Catholic Exchange reports that Biden said yesterday "that if I lived in California, I would vote against Proposition 8," i.e., he would vote against defining marriage in California to be "between a man and a woman." (Hat tip: Ignatius Insight.)
This appears to conflict with his claims in the VP debate with Sarah Palin that "neither Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage." CE notes that Bill Dohonue has pointed out the conflict between Biden’s apparent opposition to defining marriage to be between a man and a woman and the teaching of Pope Benedict in Sacramentum Caritatis (quoted here at greater length, emphasis mine):
Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter, without consequences for our relationships with others: it demands a public witness to our faith. Evidently, this is true for all the baptized, yet it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values, such as respect for human life, its defence from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one’s children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms (230). These values are not negotiable. Consequently, Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature (231).