Bishops explicitly reject same-sex marriage

The German bishops have spoken out firmly against same-sex marriage, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. “The German bishops are against allowing same-sex partners to marry. They share the concerns expressed under German constitutional law that are against introducing marriage for everyone”, Archbishop Heiner Koch, in charge of family affairs at the Bishops’ Conference, told Passauer Neue Presse on 28 March.

The bishops were convinced that there was a definite difference between civil unions and marriage, Archbishop Koch said. “Unlike married couples, same-sex couples cannot transmit life”. In his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis declared that partnerships between people of the same sex could not be equated with marriage as they were not able to transmit life and thus ensure the future of society, the archbishop recalled.

Earlier that day, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) called on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union – its partner in the present coalition Government – to agree to a change of law that would grant same-sex couples the right to get married.
Under German law, same-sex partners can enter civil unions that grant some but not all of the rights that married partners enjoy. For instance, they cannot adopt children. CDU whip Volker Kauder, said: “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”