The document continually refers to the "common good." Some people deny that a common good exists, but both liberals and the Church tend to say that there exists a common good which government ought to protect. There is a general consensus on the basic function of government.
"[A]ccording to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.'" While the Left and the official Church disagree what considers "unjust discrimination," most liberals would agree with that wording. Granted, they generally won't agree with the following sentences calling homosexuality "objectively disordered" and calling for chastity. . . .
There is a difference between tolerance and approval. At least in theory, there is. The Catholic Church feels that laws should not legitimate evil. The history of the Left, at least in America, is filled with (sometimes excessive) crusades attempting to legislate out of existence the evils of society. Have you ever noticed that politicians trying to skirt the line on abortion claim to be "personally against abortion" while supporting abortion rights? Ever notice how no one says, "I believe that abortion is clearly immoral, but it should be legal?" A statement like that creates cognitive dissonance. People assume that immoral things should be illegal and that moral action should be encouraged by law. A politician would be blasted as a hypocrite trying to acquire votes if he said, "I belive that homosexual behavior is clearly immoral, but I support gay marriage." However, isn't that something that someone who is tolerant without being approving might say?
"[D]iscrete and prudent actions can be effective." Well, duh. Not everything needs to be a full frontal assault. Assume for a moment that we are not talking about gay marriage, but about the idea of a societal ill in general, leaving unanswered for now the question of what that ill happens to be. There is no need for excessive measures.
"One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection." Once again, if we imagine for a moment that this is referring to something other than homosexual unions, these words probably don't seem to bad to your average American liberal. In fact, it describes how many peace activists approach war.
The document cites the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Children in equating placing children in "an environment that is not conducive to their full human development" with violence against children. It is a tenet of liberal orthodoxy that the children are of paramount concern, so much so that many issues are phrased so as to beg concerned citizens to "think of the children." The kiddie card is sometimes obnoxiously overplayed, but when done right, it is a strong draw.
I hope that these points illustrate that the official Roman Catholic Church and modern liberalism have a lot of common in how they think, not surprising since Catholics have been a strong component of the American left. Ideally, both sides ought not to let issues on which they disagree, and this post is really a plea to the Left to not let disagreements on issues such as gay marriage or abortion poison current and future alignments on other issues where the Church and the Left might agree.
Can the Catholic Church shift its stance on homosexual unions? Perhaps, but were such a thing to occur, the change would be slow enough to fail to appease the Left. It would probably occur out of the blue and be accompanied by a schism as the final straw chasing conservatives out of a Church that they feel betrayed them. Most likely, were the Catholic Church to somehow approve of homosexual unions, it would stick to the requirement of chastity before marriage, which I doubt would be popular.
It should be noted that the Catholic Church is somewhat pragmatic in this document. It seems to accept a "de facto reality" where homosexual unions are illegal, but where homosexuals aren't banned from living together. While couples would not be able to do things such as adopt children, the Church seems to adopt a cool (resigned?) acceptance of not tossing homosexuals in jail.
I find it funny that the document holds that Catholic legislators have a moral duty to vote "no" when " legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly." I'm not sure if that's really intended to read that way. Is it an assumption that Catholics are going to end up as a protest vote and the law will pass anyways, or are they free to vote otherwise after the first time?
In all, this is a long, unedited post that I wrote while re-reading the document in question and going point by point. I can't help but think that a more coherent, interesting post would be here if I did otherwise.
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