You ask a very interesting and timely question about gay "marriage" and the role of the Church in civic life.  Your question has many layers, and I would like to address the underlying issue of "church and state" before going to the particular issue of same-sex "marriage."  Also, rightly or wrongly, I detect a bit of anger in your question; I hope my reflections may not only clarify how I see the role of the Catholic Church in American political life but also may challenge some of the preconceptions underlying your question.

      First, the Church believes in the mystery of God revealed in Christ.  That is the central belief of the Church as laid out in its creeds.  So, when you ask if the Church "believes" in the Constitution, then the answer must be that it does not, because the American Constitution is not part of its creed.  The Catholic Church in America is bound to live under the Constitution.  As American citizens we respect it and live by it as citizens, but we do not believe it.  It is not an article of faith.  It is a government document, a very good one, but it is not a religious document; it adds nothing to our faith life.  And, as I might note, the rest of the world's Catholics (over 900 million) do not live by this document (nor do they "believe" it).

     Since I have brought up the world wide Church, now may be a good time to point out that other countries have different relations with the Church.  In England, the Anglican Church IS the official church of the state.  In Germany, the government collects church taxes, believe it or not! (A person simply declares their Church (usually Lutheran or Catholic in Germany) and the government distributes that share of revenue to the respective church.)  But, in America, we have a policy which, rightly or wrongly, has been termed "Separation of Church and State."  This exact phrase is not found in the Constitution.  Here is the correct phrase from the 1st Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

     Whether this is a strict separation has been debated.  But Congress cannot do two things: it cannot establish a church or religion.  But it also cannot prohibit people from expressing their faith.  So, it is in this second area that your specific question comes into play.  What happens when people want to express what their faith tells them is right or wrong?  Is this an establishment of religion, which is clearly prohibited?  Or is it the citizenry of the United States expressing their will and wisdom, whether that will or wisdom is religiously motivated or not?  This second area is a little gray, as you might suspect.  Again, let me hold off on the specific question until I address some of your other questions.

      You ask if the church believes in civil rights.  Again, technically, this is not a theological "belief" but a very important result of Christian belief.  If God can incarnate in human form, then that says a lot about human rights!  We have a lot of them.  In fact, I would suggest to you that the Church's belief (for lack of a better word) in human rights is far more reaching than civil rights.  Sticking with the Constitution, the preamble says that we hold that all men are "created equal" (I will reflect more on equality next) and that they have the inalienable rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Sticking with those "civil rights" (I am sure there may be more to be teased out of the Constitution), one of the three is life.  We all have a right to live.  That is a civic right and a human right.  But, also, the Church would say all humans have a right to medical care.  The Constitution does not give such a right.  All it says in the preamble is that a citizen here is free to live and pursue happiness.  If health insurance makes them happy, they are free to pursue it.  But it does not assure the right to medical care; in my brief reflection, this would be one example of a human right which is not a civil right guaranteed by the Constitution.  And I think you would agree that, on this issue, where 47 million Americans go without health insurance, that the human rights promoted by the Church are greater in scope than pure civil rights as guaranteed in the Constitution.

      The last topic you raise (and the last one I will treat before going into the topic of gay "marriage") is that of equal rights.  Again, the word "equality" is key.  Just as the Constitution states that "we hold that all people (technically, men--the whole idea of inclusivity in the Constitution would be another topic) are created equal."  What does equal mean?  It certainly doesn't mean physical equality--we are all different sizes.  It doesn't mean ability--for different people have different gifts.  What I would suggest is that it means the equality that comes from something we call "human dignity."  We are equal in that we deserve to be treated with dignity as humans.  And equal rights tries to respect that core dignity of the human.  It certainly doesn't mean we all have the same rights.  For example, a 12 year old does not have the right to drive a car; and, similarly, two 18 year olds may be able to drive a car, but if only one has a license and the other does not, only one has the right to drive.  They are not equal.  My point here is that equality is sometimes mistakenly taken to mean to treat everyone the same in all things.  From my example of driving a motor vehicle, we can see that we do not treat everyone the same; some have the right to, some do not, and some have the potential but just have not exercised that right.  The equality as I see in the Constitution is equal human dignity.  And the Church believes in equal human dignity as well, rooted in the experience of the Incarnation of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth.  Humans have IMMENSE dignity.

