Disappointed in Maine Catholics

As many of you know I am both a devout Catholic and a proponent of marriage equality, at least as the most secure method of extending full civil rights to our county's gay and lesbians. These views are not contradicting as Canon Law (essentially the rules of the Church) clearly articulated a view that civil marriage is antithetical to sacramental marriage in any way. Which is why I am disturbed my Catholic brethren in Maine disagree, having spent over $380,000 of lay collection dollars on the Yes on 1 Campaign in Maine to overturn that state's gay marriage law.

As a devout Catholic this bothers me tremendously. It seems to me that since Church doctrine clearly affirms that civil marriages and divorces are not recognized as canonically valid marriages within the Catholic church that gay marriages made in Maine have absolutely nothing to do with the Church in any way. Traditional marriage between one man and one woman, without divorce, as the Church sees it, is completely unaffected by the outside world or who the state chooses to marry. That is not my opinion as a wide eyed liberal, that is Canon law as articulated by the Holy Father himself.

This money could be going to a variety of better causes. Catholic schools, hospitals, feeding the hungry here and abroad, etc. One would hope that the Church's political advocacy would be in line with its official doctrines, i.e eliminating the death penalty, unjust war, unwanted pregnancies, and you know advocating for universal healthcare which the Bishops Conference has endorsed since the 1960s and the Papacy endorsed in its encyclical on Church, State, and Labor in 1890-Rerum Novum-which called for "state sponsored insurance societies...for the working man" modeled after Germany's social insurance system.

I can think of several encyclicals relating to just war theory, euthanasia, the death penalty, human rights, and healthcare. I can't think of a single one that argues, the frankly heretical position that civil law bears any weight on sacramental marriage. Or equates civil marriage with sacramental marriage. It seems to be that if Maine Catholics, like any Catholic, shouldn't be worried about gay marriage since civil marriage is not 'marriage' according to the faithful anyway and since Benedict won't be opening sacramental marriage to homosexuals-or heterosexual divorcees or clergy for that matter-anytime soon. Frankly the Archdiocese of Maine is making a heterodox statement with this blatant disregard for church tradition and should be duly sanctioned by the Holy See and I am just shocked that a Catholic bishop would equate laws made by fallible, worldy man with laws clearly articulated by God himself and his Vicar on Earth.