Rorate Caeli

German Parliament Votes to Legalize Gay Marriage — Weak Response of German Catholics


The lower house of the German Parliament has voted to legalize homosexual pseudogamy (aka gay marriage). The German bishops voiced mild disapproval of the law, but without of course ever giving the reason why all people of good will should oppose such laws: the gravely immoral character of homosexual acts, which such laws are meant to normalize. 

The chair of the so-called “Central Committee of German Catholics” (ZdK), an important umbrella organization for German Catholic lay organizations that is supposed to promote their interests in politics, gave a statement in which he criticized the law, but calls homosexual relationships “good and fruitful.” Nine members of the Central Committee of German Catholics are MPs who voted on the law. Four of them actually voted for legalization. One of them, Monika Gruetters, wrote that she supported it, “not although I am Catholic, but because I am Catholic; it is the Christian message of love of neighbor that calls us to put what unites us above what divides us.”

One of the strongest statements in support for the new law came from the head of another German Catholic umbrella organization: Katharina Norpoth, chair of the “Union of German Catholic Youth” (BDKJ), an umbrella oranization that represents about 660,000 Catholic young people. She wrote on the BDKJ’s Facebook Page

I am pleased that Parliament has enacted the complete equality of heterosexual and homosexual couples… Mutual love in the deep attachment of a commitment to take responsibility for another in fidelity is to be protected in every form, and should be treated equally by the state.