Times: Let’s safeguard natural family

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131116/letters/Let-s-safeguard-natural-family.494919#.UpDdC9KsiSo
Saturday, November 16, 2013, 00:01 by Theodore Sammut, Luqa

People my age who value the concept of marriage as something sacred, above any other so-called civil partnership or civil union, cannot accept the reasoning behind the legalisation on same-sex unions through marriage. We see this as absurd and against all natural behaviour and common sense.

I’m not against respecting and granting all human rights to gays even if they wish to live together with all the rights a married couple enjoy, although adoption is controversial.

Wouldn’t it be absurd for a child to say at school that his parents are both male or both female?

He or she does not have a normal father and mother like everyone else but two papas or two mamas!

But to put same-sex unions on a par with marriage is diabolical. Surely nobody voted for that except those who perhaps were promised such a favour in return for their vote.

We tend to accept nearly everything in the name of progress but then look what we are facing: broken families, illegitimate children, domestic violence, drugs and many other modern human ailments; enormous suffering for the much-loved traditional family.

This doesn’t mean that in the past, when the world was more scrupulous, there were no family problems. Perhaps some wives suffered in silence, afraid to report domestic violence or similar problems. But today the world has accepted many regressive living styles in the name of progress. God knows what the world (and Malta) will go through in a couple of years’ time.

We should reflect on what the bishops said, that we must safeguard the family as a “natural institution” and raise our children with a mother and a father.