Cardinal Francis George, the leader of
the Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, has described Illinois' gay
marriage bill as a “bad law.”
Speaking to the Chicago
Sun Times, George, a longtime opponent of gay nuptials, said
the legislation, which is expected to take effect in June, will “change
the nature of our society.”
“It's no enormous surprise,” George
said of the bill's passage on Tuesday. “There was a lot of effort
placed into passage of this legislation. I think it's bad
legislation, but we've lived with bad laws before. It'll make some
people happy … but it will also, I think, change the nature of our
society over a period of time,” George said.
(Related: Illinois
Gov. Pat Quinn to sign gay marriage bill this month.)
He added that Catholic gay couples who
marry under the law will not be allowed to take communion in
Chicago-area parishes.
“If someone is living in a lifestyle
that is publicly against the Gospel as interpreted in the church,
whether heterosexual or they're gay, no, they don't take communion,”
George said. “But that's the discipline of the sacrament that
applies to everybody, not just to gays.”
George
has previously called gay marriage “unnatural.”