Catholic Church Fights Gay Unions

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops were asked Tuesday to issue a statement opposing same-sex unions and urging state governments to recognize only marriages between men and women.

The document would reinforce church teaching that gay sex is a sin, at a time when homosexual couples have been gaining greater recognition in society, according to the committee of bishops who drafted the document.

"I think when the American family is in trouble, the church is in trouble," said Bishop Donald Trautman of the Diocese of Erie, Penn., who was on a committee of bishops that wrote the statement.

The bishops will debate the document and decide whether to approve it later in their national meeting, which ends Thursday.

The bishops also were to hear an update from the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel they appointed last year at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The board was to discuss the progress that dioceses are making toward protecting children in the church.

Mel White, a leader of the gay advocacy group Soulforce, which is holding a vigil outside the hotel where the bishops are meeting, called the same-sex union document "the same old anti-gay material." He said a section of the statement urging respect and compassion for gays, while condemning their sexual relationships, was offensive.

"When you read between the lines it's telling people to go out and support discrimination," said Laura Montgomery Rutt, a spokeswoman for Soulforce.

The marriage document, called "Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers About Marriage and Same-Sex Unions," defines marriage as a "lifelong union of a man and a woman." It states that approving a union of a same-gender couple "contradicts the nature of marriage."

"It is not based on the natural complementarity of male and female. It cannot cooperate with God to create new life," the statement says.

The document also states that authorizing same-sex marriage "would grant official public approval to homosexual activity and would treat it as if it were morally neutral."

The authors of the statement said the church's position didn't discriminate against homosexuals. Christians have an obligation to "give witness to the whole moral truth," they said. And, the committee said, gays can obtain benefits, such as designating each other as beneficiaries of their wills, without granting their unions the same status as marriage.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in September gave its "general support" to amending the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union of a man and woman.