PLANO: RECTOR TACKLES GAY MARRIAGE ON NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

Weekend: All Things Considered

HEADLINE: Reverend Canon David Roseberry talks about the theological arguments against gay marriage

ANCHOR & HOST: JOHN YDSTIE

Gay marriage continued to grow as an issue this week… President Bush stepped into the fray announcing his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage…

Reverend Canon DAVID ROSEBERRY (Christ Church, Plano, Texas): Good to be here.

YDSTIE: Now just so our listeners understand, you’re an Episcopal priest, is that right?

ROSEBERRY: That’s correct.

YDSTIE: And you are opposed to gay marriage.

ROSEBERRY: Yes, absolutely.

YDSTIE: Tell us briefly why this issue is so important that you think it might actually require a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?

ROSEBERRY: Well, I think the church has for 2,000 years in the Judeo-Christian understanding from the Bible has recognized that marriage is not a human institution. It is God’s idea… Marriage was created by God as an arrangement that was his crowning achievement. It is not our place… to tinker with something that God has so wonderfully made.

YDSTIE: But hasn’t the institution of marriage changed over history?

ROSEBERRY: …Same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. It just doesn’t work that way.

YDSTIE: If you look—if you came at this from a Libertarian perspective… How would gay marriage negatively affect the institution of marriage for heterosexual couples?

ROSEBERRY: …The unanswered question… is about the children. And I think same-sex partners cannot provide the kind of cradle environment that a husband and wife can do…

YDSTIE: So your feeling is that a child would be better off in a single-mother household as opposed to a two-mother household?

ROSEBERRY: Well, definitely I do feel that. However, I think that what the state should be encouraging and defending is marriage… This is the bearing wall of our civilization… If you start to hinder it or break it down… you’re dealing with forces well beyond our control.