The Times of Malta reported (March 16) that Aditus director and human rights lawyer Neil Falzon said there should be no major issues with the introduction of same-sex marriage since the existing legal unions were the same in all but name. To say that existing legal unions are the same in all but name is to degrade the real meaning of marriage. One should emphasise that marriage is not a simple agreement to live together but a relationship with a social dimension.

The social doctrine of the Church teaches that, since one of the main purposes of marriage is forming a family, “making de facto unions legally equivalent to the family would discredit the model of the family, which cannot be brought about in a precarious relationship between persons but only in a permanent union originating in marriage, that is, in a covenant between one man and one woman, founded on the mutual and free choice that entails full conjugal communion oriented toward procreation”.

There are valid reasons why legal unions cannot be equated with marriage and not, as Falzon contends, simply because previous administrations were unwilling  to change the status quo or a question of government policy. Equating same-sex unions with marriage because one believes in love, commitment, equality and justice is not enough.

The social dimension of marriage and the common good are paramount when one is debating marriage. “If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage,” the  social doctrine of the Church states, “the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good.

By putting homosexual union on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties.”

By concentrating solely on the rights of individuals and considering all relationships between individuals as marriage is degrading the sublime of marriage and, by doing so, the State is losing sight of the dignity of the human person and the good of society as a whole.