Not entirely unexpected but disgusting all the same. Rhode Island Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has written a pastoral letter underlining his church’s backwards views on marriage equality. Rhode Island became the tenth U.S. state to legalize marriage equality last week, the culmination of 16 years of battle in the heavily Catholic state. The law, which kicks in on August 1, was signed mere hours after it landed on Dov. Lincoln Chafee’s desk.





But, as with any struggle for justice, the outworn ways of thinking are slow to die. Bishop Tobin is one of those dinosaurs who believes that homosexuality is a sin and that gays are lesser beings without the rights afforded to the rest of us. He proved that with his May 2 pastoral letter:

At this moment of cultural change, it is important to affirm the teaching of the Church, based on God’s word, that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357) and always sinful. And because “same-sex marriages” are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.

Sure, we could get into the whole debate about what the Bible says (not the Catechism – that was very definitely written by men) or what Jesus said about homosexuality (absolutely nothing) but that’s really beside the point. Here is the point: gay people are American citizens. American citizens are protected by the Constitution. The Constitution says that all Americans are the same under the eyes of the law. Therefore, LGBT people are protected under the law. Since our nation is NOT, despite protestations to the contrary, based on religious law, every citizen is to be treated the same. If heterosexuals get to marry legally then so does everyone else. End of discussion.

I also have a problem with his use of the word “objectively.” The way he uses it, “… therefore objectively sinful…” is directly opposite of the word’s actual meaning. An objective principle is one that is uncolored by an opinion. Facts are objective: “Rhode Island has enacted marriage equality” is an objective statement. It is not affected by opinion, it simply is. A statement like “homosexuality is sinful” is completely subjective. It has been influenced and indeed, comes from, an opinion. While Bishop Tobin might like to think that his archaic laws are objective, that is just not true.

As to “… harm(ing) their relationship with God” goes, who is Bishop Tobin to say that? Yes, I realize that the Catholic church sees men like Tobin as intercessors between God and the members of their church but Martin Luther had a thing or two to say about that several hundred years ago. As far as the theory of intercession goes, I’m with him. Every person’s relationship with God (however they see Him/Her/It) is personal, everyone has their own relationship with the Divine. Every person should be able to decide what weddings they want to attend and base that on their own understanding of God. Perhaps people who do decide to attend same-sex weddings will be thinking of Jesus’ command to love one another instead of trying to find ways to hate others. Maybe that’s not a problem to men like Tobin, who think that everything boils down to what their version of God wants (as if they could possibly know), but the rest of us live in the real world. A world where life is fragile and loving relationships are hard to find and harder to hold on to. How could anyone think that it is okay to deny that to other human beings?

T. Steelman is a life-long Liberal. She has been writing online about politics since 2007. She lives in Western Washington with her husband, daughter, 2 cats and a small herd of alpacas. How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is, after all, so poorly lit…