The issue for this post is not Yes or No on same-sex marriage; the issue is this: Should churches and pastors and ministers be official representatives of the State? What do you think?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n George Weigel is now contending Catholic priests need to re-think that connection and role:<\/p>\n To address the threat of the \u201cgay insurgency, which will press the administration to find some way to federalize the marriage issue and to compel acceptance of the chimera of \u2018gay marriage,\u2019\u201d Weigel writes that \u201cit seems important to accelerate a serious debate within American Catholicism on whether the Church ought not preemptively withdraw from the civil marriage business, its clergy declining to act as agents of government in witnessing marriages for purposes of state law.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The issue for this post is not Yes or No on same-sex marriage; the issue is this: Should churches and pastors and ministers be official representatives of the State? What do you think?\u00a0 George Weigel is now contending Catholic priests need to re-think that connection and role: To address the threat of the \u201cgay insurgency, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n