In a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop, has renewed his commitment to defending the Defense of Marriage Act. The message, dated September 20, 2011, comes in response to recent actions taken by the Obama Administration that threaten the very existence of marriage.

Over the last several months, the United States Justice Department has shifted its attitude toward the Defense of Marriage Act from simply not defending it to challenging its constitutionality altogether. That move, in itself, is unconstitutional, some have argued, because the role of the executive branch of government is to enforce the laws, even those it does not necessarily support.

Within the letter, Archbishop Dolan reaffirms the USCCB’s support for the institution of marriage. Dolan also reiterates the “immeasurable personal dignity and equal worth of all individuals,” including the dignity of those with same-sex attraction, the main supporters of the repeal of DOMA. Furthermore, the archbishop refutes the claim that the support of DOMA is “rooted in prejudice and bias.”

On September 22nd, the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL) will present a formal response to Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate. The association has issued a press release for the occasion, which can be found below:

On Friday evening, the New York State Senate passed legislation legalizing same-sex marriages with a vote of 33-29. The move to redefine the traditional and God-given meaning of marriage is disappointing and saddening.

Over the last several days, many individuals who supported the measure to give homosexuals the ‘right’ to marriage equality have begun to taunt and jeer those who stringently opposed the new law, including the Catholic Church. One report stated that the passage of the law sent a message to the Church and its bishops:

“You bunch of posturing ninnies in frocks are utterly irrelevant, and you no longer have a grip on New York!”

Well, that wasn’t very nice, now was it?

In all seriousness though, many people have misunderstood the opposition of the bishops on this matter. Their opposition to same-sex marriage does not mean that they are anti-gay; it simply means they are pro-marriage. The bishops are simply defending the beliefs of the Church, which state marriage cannot and should not be radically altered.

The bishops are stringently opposed to ALL efforts to redefine the God-given meaning of marriage. As Archbishop Timothy Dolan put it: “society and culture is at its peril if we presume to tamper with what has been…cherished through the history of civilization.” Dolan continued, describing how same-sex marriages are “not good for the common good.”

U.S. Border

Yesterday, the Florida Catholic Conference issued an action alert urging all Catholics to contact their Congressional representatives and senators in order to prevent the expansion of the E-Verify system. The bishops are urging our elected officials to oppose the expansion of E-Verify because “it will hurt both U.S. workers and the country’s already weakened economy.” Below is the full text of the action alert from the Florida Catholic Conference:

BACKGROUND: In the past decade, Congress has spent $117 billion of taxpayer dollars on immigration enforcement initiatives, yet the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country has grown to 11.2 million and the demand for foreign-born, low-skilled labor continues. Approximately 70 percent of the unauthorized population is in the U.S. labor force, and each year another 300,000 to 400,000 unauthorized immigrants enter the country. Our bishops have been consistent in calling for comprehensive immigration reform.

Some in Congress are now supporting the mandatory use of E-Verify by all 6 million U.S. employers. E-Verify is a largely voluntary program which allows employers to electronically verify workers’ employment eligibility with government databases. Due to well-documented flaws in the databases upon which it relies, E-Verify does not detect over half of the undocumented workers in the system, yet results in false positives for thousands of American workers.

Over the last several weeks and months, most of the news agencies within the United States have reported on instances of intolerance and discrimination towards members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. One of the most devastating cases was the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi. After a video of him engaging in homosexual acts surfaced online, Tyler tragically decided to end his life by jumping from a bridge. The students who filmed the act without consent have been disciplined and charged with invasion of privacy, which in my opinion is lenient.

Many individuals are now questioning why others are so intolerant of homosexuals. Unfortunately, religious beliefs are usually marked as the leading cause. In regards to the Catholic Church, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Let’s take a look at some of the things the Church says about homosexuality.

• “Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.