      So, with all of that said, let me address your issue of so-called gay "marriage."  Note that I have put marriage in quotation marks because one of the issues here is the definition of marriage.  As the Church sees it, marriage is a sacramental union between man and woman, life-long, and open to new life.  By definition, homosexual couples cannot be married.  They can be very committed to each other, they can love each other deeply, but, from basic human reproduction, they cannot create new life between them.  And that is the simplest explanation I can give.  And this is without getting into the issue of the morality of homosexual actions, which I will bring up later.  Now, this you may know.  Again, by your question, you wonder why the Church is speaking up politically.  Let me turn to politics.

      Concerning gay "marriage" as sanctioned by the State, Catholics are citizens of the state.  The Church is an organization in the State.  We have opinions on matters of the State.  And as citizens and organizations, we make our opinions known, hopefully in a civil and conversational manner.  Given my emphasis on marriage being open to creating children biologically, the Church can give its opinion to law makers who develop policy without (and this is key) requiring the citizens to believe what the Church does.  A law defining marriage as between one man and one woman does not require the adherents of the law to believe in Christ, to attend Church, or to believe in anything the Church believes.  It does not "establish any religion."  The buzz phrase "separation of Church and State" does not mean that people of belief do not make their will known to their representatives; it just means they cannot ask their representatives to pass any laws establishing religion.

     And I think it is clear that the argument I give against gay "marriage" does not establish any religion.  In fact, if we stick with the Constitution, we may also note that government is "of the people, by the people, for the people" with another buzz phrase of "majority rules."  The vast majority of Americans feel that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman.  Now, this does not mean that society, for the sake of order, can create civil unions for same sex couples.  But it does not have to call it marriage.

Some closing thoughts on a very controversial and pertinent topic for our day.

     One of the issues that is not mentioned explicitly in this debate is the sexual aspect of marriage.  The unique way of relating between a husband and wife is through genital intercourse.  This is (ideally) exclusive to husband and wife.  They share themselves genitally in an exclusive relationship; this is the bond of marriage expressed physically.  To call same-sex unions "marriage," would be to imply an exclusive genital relationship.  This would be a state sanction of anal or oral intercourse (sodomy).  And I get the feeling that most people do not want to say that this is something they want to sanction (for, what is the state, but the people who comprise it?).  It is good to note that many states had laws outlawing sodomy; these were put to the test in the late 80s and most of them were stricken from the books.  They were really unenforcable.  And they really went against another theme from the Constitution, which is the right to privacy.  But the right to privacy is what is being pushed here into public sanction.  Marriage is a public act, which implies an exclusive sexual relationship (expressed in private, of course).  I think that this is the underlying stumbling block to gay "marriage" in the public domain.  Underneath the call for rights for spousal privilege, shared marriage benefits, there is a subtle approval for the sexual aspect of marriage.  And although society may approve of heterosexual relations, I don't think most people want to approve of homosexual relations in the public way that gay "marriage" calls for.

     In another vein, to take your call for "Equal Rights" to its extreme, what if someone wanted to marry his or her pet dog?  A pet could surely benefit from shared health care (vet bills can be expensive!).  And some people may be very committed to their pets.  My point here is that "blanket equality" can lead to human/non-human marriage (And, note, from the constitution, one may argue for this on the basis of "pursuit of happiness").

      Lastly, homosexual people have the right to marriage.  They can marry someone of the opposite gender!!  That does sound a bit pedantic, but it does point out the belief that one does not have to marry for sexual attraction.  Indeed, if that is the basis for any marriage, that marriage will fall once the sexual attraction fades.  On this note, people do argue over whether marriage to someone of the same sex is a "civil right" in the sense that African Americans in the 60s (and today) fought for their rights.  And they might not have gotten them if we stuck with a strict "majority rules."  Here, I would suggest that the equality based on human dignity was at stake; and we realized that this equality was not being honored.  So, is the human dignity of homosexuals being violated by not allowing same-sex marriage?  I would conclude no.  They have the equal right to marry a life-long companion of the opposite sex.  They even have the right to co-habit or enter into civil unions; and the right to ask for benefits akin to spousal privilege.  But I do not think that changing the definition of marriage is a civil right.  In fact, some would suggest that the homosexual genital relations implied in such a marriage would not be indicative of human dignity.

      If you have gotten to the end of this long answer, thank you for taking the time to read it all.  I must repeat that all people, homosexual or heterosexual, have deep human dignity.  And we must respect that, especially given the violence done to homosexual people against their human dignity, which is inherent and never lost.  But the question here is if same-sex marriage is a right pursuant of that dignity.  The Church, and many others, does not believe so.   And the Church's speaking out publicly to influence state and federal policy does not violate the Constitution as it does not establish religion but simply makes known the will of one segment of the population on this very sensitive issue.

As always,  I hope this helps with your understanding.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Chris

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