Archbishop of Minnesota, About Proposition 8

Noted, in today's news:

"Archbishop releases statement on California U.S. District Court Ruling on Proposition 8"
The Catholic Spirit (August 4, 2010)

"Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis released the following statement criticizing the Aug. 4 decision of a federal judge to overturn California voters' 2008 initiative protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The statement follows:

" ...'It is a sad and almost incomprehensible event for the court to deny both the Judeo-Christian and natural law definition of one-man one-woman marriage, particularly after the people of the State of California had voted as free and responsible citizens to support it.

" 'Having failed to change the definition of marriage at the ballot box, proponents of same-sex marriage have shifted their strategies to using our courts to issue judicial fiats that will do so, corrupting the very meaning and role of marriage.

" 'As my fellow bishop, Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, stated last month, 'Marriage exists prior to the state and is not given to redefinition by the state. The role of the state is to respect and reinforce marriage.' And that means upholding marriage as a union between one man and one woman....

"...'I call on all people of good will to work tirelessly to defend marriage in this country against the efforts of those who seek to redefine it and to thwart its sacred purpose.' "

I wouldn't have written "almost incomprehensible" when describing my reaction to the judge's decision to strike down California's Proposition 8. Maybe it's my background: I grew up blocks away from a college - later re-designated "university" - and did serious time in American academia. I think I understand the twisted, delusional world view that's been the norm for America's self-described best and brightest.

I don't like it, I can't accept it, but I think I have some understanding of how someone could decide that striking down an ideologically distasteful law was okay.

Assumptions and Objective Reality

When you start with the assumption that objective reality is what each one of us makes it, that law and customs exist solely because some authority figure imposed his will on someone else: what that judge did does make sense.

I don't know what was going on inside that judge's head. Maybe the voices told him to make the decision he did. I really don't know. I do know that striking down Proposition 8 is par for the course in the America I know.

Still, as I wrote yesterday, on the whole I'd rather live here than in Somalia.

By the way: if you check back in a few hours, I plan to have a post on another topic done. Probably rather late this evening.

Related posts:

• "California, Same-Sex Marriage, and Some Guy in Korea"
  (August 7, 2010)
• "Why State Definitions of Marriage Matter to This Catholic"
  (June 23, 2010)
• "Marriage, Catholic Beliefs, and This Catholic"
  (September 24, 2009)