BOSTON - Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley urged Catholic lawyers yesterday to oppose gay marriage, saying the institution of marriage and the family are under assault and attorneys need to help protect them.
The social cost of the breakdown of family life has already been enormous
O'Malley said at the annual Red Mass, which is dedicated to judges, lawyers and others in the legal system.
It's not a question of live and let live it's a question of right and wrong O'Malley said.
He didn't give specifics on what the lawyers could do to protect marriage and the family.
But later, in an interview, he said: We hope that they 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.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November that same-sex couples have a right to marry in the state, a ruling applauded as a civil-rights milestone by gay activists. The court gave the Legislature six months to pass a law that complies with the ruling.
At a Catholic Lawyers Guild luncheon following the Mass, former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork assailed the ruling, calling it untethered from the state and federal constitutions.
If anything justifies the term judicial tyranny
this one does
said Bork, who converted to Catholicism last year.
Gary Buseck, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment on O'Malley's statements.
O'Malley was installed July 30 as the head of the Boston Archdiocese, which has an estimated 2.1 million parishioners.
His first priority was to settle hundreds of clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed by people who accused priests of molesting them and the archdiocese of covering up the scandal. In September, the church agreed to an $85 million agreement.
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