ROME, December 20, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The current push in liberal Western democracies for “gay marriage” under the guise of “equality” is just the latest incarnation of Marxist/socialist ideologies, “which have already brought so much damage in the twentieth century,” according to an editorial in the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano this week.



“To say that marriage between a man and a woman is the same as between two homosexuals is, in fact, a denial of truth that undermines one of the basic structures of human society, the family,” wrote Lucetta Scaraffia, December 17.



Scaraffia warned that we will “pay a high price” for the attempt to found a society on these premises, “as has already happened in the past when we have tried to achieve a complete economic and social equality.”



The editorial was prompted by the position taken by the French Catholic newspaper Témoignage Chrétien in support of the French government’s proposal to create “gay marriage.” The magazine said that failure to support the move is to “add to the discrimination of those who already have been discriminated against.” The bill, they said, will be a “step forward in the recognition of equality for homosexuals.”



Scaraffia blasted the paper, saying that the implication to be taken away from this is that those who oppose the legislation are also opposed to the “equality of gays, and so are ‘homophobic.’”



“As if it is not possible to defend the rights of gay people not to be subjected to any discrimination and, at the same time be opposed to granting them marriage. As if the equality of all citizens should be ratified by the cancellation of any difference, in this case denying the sexual difference,” Scaraffia wrote.



“History and law teach that the equality of all citizens should always be commensurate with the reality of the differences established between them,” the editorial added. “The rights of children are not those of the elderly; the rights of women are different in some respects from those of men. That does not mean they do not enjoy an equality before the law: equality that takes into account the different possibilities, but no less valuable and positive.”



She also warned that children’s rights to belong to a natural family are being forgotten in the mania over “equality.”

Apart from the question of children being removed from the shelter of their biological parents, the question of “gay marriage” also raises the specter of other types of exploitation, such as the buying and selling of human gametes and embryos.



Marriage is not merely a legal contract, Scaraffia said, between two adults, as Témoignage Chrétien implied. Instead it is “the institutional link” at the foundation of the family, which itself is the institution “created to protect and ensure” the social structures that grow from it.



“Since a homosexual couple does not provide this affiliation, it is a different reality,” she said.



The Vatican newspaper’s comments come at a moment of high tension between the agenda of the far-Left and those who uphold traditional moral values, with both the French and British governments planning to create “gay marriage” and many legal experts as well as religious leaders warning that such plans will inevitably restrict the religious freedoms of believers.



In his address on the World Day of Peace, Pope Benedict XVI said that the ongoing attempts to make natural marriage “juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union” are “an offense against the truth of the human person” and “a grave wound inflicted onto justice and peace.”

Such attempts to change the meaning of marriage, the pope said, “harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role.”



Meanwhile, Francois Hollande’s government may not be happy with the public support they are receiving, even in post-Catholic France, for the idea. A pro-homosexual march was held in Paris on the weekend that brought out only 12-15,000, a fraction of the 150-200,000 that marched last month opposing the plan.

The bill is scheduled to be discussed in the French parliament January 29.



Meanwhile, “gay marriage” is causing difficulties for Prime Minister David Cameron whose senior advisors are warning him of massive disaffection from the Conservative party over the plan. Reports are growing of defections of MPs and other senior party members to the libertarian United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). UKIP, that has opposed the plan on the grounds it will “inevitably” violate civil liberties of religious believers, has seen a sudden jump in the polls and has found itself in third place in UK politics, ahead of the Liberal Democrat government coalition partners.



You may read the entire L’Osservatore Romano article in Italian here.