Madam, - I should be grateful if I might comment on the article by Karen Armstrong (July 13th). She writes enthusiastically about the "marriage" of Diana Eck and Dorothy Austin in Harvard Memorial Church.
The vocation to marriage - real marriage - is written into the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Scripture says:
1. "God blessed them and said to them: be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."
2. The books of Ruth and Tobit bear moving witness to the elevated sense of marriage.
3. The first public miracle of Jesus - at his mother's request - was at a wedding feast.
4. In his preaching, he unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it; "therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh."
In the face of clear scripture teaching, how can a state that is merely an expression of lust on the part of two men or two women be dignified with the title "marriage"? - Le meas,
(Fr) TOM INGOLDSBY SDB, Salesian College, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick.