Archbishop O'Malley urges Catholic lawyers to oppose same-sex marriage

Boston, Mass., Jan 11, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley urged lawyers to protect marriage and the family in the United States and oppose same-sex marriage at the annual Red Mass, Jan. 11, which is dedicated to judges, lawyers and other legal professionals.

''This point in history requires the diligent commitment of lawyers on behalf of marriage,” he told the several hundred people who attended the mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. “The law is a powerful teacher. What do we want to teach our young people about marriage? It's not a question of live and let live, it's a question of right and wrong,'' he said.

During an interview with the Associated Press after the mass, the Archbishop of Boston said he hopes lawyers will use their profession and their understanding of the law to defend marriage. “They're in a better position than any of us to understand what needs to be done to correct a very complicated situation that the court has put us in," he said, referring to the Nov. 18 state Supreme Court decision, which gave the state legislature six months to legalize same-sex marriage.

At the Catholic Lawyers Guild luncheon that followed the mass, several lawyers said they were in favor of the archbishop’s message.

"We should have the courage to speak against it [same-sex marriage]," former Supreme Judicial Court Justice Joseph R. Nolan, president of the Catholic Lawyers Guild, told the AP.

Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork said the recent state decision granting same-sex marriage does not respect the state and federal constitutions. "If anything justifies the term judicial tyranny, this one does," Bork, who converted to Catholicism last year, told the AP.