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May 28, 2009

Obama backer proposes end of legally recognized marriage

Topics: Political News and commentaries

Why am I not surprised at this?

Pepperdine University law professor Doug Kmiec, a prominent Catholic who backed Barack Obama's presidential bid, has endorsed replacing marriage with a neutral "civil license." On the other hand, law professor Robert P. George called it a "terrible idea" that would make the government neglect a vital social institution.

Put me in the camp of Robert George - it is indeed a "terrible ideo." Kmiec may be a Catholic, but somehow he managed to fail his Catechism class. Marriage is a sacrament and, as George points out, has "profound" social and public significance:

[...] George told CNSNews.com that marriage is not like baptisms and bar mitzvahs but has "profound" social and public significance.

"It's a pre-political institution," he said. "It exists even apart from religion, even apart from polities. It's the coming together of a husband and wife, creating the institution of family in which children are nurtured."

"The family is the original and best Department of Health, Education and Welfare," he continued, saying that governments, economies and legal systems all rely on the family to produce "basically honest, decent law abiding people of goodwill - citizens - who can take their rightful place in society."

"Family is built on marriage, and government--the state--has a profound interest in the integrity and well-being of marriage, and to write it off as if it were a purely a religiously significant action and not an institution and action that has a profound public significance, would be a terrible mistake," George told CNSNews.com.

"I don't know where Professor Kmiec is getting his idea, but it's a very, very bad one."

Only a liberal (albeit a former Republican) Obama supporter could come up with such a "very, very bad" idea.

Posted by Hyscience at May 28, 2009 9:02 AM

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