Letters

Tradition

Peter Hill

Contents - May 2012 - Buy a copy now Mexico: Benedict XVI's reflection on Our Lady of Guadalupe - Pope Benedict XVI Episcopacy: Brisbane's new Archbishop well-equipped for the challenges - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Obama imposes contraception document on UN - Babette Francis Benedict XVI builds on John Paul II's historic Cuba visit - Michael Gilchrist The culture wars: Archbishop Chaput's call to Christians - Ben Johnson Young adult ministry 2012: more reasons for hope - Br Barry Coldrey Religious Freedom: Catholics in Iraq: a struggle for survival - Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda The Church's dogma of transubstantiation - John Young UK Catholic schools under fire for 'homophobia' - Hilary White Letters: Obvious Link - C.V. Phillips Letters: Pro-life apathy - George Simpson Letters: Rights of children - Robert Bom Letters: Protecting marriage - Brian A. Coman Letters: Tradition - Peter Hill Letters: Year of Grace - Ken Bayliss Letters: Genuflection - John Frey Letters: Education costs - Arnold Jago Letters: Infanticide - Richard Congram Letters: Endorsement - Joy Mason Books: THE GIFT OF INFALLIBILITY, by Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: A COMPANION TO CATHOLIC EDUCATION, by Leonardo Franchi and Stephen McKinney (ed) - Angela Schumann (reviewer) Events: The Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite: Sacredness in Continuity Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Nicene Creed's "consubstantial":What does this mean? - Bishop Arthur Serratelli

I have just completed an online parliamentary survey on two bills before parliament on homosexual  marriage, I was asked to state the reasons for my answers and I present them to you as I recorded them.

My children and grandchildren are descended from an original couple who married in Australia. That marriage tradition is centuries, even millennia, old.

I had the right to such a marriage (by unchallenged definition between a man and a woman), but now our cultural heritage is under threat of destruction by a very small minority of homosexual activists and their supporters.

If these bills are not rejected then my children, and future generations, will lose their current constitutional right to a marriage defined solely as a union between a man and a woman.

If marriage can be redefined to suit this latest demand, then one can reasonably foresee marriage being redefined in other ways, such as polygamy, multisexual unions (say a bi-sexual man with a man and a woman), marriage with and between consenting minors, marriage between a brother and a sister, or two brothers or two sisters, or a father and a son, or a mother and a son, or any other combination that some people might seek.

PETER HILL
 Culburra Beach, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 4 (May 2012), p. 16