Bishop Cordileone - straight talker.

“Marriage is about fundamental justice for children,” he said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.” - Bishop Cordileone

Bishop Cordileone is one of my very favorite bishops in the United States.  Why?  Because he's a straight talker - he teaches Catholic doctrine clearly and distinctly, in direct language anyone can understand - and he does so with genuine charity and concern for the welfare of contemporary men, women and children.  In defending the family, he defends the Faith.

Washington D.C., Jul 3, 2012 / 04:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The legalization of “gay marriage” in America, even on a civil level, is unjust to children and poses a threat to religious liberty, warned Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Calif.

“Marriage is the only institution we have that connects children to their mothers and fathers,” he said. “So really, the question is, do you support that institution?”

In a June interview with CNA, Bishop Cordileone, who leads the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, explained that Church teaching against the redefinition of marriage on a civil level as well as a sacramental level is a matter of justice. 

He acknowledged that advocates of “same-sex marriage” point to studies that appear to indicate that children can do just as well with two parents of the same sex as with two parents of the opposite sex.

However, he called much of this research “flawed” and pointed to a recent article published in the leading peer-reviewed journal, “Social Science Research.” The article analyzed the 59 studies on the topic used by American Psychological Association and found that they were problematic because they utilized self-selecting or “small, non-representative samples” of the population.

In contrast, he said, a recent social science study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin – entitled “The New Family Structures Study” – examined a very large, nationally-representative and random sample of American young adults who were raised in different family environments, including with same-sex couples and with their married, biological parents.

The study measured various areas of wellbeing, including social and economic condition, psychological and physical health and sexual identity and behavior. It found significant differences between the individuals raised by their married biological parents and those raised in other situations, and “in no area were children better off in an alternative arrangement.”

Based on sound social science, this study complements common sense and “demonstrates what we’ve always known,” Bishop Cordileone said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.”

The bishop explained that this issue is of crucial importance because “we cannot have two different definitions of marriage simultaneously in the country.”

“Only one definition of marriage can stand,” he said. “This is not expanding the right of marriage. It’s changing the definition, or taking away something is essential to marriage – that it’s the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of the binding of the two and the procreation and education of the next generation of offspring.”

Bishop Cordileone also warned that the redefinition of marriage poses a serious threat to religious freedom. This is not merely a potential threat, he said, but one that is already being manifest in numerous ways.

For example, he observed, Catholic Charities agencies in numerous archdioceses have already been forced out of the adoption business because they believed it was best to place children only with a mother and a father.

The “rights of conscience and parental rights” are also at risk, particularly when it comes to education of children. - Read more.

Just last month Bishop Cordileone was asking for an oath of fidelity to Catholic teaching from CALGM, the Catholic Association of Lesbian and Gay Ministries. They refused.  The Bishop has since declared the association 'not authentically Catholic'.  Fr. Malloy of The Shepherd's Voice reported on that story here: Bishop Cordileone Requests Fidelity From Homosexual Activists--They Refuse.

And another thing...

I also want pull this section from the main article/interview I linked to, as it is something I've also been saying all along as well - it has to do with "how'd we get into this mess anyway?"

"Bishop Cordileone then emphasized that “gay marriage” is not an isolated problem but is rather connected to the broader issue of misunderstanding sexuality.

“This isn’t a new threat to marriage,” he explained. “It’s a huge problem, and it’s gone on for decades.”

He noted that the advent of the birth control pill led to an “explosion of contraception” that “divorced procreation from the conjugal act.” Other erosions to marriage quickly followed, including no-fault divorce, which was “a huge blow to marriage,” and experimenting with “open marriages.”

Suddenly, the traditional marks of marriage – fidelity, permanence and openness to children – were all gone, he said. Eventually, this led to a culture of “widespread promiscuity” as sex lost its meaning, a phenomenon that was serious “facilitated” by the common use of contraception.

Now, the bishop pointed out, marriage is seen merely as being about the legal benefits offered to the individuals entering into it, rather than as “a child-centered institution.”
But if marriage is simply about intimate relationships between adults, he asked, “why should the law even get involved at all?”

He observed that there is no real governmental reason to recognize sexual relationships between adults." - Source

Exactamundo! 
Pray for our Bishops.

H/T Ray at Stella