Attending Forbidden Marriages
 
The Church says that marriage is of great importance and is the foundation of society. That is to say that any threat to marriage is to be abominated or hated completely. No approval at all to any degree is to be granted. The Catholic Church says this is true of the human level. But marriage is made infinitely more important by being the unit of the divine society - the Church and having being established by God and full of his grace. If it is bad then to think marriage matters a lot as an institution then it is astronomically bad to invest it with religious significance as the Church does.
 
Marriage is defined by the Christian faith and the state as the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of any other sexual partners.
 
Christianity says that gay weddings are sacrilege and fake and dangerous and no true Christian can attend one. That would be implying approval for the wedding or saying it is tolerable.
 
It may be answered that attending and participating are not the same. To attend however would mean you go just to see the ceremony and not to approve it. You would not be going as a guest. A guest is a person who participates by attending.
 
Marriage is seen to be the basic unit in religion as well as society in general. Married couples say in Hinduism are the reason the religion exists. To attend the wedding of another religion or to help it to happen then is to betray your own religion.
 
What if you are Christian and it is your brother or sister getting married in violation of the Christian faith and they ask for your support? Religion answers that support is a two way thing. They say that the brother and sister should support your right to obey the Christian faith and not get hostile to you if you choose not to attend the wedding. So if they get hostile it is not you who is causing the discord. If so, nobody then has the right to call a Catholic a bigot if the Catholic refuses to attend say a Mormon service. But if the gay wedding improves life for the couple it is certainly bigotry to keep away from it over religious principles. Nobody should ever have to go against their principles, but if you have to sacrifice one principle for another, the sacrificed principle should be the religious one.
 
In Radio Replies, 1, Question 1089, we read, “Is it a sin for a Catholic to attend weddings in Protestant churches? The law of the Catholic Church forbids participation in a religious service that is not Catholic because it is an implied repudiation of the faith which a Catholic professes to be the only true faith”. In the answer to Question 1091, we read concerning attendance at a Protestant service, “Our attendance would sanction to a certain extent their idea that their religion also is as good as our own. But our absence from their Churches gives them food for thought.” Attendance is not encouraging a Protestant to look into the Catholic Church to see if it is the true religion.
 
Roman Catholic teaching about attending what it sees as attempts at marriage or gravely immoral marriages, is horrendous. And there is a twisted logic to it that is a bad example for other religions. Even the question arising about attending such marriages shows bigotry.
 
Catholics today tend to not take religion very seriously. But that does not change the fact that their faith has nasty implications. The harm a religion implies should be done is a bigger reason for leaving it and telling it to get lost than the harm it actually does.