream media.

Bishop Cordileone's argument is worth reading in its entirety. Click here to do so.