S.F. archbishop: March for Marriage is not anti-LGBT

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Salvatore Cordileone, told critics who have assailed his decision to speak at the March for Marriage in Washington, D.C., this Thursday that the event is not an attack on gays and lesbians.

“The March for Marriage is not ‘anti-LGBT’ (as some have described it); it is not anti-anyone or anti-anything,” Cordileone said in a letter released Monday. “Rather, it is a pro-marriage march. The latter does not imply the former. Rather, it affirms the great good of bringing the two halves of humanity together so that a man and a woman may bond with each other and with any children who come from their union.”

Cordileone addressed the letter to Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and several other politicians and groups that advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. They called on Cordileone last week not to attend the march, noting that its sponsors include the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, which they said were among “the national’s most virulently anti-LGBT organizations.”

... Before being named to lead the 560,000-member San Francisco archdiocese in 2012, Cordileone was one of the main backers of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that California voters approved to ban same-sex marriage. As bishop of the San Diego diocese, he helped to raise $1.5 million to qualify the constitutional amendment for the ballot and warned, “The ultimate attack of the Evil One is the attack on marriage.”

Read more: http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/06/16/s-f-archbishop-march-for-marriage-is-not-anti-lgbt/