Or why legislation approving same-sex marriage would be considered an unjust law.
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I was asked this by a reader. I will defer to Fr. Farfaglia's article on Unjust Laws and Same Sex Marriage, as found on Catholic Online.
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Not just for Catholics either...
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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - The Catholic Church has always pointed out that civil law must conform to the moral law. Public opinion does not make something right or wrong; the objective moral law does. Thus, not only Catholic politicians, but also all men and women in public life have an objective moral criterion to follow.
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When a civil law is not in conformity with the moral law, it is an unjust law. Legalized slavery, for example, was an unjust law. Legalized forms of segregation were unjust laws. Legalized abortion is an unjust law. Legalized euthanasia is an unjust law. Legalized same-sex marriage is an unjust law. Slavery, segregation, abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex 'marriages' are in essence contrary to the objective moral law, and therefore, no human law can claim them to be legitimate.
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The teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas explains this point with great clarity when he writes that "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes an act of violence" (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 93, a.3, ad 2). Furthermore he goes on to say: "Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law" (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95, a.2).
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Pope John Paul II in his monumental encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae wrote: "Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality" (70.4). "It is therefore urgently necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only acknowledge, respect and promote" (71.1). - Finish reading here.
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