Can 'true Catholics' support same-sex marriage? – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs My church welcomes gay marriage and fights for marriage equality, so it certainly isn't an issue for me. Having been raised catholic, i do have a lot of catholic relatives and friends, and this really isn't an issue for any of them. they all support gay marriage as a civil liberties issue and see no conflict between their religious beliefs and the legal rights of lgbt individuals. now, most of them would agree that such a marriage would not (and should not) be recognized by the catholic church, but heck, many of them have marriages not recognized by the catholic church because they did not have a catholic wedding. i have one acquaintance who is vehemently against the word marriage being use for anyone not married in the catholic church. i don't know why it matters one iota to her what someone else chooses to call their legal union, but she is so vehement in her beliefs on this it isn't worth even trying to discuss it with her. before i realized this i tried and all i really got from her was that only the Church should be allowed to marry people so that she would know if they said they were married it was a true marriage. again, why she needs to know the religious status of someone's union is beyond me. thoughts?