In his blog last Friday, Cardinal Sean O’Malley offered an opinion in relation to the case of David Parker, a Massachusetts father who sued the local school district because it wouldn’t notify him before teaching his son about homosexuality, as state law requires. He had sued in federal court but the judge dismissed the suit saying that teaching children about same-sex relationships is “reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy,” and that this means teaching “diversity,” in which he includes “differences in sexual orientation.”
The cardinal says that he had several comments on his previous blog post about the case and so now he has responded.
Massachusetts law states that parents must be notified in advance and have the option of removing their children from the classroom when their children from a classroom when “human sexual education or human sexuality issues” are presented. However, in this case, the judge ruled that the school’s discussion of same-sex marriage concerned diversity rather than human sexuality.
Obviously, the Church sees the parents as being the primary educators of their children and having a very special role that must be respected. The disturbing part of this affair is that it underscores how, by redefining marriage in Massachusetts, people’s religious rights are going to be challenged by the state. I think that people were very naïve saying that we can change the definition of marriage and it will not have any repercussions and will not affect anyone else’s marriage or society as a whole. This situation with the Parkers and the Wirthlins is just beginning to show how far-reaching and how ill-advised the course of action embraced by our Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts was. In Canada, where same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005, they are already seeing the many different ways that people’s religious rights are being trampled because of the redefinition of marriage. So I am pleased to see that these families are attempting to address the situation through the courts, and we certainly hope they will be successful in their endeavors.
The big lie we were told
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