New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan on
Sunday defended the Catholic Church's opposition to gay marriage,
saying gay men and lesbians are “entitled to friendship.”
Dolan made his remarks during an
appearance on ABC's This Week.
When host George Stephanopoulos asked
Dolan what the church says to gay couples who say, “We love God.
We love the church. But we also love each other, and we want to
raise a family in faith,” Dolan, who strongly advocated against
passage of marriage equality in New York, answered that gay people
are only “entitled to friendship.”
“Well, the first thing I'd say to
them is, 'I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in
God's image and likeness. And we want your happiness. But you're
entitled to friendship,” Dolan said. “But we also know that God
has told us that the way to happiness, that – especially when it
comes to sexual love – that is intended only for a man and [a]
woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally.”
Dolan continued: “We got to be – we
got to do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced
to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven't been too good at
that. We try our darndest to make sure we're not an anti-anybody.”
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(Related: Timothy
Dolan calls gay marriage 'Orwellian social engineering')