Thanks Mr. Obama for ruining my birthday!

Mr. Obama, the most pro-abortion, anti-family president in the history of the United States has declared June, my birthmonth, as LGBT pride month. That's right, not just one day, or even a week, but an entire month.

He has issued a press release marking the "event". In it, he presents gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people as hard working Americans with good values who want to improve the country, who have been harrassed endlessly by conservative zealots bent on destroying their lives. He recalls an event 40 years ago when members of the LGBT community were harrassed, an event which he says had become "all too common". He says members of the LGBT community have made and continue to make lasting contributions to the fabric of American society. The specific example he gives is their fight against AIDS and HIV. He also says he will continue to fight for gay civil unions, the ability of LGBT people to adopt children, and to support LGBT "families" and "seniors". Obama sees these words as politically advantageous, but at what cost? Let me analyze this move on Obama's part in light of Catholic teaching.

Catholic teaching proclaims that the intent of marriage is to express the love of Christ and to raise children in a healthy environment. The marriage between a man and a woman is the only way to ensure the proper complementarity necessary for a child's growth. There is no such complementarity when both "parents" are of the same sex. Children naturally have the right to be raised by their parents. A gay couple can never give this option. There are circumstances where a child cannot be raised by his own parents, but this is the exception which society should work to prevent, rather than the rule. Artificially creating a "family" unit which does not involve both parents may seem politically advantageous, but it is not fair to a child. Some children are raised in foster homes. Many peopel are aware of the terrible circumstances many children must suffer in these situations. Many children go to sleep at night asking "Where's my mommy and daddy?" but the assumption has always been that if both parents came through and took the child back, that would be a victory for everyone. By making gay marriage "acceptable" as just one of many options, we take away the impetus to move toward natural families. It's the same as if we are fighting a disease for which there is no known cure. We must make those with this disease feel comfortable but always with the idea that some day we may find a cure and they can live without it. The disease in this case represents a child without his parents. But the LGBT movement for gay marriage is basically like saying this is not a disease anymore and no cure is necessary. We must stop looking for a cure because we do not acknowledge this as a disease. But guess what? Admit it or not, the disease remains. On top of all of this, there are other moral issues involved. If a gay couple wants a child of their own, they must be artificially inseminated (in the case of a woman). If a gay male couple wants a child of their own, one must illicitly use his sperm to produce an embryo. Creating babies in a test-tube, or outside the bond of true marriage is immoral. Not only that, many embryos are often destroyed in these procedures. Gay "families" always involve at least one form of immoral behavior. They cannot exist outside this context.

On the surface, the words of Obama do not sound too bad. They just seem to be asking people not to be discriminatory to people who are in the LGBT community, and on this note, the Catholic Church would agree. She says we must treat all people with love and respect, regardless of their behaviors. We must love and respect people from the LGBT community, but we must also keep in mind that they are doing something sinful, and that loving someone does not entail approving of all of their actions. But Obama is not just asking us to respect all people, he is making people who disagree with LGBT activism look like bigots and ignorant harrassers, who are just afraid of people who are different from them. This is a popular tactic being used by gay activists. Anyone who speaks out against gay marriage, homosexual behavior, gay adoption, or any other issue are simply labeled as a bigot and dismissed. But this doesn't happen for any other group. If I campaign against child sex slavery, I am not labeled a bigot, even if I may not be involved in this whole scene. I would say 99% of people who disagree wtih gay marriage and gay adoption have no phobia of gay people whatsoever. If I meet a gay person, I do not run away in fear. I see them as a person and treat them with respect. But that doesn't mean I can't engage in a debate about whether gay marriage or gay adoption is right. I can also say a war is not justified even if I am not IN the war. I can say theft is immoral, even if I am not a thief or even if I have never had anything stolen by a thief. This is a fallacy that often crops up in the debate about gay marriage and abortion.

A popular slogan of the National Organization of Marriage is Gay and lesbian have the right to live as they choose, but they do not have the right to change marriage for everyone. And that's exactly what's at stake. The fight against gay marriage is not about not letting gay people live as they wish, it's about the impact it is having on our lives. I believe in the parents' natural law right to teach their own children. Therefore, if a gay person teaches his adopted child about gay marriage, then there's not much I can do about it (although in this case, since the child is not naturally his, you could argue he has less right to teach this child). But that's not what's at stake. What's at stake is what everyone else is allowed to do. The gay rights lobby is not satisfied with gay people living as they wish and straight people living as they wish. No, they want to change legislation so that people not only have to accept gay people, they should be forced to speak about gay marriage as though it is equal to marriage between a man and a woman. How?
Well, if gay marriage becomes legal, as well as gay adoption, as it is already in some places, a public school cannot legally say marriage is when a man and a woman fall in love and get married and have children. Now they must say marriage is when two individuals, be they a man and a woman, two women, or two men fall in love and are united by the state authority. Then when speaking about children, they can no longer just present a natural child birth, involving sex between a married couple which results in a child being conceived and eventually born. Now, they must present the act of having children as any number of possibilities. Anything from natural conception and birth to a process involving masturbation, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, selective reduction (i.e. abortion), adoption, and possible payments at various stages of this process. This teaching will not be optional, but forced on the population.

People who have presented the constant teachings of the Church, the Church to whom Western civilization owes everything, have been persecuted. In Canada, a priest was charged for speaking against homosexuality. Never did he incite hatred or cause violence. Rather, he presented the constant teaching of the church on the issue and said it is incompatible with Christianity. In Massachuttsetts, the largest adoption agency in the state was the Catholic adoption service. A gay couple went there to adopt a child, but the organization refused because it felt that complying would be immoral. The Catholic agency which has helped thousands of families adopt needy children made a compromise and said they would refer gay and lesbian couples to other adoption agencies who actually provide adoption to gay couples. The gay lobby was not happy with this and pursued the Catholic organization in court. The actions of the Catholic organization were deemed discriminatory and they were shut down. Gay rights lobby 1, countless families and children 0. You see, the gay rights lobby is not satisfied with protection to believe what they want. They want to use the law to force everyone to accept their lifestyles.

Ultimately the only thing Obama's decision to make June the month for LGBT people will do is cause more and more harrassment against people who want to express their view that marriage is between a man and a woman. The persecution has already begun and will continue to get worse. Obama is a major catalyst in all of this. He wants people who defend traditional marriage to feel like bigots and LGBT people to feel justified in feeling like victims and people who need to fight for whatever they want.

The most ironic part of Obama's official White House letter is the last part where he marks the date as "the year of the Lord 2009". If Obama really believed Jesus is our Lord, he would never try to sabatoge the institution of marriage which Christ elevated to a sacrament.