Justice Elena Kagan: Not as clever as she thinks on same-sex "marriage"

Surpreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, responding to Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, the California "gay marriage" ban, after he insisted that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation, responded sarcastically, "..if the couple - I can assure you, if both the woman and the man are over the age of 55, there are not a lot of children coming out of that marriage."  See here.

Yes, it's entirely true that people marry for a variety of motives: for love, for companionship, for money or economic considerations, for position.  And the idea of having children may be very secondary and perhaps only tolerated rather than desired, in the minds of couples marrying.  The idea of having children need not be uppermost in their minds.  But there is no doubt that within marriage, procreation is primary in nature's design.  We eat mostly for the pleasure we obtain from eating and we rarely think of its necessity for sustaining life.  Nevertheless, the latter is the primary purpose of eating.  The same is true for the sexual act.  It may be done for pleasure, but its primary purpose is to sustain the race - procreation.

Marriage must conform to the natural law which is promulgated by God and is the objective order established by Him.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "The 'divine and natural' law shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end." (CCC, 1955).  And again: "The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men.  It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties." (CCC, 1956).

The eternal law is in God.  When applied to creatures, this eternal law is called the natural law.  In nature we see that all things are bound by constant and uniform inclinations to attain definite ends.  For example, it is natural for the sun to rise and light and heat the earth, for flowers to grow and bloom, for fish to swim and birds to fly, and for man to think thoughts and to share them with others.  In each case, these things are simply obeying the law which is stamped on their natures by their Creator.  This temporal effect of the eternal law which shows itself in creatures is what we mean by the natural law.  It is called natural law because it is grounded in nature itself and manifests itself through nature, or essence or the constitution of things.

Now, getting back to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.  Her response to attorney Charles Cooper was not amusing and betrays her ignorance of the natural law, which is the basis for all civil law.  The primary purpose of marriage is procreation.  Besides this primary purpose, marriage has secondary ends, the mutual material and spiritual assistance to the married parties and protection from the abuse of sex life.  But the primary purpose of marriage is essential for its validity to the extent that the right to marital commerce may never be excluded.  The marriage contract is valid even when it is certain that there is no possibility of having children (some couples are unable to have children), provided that the primary purpose of marriage, which is procreation, is not excluded.  But two people of the same sex are not able to have children.  In a homosexual union, procreation is excluded.  As we read in the Catechism, homosexual acts are, "..contrary to the natural law.  They close the sexual act to the gift of life." (CCC, 2357).

Justice Kagan's response to attorney Cooper does not invalidate his argument.  It only serves to highlight her paucity of intellect.  But then, this is the same Elena Kagan who issued a Socialist call to action to change America

and to defeat the "entrenched foe."  Presumably, this entrenched foe is the Judeo-Christian foundation upon which America was built.

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Has Cardinal Christoph Schönborn lost his faith and the ability to reason?

LifeSiteNews is reporting that the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn , received a letter from the Vatican demanding action, after ten months of "discussion" between the Cardinal and the dissent group calling itself the "Austrian Priests' Initiative."  The dissent group issued a manifesto last year demanding that the Church change her teachings on the ordination of women and married clergy and the reception of Communion by non-Catholics and divorced and remarried persons, and calling on their fellow clergy to disobey the Vatican.

LifeSiteNews is reporting that, "the Cardinal himself has also publicly called for the Church to acquiesce to the group's agenda" and has asserted that "the Church does need some reform."

Back in 2010, Cardinal Schönborn criticised the Church for what he characterised as its refusal to accept homosexual relations. Schönborn told the far-left UK Tablet magazine that the Church should also consider allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion since "many people don’t even marry at all any longer" and insisted that, "We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships. A stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous." (See here).

The doctrines which have been revealed by the Lord Jesus, either directly or through His Church, are often truths beyond the power of reason to discover or comprehend.  In such cases, supernatural aid is required to accept these truths.  This supernatural aid is called the gift of faith.  Faith is a supernatural gift of God for the acquisition of truth in the supernatural order, just as reason is a natural gift of God for the acquisition of truth in the natural order.

Now, the natural law is perceptible and knowable by all men who have reached the age of reason.  Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, No. 36, explains that, "Some people..disregarding the dependence of human reason on divine wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for divine revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world.  Such norms would constitute the boundaries for a merely 'human' morality; they would be the expression of a law which has its source exclusively in human reason.  In no way could God be considered the Author of this law, except in the sense that human reason exercises its autonomy in setting down laws by virtue of a primordial and total mandate given to man by God.  These trends of thought have led to a denial, in opposition to Sacred Scripture (cf. Mt 15: 3-6) and the Church's constant teaching, of the fact that the natural moral law has God as its Author, and that man, by the use of reason, participates in the eternal law, which it is not for him to establish."
Cardinal Schönborn wants us to give "more consideration" to what he refers to as " the quality of homosexual relationships."  But the Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, explains why idolatrous peoples, such as the Romans, fall into unnatural vice.  We are told that:

"The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness.  For what can be known about God is evident to them.  Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made.  As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord Him glory as God or give Him thanks." (Romans 1: 18-21).

The Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle that the failure to recognize God leads to corruption of the will and a blinded intellect which, ultimately, leads to idolatry.  And God's punishment for this vanity is to abandon such people to the vice against nature:

"Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.  While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.  Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies." (Romans 1: 21-24).

The Apostle, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is most clear and unambiguous.  He describes this mutual degradation while stressing its unnatural character:

"Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another.  Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." (Romans 1: 26-27).

As a result of these unnatural relations, such people face horible consequences:

"They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite.  They are gossips and scandal-mongers and they hate God.  They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents.  They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." (Romans 1: 25; 28-31).

Finally, those who succumb to this unnatural vice not only become attached to it but attempt to justify it while applauding others who have fallen into the vice: "they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." (Romans 1: 32).
Rather than challenging sinners to conform themselves to Christ and His Church and to work, with the help of God's grace, toward reforming themselves, Cardinal Schönborn wants the Church to "reform" [and here we are not speaking of legitimate reform - a growth in holiness and truth] by changing her teaching to accommodate those who dissent from the teaching of the Lord Jesus.

Has Cardinal Schönborn lost his faith and the ability to reason?  If not, why does he then request the Church to abandon her teaching and acquiesce to the demands of a group which has embraced dissent?  Why does he speak of unnatural relations as having "quality"? 

Truly, as I have been warning for years, and as Pope Benedict XVI recently said, darkness is descending upon the world.  And many can no longer distinguish between good and evil.

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Terence Weldon: False prophet pointing the way to animalism and barbarism...

Dr. Antonio Pardo has explained that in animals, "..the interaction of other instincts (particularly dominance) can result in behavior that appears to be homosexual. Such behavior cannot be equated with an animal homosexuality. All it means is that animal sexual behavior encompasses aspects beyond that of reproduction."

This scientific fact upsets radical homosexual activists who believe that homosexual behavior is observable in animals and that since homosexuality is in accordance with animal nature it must also be in accordance with human nature since man is also animal. This is their reasoning.

Radical homosexual activist and dissenter Terence Weldon, who serves as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist as well as a member of the Soho Masses Pastoral Council, is one such individual.  At his website "Queering the Church," this angry dissident Catholic has referred to me as "deranged" for defending the Church's teaching that the homosexual inclination is "intrinsically disordered."

But there is another reason Weldon's premise fails.  And it is this: The strong desire animals, including the human animal, feel for sex gratification is nature's means of alluring them to breed. To seek the satisfaction while at the same time defrauding nature is what is meant by perversion. Other animals, having no free will and guided only by instinct, cannot abuse their faculties and there are no unnatural vices found among them. Man alone is able to act unnaturally, but is bound not to do so by the natural moral law.

Terence Weldon would reduce man to the purely animal, denying his free will while abolishing the natural moral law.  In their wonderful book entitled "Our Moral Life in Christ: A Basic Course on Moral Theology," Aurelio Fernandez and James Socias explain that, "Every man is a moral being, capable of doing good and evil, of being just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable.  Moral good and evil cannot be attributed to the animals, only physical good and evil.  Thus, for example, an animal is either healthy or sick, or an animal may be able to skillfully accomplish its proper end which is instinctively ingrained in its genes.  A horse is said to be good or bad in a horse race; a dog can have a better or worse nose for hunting; but neither the horse nor the dog can sin or practice virtue, nor can they be just or unjust.  In no way are they morally responsible...

Man, on the other hand, is morally responsible for his actions.  He acts with thought and deliberation.  The reason is that he alone has knowledge and a will.  Intelligence gives meaning to things and free will allows for the fulfillment or omission of actions the intellect has determined to be good or bad.

The human person, therefore, can lead an exemplary existence, striving for sanctity, or committing the most evil actions.  This reality is often evident, and was noted by Aristotle:

'For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends.  Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.  But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.' (Aristotle, Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 2).

With these two options, the good that perfects and the evil that degrades, human existence is lived out.  Morality is the science that teaches man how to choose good and avoid evil and offers him the means, so that, besides living with the dignity proper to him, he may accomplish his end, eternal salvation." (Our Moral Life in Christ, pp. 51-52).

This is the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. 'God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.'" (CCC, 1730).

And again: "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes.  There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just.  The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin." (CCC, 1733).

But for Mr. Weldon, false prophet pointing the way to animalism and barbarism, God and His Commandments must be banished from society in preparation for the emerging satanic society which is based on defeatist ideology.  In his book Trousered Apes, professor Duncan Williams explains that, "The whole modern cult of violence and animalism is in essence an admission of defeat.  Since we cannot be men to any idealistic extent, let us lapse into barbaric animalism but, still clinging to vestiges of a past which we hate but cannot escape, let us clothe our defeat in high-sounding terms: 'Alienation,' 'cult of unpleasure,' 'realism,' and similar jargon.  Yet all this fashionable phraseology cannot conceal the fact that the Emperor has no clothes.."

Saint Bernardine of Siena explained just how animalistic homosexual acts are.  He said, "No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God...Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy...They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy...Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others.  He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin." (Sermon XXXIX in Prediche volgari, pp. 896-897, 915).

This is the sound doctrine men need to hear.  Instead, Archbishop Vincent Nichols continues to tolerate Terence Weldon's dissent from the Church's teaching and his promotion of an animalistic ideology which is rooted in defeatism and the demonic.

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More on Clark University and its definition of heterosexism...

Some of those students who attend Clark University have suggested that Clark University, through its definition of "heterosexism," is merely trying to protect a certain segment of the school's population from "harassment."  This is, of course, ludicrous.  Even a cursory read of Clark's definition   will reveal that much more is intended here.

Lest there be any doubt about where Clark University stands, let's look at the definition of "heterosexism" provided by Clark University's homosexual propagandist-in-residence.  In an article co-authored with JuliAnna Smith of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we read from Dr. Abbie Goldberg that heterosexism is, "an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any nonheterosexual form of behavior, identity, relationship, or community."

Got that?  Any moral opposition to the homosexual lifestyle is, then, deemed heterosexism, a form of discrimination.  Goldberg and her co-propagandist for the radical homosexual agenda continue: "At the societal level, institutionalized heterosexism takes the form of antigay legislation such as laws preventing same-sex couples from marrying or adopting children." (See here for full article).

In other words, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is "heterosexist" because it insists that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," "contrary to the natural law," and "under no circumstances can they be approved." (CCC, 2357).  And, according to Goldberg and associate, any institution which opposes same-sex "marriage," such as the Catholic Church, is guilty of "institutionalized heterosexism."

The U.S. Bishops, see here, teach us that: "The natural structure of human sexuality makes man and woman complementary partners for the transmission of human life. Only a union of male and female can express the sexual complementarity willed by God for marriage. The permanent and exclusive commitment of marriage is the necessary context for the expression of sexual love intended by God both to serve the transmission of human life and to build up the bond between husband and wife (see CCC, nos. 1639-1640).

In marriage, husband and wife give themselves totally to each other in their masculinity and femininity (see CCC, no. 1643). They are equal as human beings but different as man and woman, fulfilling each other through this natural difference. This unique complementarity makes possible the conjugal bond that is the core of marriage.

Why is a same-sex union not equivalent to a marriage?

For several reasons a same-sex union 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; and the natural purpose of sexual union cannot be achieved by a same-sex union. Persons in same-sex unions cannot enter into a true conjugal union. Therefore, it is wrong to equate their relationship to a marriage.

Goldberg's definition of "heterosexism" is nothing less than an assault on Catholic moral teaching.  As Pope John Paul II said, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, "In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture.  The Apostle Paul emphatically states, 'Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God.'" (Veritatis Splendor, No. 81, citing 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10).

Dr. Goldberg's definition of "heterosexism," which has obviously been fully embraced by Clark University, takes no account of the Natural Law and is merely an exercise in chronological snobbery or what the French philosopher Jacques Maritain referred to as"chronolatry" in his work "Le paysan de la Garonne" - The Peasant of the Garonne. Maritain defines chronolatry as the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time. This is the characteristic flaw of today's "progressive" who looks upon the wisdom of the ages and dismisses it as nothing more than "theories" which belong to the past.

Clark University is indeed suffering an intellectual crisis.  A crisis which has resulted in institutionalized arrogance.

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Clark University is, in effect, attempting to criminalize reason

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, emphasized that: "Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition.  Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race." (No. 7).

