Your letter has been received and filed appropriately.......trash

From RCFM by way of LifeSiteNews.com

Open Letter to Cardinal O’Malley and the Roman Catholic Bishops of Massachusetts

As ministers, rabbis and religious leaders of many faith traditions, we urge you to stop your political campaign to take away civil marriage rights from gay and lesbian citizens. At a time when the Roman Catholic Church says it is trying to promote tolerance and diversity it is lobbying the legislature and campaigning publicly to ban same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth.

The Roman Catholic magisterium teaches that homosexuality and gay unions are gravely immoral (not exactly correct, read CCC 2357-2359). We disagree with that doctrine (the esscence of protestantism and cafeteria catholicism . . . wait protestantism is sufficient), and we rejoice and celebrate marriage equality in Massachusetts. However, we honor your right to believe as you wish. We respect your right to practice your faith according to your laws.

We ask that you respect our faith traditions in return. Taking away civil marriage rights from committed, loving gay and lesbian couples would deny us the right to practice our beliefs. (so you want the Church to back off of promoting its position to society so that you can force yours on society through activist judges and radical politicians?) We would no longer be able to marry same-sex couples legally. The state would be in the position of granting full rights and protections to everyone married according to your beliefs, while denying those rights and protections to couples married according to ours.

You are promoting prejudice through your political campaign, intentionally or not.
By proclaiming homosexuality and same-sex unions to be universally immoral and worthy of second-class status under state law, you are sending a message that our faith communities are immoral. You are harming us and our families and your own faithful as well. Thousands of Roman Catholics have signed our Roman Catholic Statement in support of marriage equality. They have signed out of their pain and their love and concern for the Church. (You know you can't say that with a straight face!)

We all have a right to speak our minds and to vote according to our beliefs, but in the political realm, we also have a constitutional responsibility to protect minorities, including the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual individuals and our minority religious communities. Our founding fathers understood the importance of protecting minorities and of preventing sectarian beliefs from becoming civil laws.

Worldwide, we can witness the unfortunate consequences when religious groups try to use government power to impose their will on multi-cultural societies.(and what are you doing? Homosexual marriage is not the norm, you are trying to force it on society.) Respecting and protecting the dignity of every soul, regardless of sexual orientation or religious beliefs, is the American way -- and the only way to protect the religious freedom and the democratic society we all cherish.

We urge you to stop trying to make your religious definition of marriage and family the law of our Commonwealth. Please stop trying to put personal faith up for a popular vote in 2008. Let’s return our focus to our common mission of promoting a socially just and tolerant society.

Faithfully,
The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry Board:

The Rev’d. Anne C. Fowler, President
Rabbi Howard Berman
Rabbi Devon A. Lerner, Executive Director
Rev. Quinn Caldwell
The Rev’d. George C. Welles, Jr.
Rev. Tiffany Steinwert
Rev. David Pettee
Rabbi Daniel Judson
Charles Martel, Roman Catholic Liaison
Rev. Irving Cummings
Constance Cervone, Roman Catholic Liaison
Rev. Maureen Reddington-Wilde

First of all. The right to marry comes from God, who established it for one man and one woman. As far as taking away any civil rights....in the overwhelming majority of states (all but Massachusetts) this civil right doesn't exist and therfore can't be "taken away".

But, I really want to address the fact that these "religious leaders" including thier "Roman Catholic" liaisons don't know diddly about the Catholic Church. This letter continually talks of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic magesterium. There is no "Roman Catholic Church". There is the one Catholic Church made up of several rites one of which (and the largest) happens to be the Roman or more appropriately Latin rite. There are over twenty rites, in 4 major groupings, in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

Read about the rites in communion with Rome at EWTN