{"id":1006,"date":"2011-06-27T09:58:41","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T13:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2011-06-27T23:39:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T03:39:21","slug":"sacred-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/sacred-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacred Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1007\" style=\"width: 285px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1007\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1007 \" title=\"GayPrideJune26.11A\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/GayPrideJune26.11A.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"220\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1007\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gay Pride, NYC, June 26, 2011<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A purple centerline ran down 5<sup>th<\/sup> Avenue when I pulled into NYC yesterday around 11:30 and police were setting up the metal partitions to corral the anticipated spectators for the Gay Pride Parade.\u00a0 People were already gathering and opportunistic street peddlers were hawking rainbow flags and leis.\u00a0 By the time the leading cavalcade of slow-moving, revving motorcyclists passed the Flatiron Building around 12:30, the sidewalks were packed with cheering celebrators.\u00a0 All people can now marry the ones they love in New York.\u00a0 It\u2019s true in Connecticut where I live, too.<\/p>\n<p>While certain leaders of my Catholic faith have expressed anew their concerns that gay marriage undermines the sacredness of the sacrament, I myself feel the rejoicing in our collective spirit.\u00a0 For me, it is an issue of faith when we legally do something that is morally right.\u00a0 Our loving God must surely be pleased that we are treating each other fairly and that we are more fully awake to each other\u2019s humanity.<\/p>\n<p>Marriage is at its core a union between the two people who take the vows, and any unique marriage is as strong as those two people are in their commitment.\u00a0 The power and grace of that bond also ripple outward to the rest of us when the couple\u2019s happiness and love make them better people, more generous with their contributions to work and community.\u00a0 The power of the bond also ripples among the relatives and friends who unite to support a married couple, long after the ceremony is over.\u00a0 In this way, strong marriages do thread into the fabric of our society, so loving gay marriages will benefit everyone.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s yet another lovely thing happening, too.\u00a0 By honoring all people who can choose marriage, we are elevating the sacrament, but we are also honoring people who choose <em>not<\/em> to marry. \u00a0It&#8217;s no longer the case that some people can&#8217;t marry. \u00a0We are saying now: you have a choice.\u00a0 You matter.\u00a0 You can decide.\u00a0 You count.\u00a0 Married people and single people alike have just become more sacred.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A purple centerline ran down 5th Avenue when I pulled into NYC yesterday around 11:30 and police were setting up the metal partitions to corral the anticipated spectators for the Gay Pride Parade.\u00a0 People were already gathering and opportunistic street peddlers were hawking rainbow flags and leis.\u00a0 By the time the leading cavalcade of slow-moving, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}