Homosexual unions violate the common good on both the individual and social plane. On the individual plane, as Dr. Germain Grisez explains, "...although it is true that partners in sodomy also could conceivably share in a committed relationship with sincere mutual affection and express their feelings in ways that would be appropriate in any friendship, the coupling of two bodies of the same sex cannot form one complete organism and so cannot contribute to a bodily communion of persons. Hence, the experience of intimacy of the partners in sodomy cannot be the experience of any real unity between them. Rather, each one’s experience of intimacy is private and incommunicable, and is no more a common good than is the mere experience of sexual arousal and orgasm. Therefore, the choice to engage in sodomy for the sake of that experience of intimacy in no way contributes to the partners’ real common good as committed friends."


On the social plane, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains that, "The inevitable consequences of legal recognition of homosexual unions would be the redefinition of marriage, which would become, in its legal status, an institution devoid of essential reference to factors linked to homosexuality; for example, procreation and raising children. If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good. By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties." (Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 8).

At Vatican II, the Council Fathers spoke on fostering the nobility of marriage and the family and said, "The well-being of the individual person and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family. Hence Christians and all men who hold this community in high esteem sincerely rejoice in the various ways by which men today find help in fostering this community of love and perfecting its life, and by which parents are assisted in their lofty calling. Those who rejoice in such aids look for additional benefits from them and labor to bring them about.

Yet the excellence of this institution is not everywhere reflected with equal brilliance, since polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love and other disfigurements have an obscuring effect. In addition, married love is too often profaned by excessive self-love, the worship of pleasure and illicit practices against human generation. Moreover, serious disturbances are caused in families by modern economic conditions, by influences at once social and psychological, and by the demands of civil society..." (Gaudium et Spes, No. 47).
In No. 48 of this same document, the Fathers of Vatican II teach that, "The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love "are no longer two, but one flesh" (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them.

Christ the Lord abundantly blessed this many-faceted love, welling up as it does from the fountain of divine love and structured as it is on the model of His union with His Church. For as God of old made Himself present to His people through a covenant of love and fidelity, so now the Savior of men and the Spouse of the Church comes into the lives of married Christians through the sacrament of matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so that just as He loved the Church and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal.

Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ's redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfil their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God."

And No. 50 says that, "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. The God Himself Who said, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Gen. 2:18) and "Who made man from the beginning male and female" (Matt. 19:4), wishing to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative work, blessed male and female, saying: "Increase and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). Hence, while not making the other purposes of matrimony of less account, the true practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which results from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior. Who through them will enlarge and enrich His own family day by day."

The Catholic Church respects reason and the Natural Law.  And because she does, she understands, as Cicero articulated so well, that, "..right is based, not upon men’s opinions, but upon Nature. This fact will immediately be plain if you once get a clear conception of man’s fellowship and union with his fellow-men. For no single thing is so like another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another…And so, however we may define man, a single definition will apply to all." [ Cicero, Laws I x 28-30]

But Clark University does not respect the Natural Law, which is known through the use of reason alone.  Having succumbed to radical homosexual ideology, that institution is attempting to impose a false morality on the rest of society while attempting to criminalize those who respect the Natural Law.  And this pseudo-morality rests on the philosophical premise that objective moral norms do not exist and that the individual's choice, and that alone, should determine human behavior.

Clark University officials would do well to ponder this warning from Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae:

"Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality. Fundamentally, democracy is a 'system' and as such is a means and not an end. Its 'moral' value is not automatic, but depends on conformity to the moral law to which it, like every other form of human behavior, must be subject: in other words, its morality depends on the morality of the ends which it pursues and of the means which it employs. If today we see an almost universal consensus with regard to the value of democracy, this is to be considered a positive 'sign of the times,' as the Church's Magisterium has frequently noted. But the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. Of course, values such as the dignity of every human person, respect for inviolable and inalienable human rights, and the adoption of the 'common good' as the end and criterion regulating political life are certainly fundamental and not to be ignored.


The basis of these values cannot be provisional and changeable 'majority' opinions, but only the acknowledgement of an objective moral law which, as the 'natural law' written in the human heart, is the obligatory point of reference for civil law itself. If, as a result of a tragic obscuring of the collective conscience, an attitude of skepticism were to succeed in bringing into question even the fundamental principles of the moral law, the democratic system itself would be shaken in its foundations and would be reduced to a mere mechanism for regulating different and opposing interests on a purely empirical basis." (Evangelium Vitae, No. 70).

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