Don’t legalize marriage equality, bishops tell Supreme Court

The National Council of Catholic Bishops has filed legal briefs with the Supreme Court defending two anti-gay laws on which the court will hear oral arguments next month. The friend-of-the-court brief comes amidst changing public opinion toward same-sex marriage, and continued furious resistance by the Catholic hierarchy. In the bishops’ latest blast, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco told a British Catholic newspaper: “Legislation for the right for people of the same sex to marry is like legalizing male breast-feeding.” Installed last fall in a city with thousands of gay and lesbian residents, Cordileone is a hard-line, conservative canon lawyer who heads the bishops’ committee for the promotion and defense of marriage.