Everyone talks about equality. But equality only exists in the eyes of God and is, after all, a rather Christian concept. We are all loved by God and in that is our worth. Ironically, many politicians are marginalizing religion from the public sphere in the name of equality. And many see the major obstacle to this enforced equality as Christianity.
Right now, homosexual advocates are marching under the banner of equality. And advancing quite well thank you very much. In fact, just this week the Archdiocese of Washington fell victim to the cause of enforced equality.
The Archdiocese just posted on its website that it’s dropping its foster care program as well as adoption program due to DC’s same-sex marriage law which states that all city contractors must recognize gay couples. The law would force the Church to place children with gay couples.
The archdiocese had asked for a conscience exemptions but city council refused. And this is not an isolated incident. It’s happened before in other parts of the country and will inevitably happen again. Dioceses all over the country will be forced to deal with these issues in coming months and years. Added onto this is the issue of demanding that the Church offer benefits to the partners of gay employees as well as many other issues.
Never mind that true equality would respect differences, this enforced equality seems to insist on stamping out differences. Sadly, freedom of religion is being narrowed into something we’re allowed to do on Sundays.
In fact, Knox Thames, Executive Director of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, was recently quoted in the news saying that President Obama often refers to “freedom of worship” while not talking nearly as often about “Freedom of religion.”
This should ring alarm bells for Christians, I believe, because “freedom of worship” is something that could be seen as being limited to what’s done inside Churches. It would seem to draw a distinction with freedom of religion which would seem to have many more consequences in the world. The linguistic ploy would seem to narrow religious freedom into something with few real world applications.
So, in short, you can believe what you want to believe but you just can’t do anything about it. You can be a Catholic, just don’t act like one.
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The question is not whether the Archdiocese of Washington has “religious freedom” to discriminate against Gay couples, but whether they are accepting public funds in the process! Gay people are taxpayers too, and I don’t want my tax dollars going to organizations that discriminate against me, any more than a Catholic would want his tax dollars going toward an organization that discriminates against Catholics.
Catholic Charities of Boston went through this same situation years ago. I frankly couldn’t care less if their adoption service discriminated against Gay couples or Muslim couples or whomever. Problem was, Catholic Charities of Boston were being funded by the State of Massachusetts to the tune of a million bucks per year! And they were given a choice: Either stop discriminating against Gay couples, or give up their public funding. They chose to give up the funding. Fine by me. You wanna feed at public trough, you’d better be prepared to play by the rules.
Chuck, that is exactly why the Archdiocese of Washington has shut these programs down. They were in partnership with the District of Columbia (one report I read mentioned that DC kicked in $8 million and the Archdiocese contributed around $10 million). Their options were to stay open and go against Catholic teaching or to shut down (as they couldn’t run the programs without the DC funding).
Even though it appears that we’re coming at this issue from different viewpoints, I agree with you on the funding issue. I want Catholic charities to be able to help others, but I want the organizations to be able to stay true to Church teachings at the same time. IMHO this was the only thing the Archdiocese could have done, given the Council’s refusal to grant a religious exemption.
DC councilmembers should have seen this coming, because of the experience of Catholic Charities in Boston. I hope they don’t plan to complain about the Catholic Church deciding to remain…well, Catholic.
Going by Chuck’s logic we shouldn’t discriminate against alcoholics, meth freaks, crack heads, wife abusers, pornographers, hit-men, or anyone else whose lifestyle is considered inconducive to the raising of children. It is the considered judgement of the Church that homosexual relations, and by extension relationships based on them, are disordered and are detrimental to the development of children. You can disagree, but that’s simply one opinion against another.
Chuck makes the point beautifully. If you take funds from a government that does not discriminate against gay people, you may not discriminate against gay people. If you wish to discriminate against gay people, you cannot expect government funding.
I think the law also prohibits the Archdiocese, even with OUR OWN money from operating a foster care and/or adoption process that doesn’t accept gay couples. It’s more than just tax money. It’s not being able to live our faith.
If it’s just taxes then the city would have the right to select new vendors the next time they contract out services. And btw I’m sure there are quite a few more Catholics paying taxes than gays. How about we just segregate the money like Planned Parenthood does?
Denise,
Great point. I love the segregating funds comment. It’s such a fraud that Planned Parenthood can get away with that.
nice spin right from the karl rove school of spin
fact is the “benevolent” cc proactively decided to turn its back on the people of DC needing help.
apparently cc hates the lgbt community more than it loves helping people
and yes please stop acting like “one” because all the “ones” i know are filled with self righteousness and hate…all of them whitened sepulchres indeed
This is allowing an immoral lifestyle to persecute the church. They demand tolerance but are intolerant themselves - they can always adopt from elsewhere can’t they? Gay is not a gender, it is a sexual preference and homosexuality is a sexual lifestyle just like promiscuity. DC is not just granting them rights, they’re granting them preference and power to discriminate.
It’s not the the Church wants to deny rights to homosexual couples. The goal of these services is to help the children. It cannot in good conscience give the children over to gay couples for foster care or adoption. That wouldn’t be in the child’s best interest.
When fascism comes to America it will be carrying a pink swastika wrapped in a rainbow flag. Any time the smallest minority dictates to the majority there is fascism. We have lost our republic and forfeit it for the comfort of the legacy of Sodom. Heaven help us.
RightthingtodoTX – If the ultimate goal is to help people, as you claim, then why won’t the GLBJKTPS (or whatever the acronym is) suck it up and let the Catholic Church help as far as its conscience will allow? Maybe it’s because the GLBJKTPS community is too full of ‘self righteousness and hate?’
Those who thump FOR gay ‘rights’ claim them based on something called EQUALITY. However, equality springs from natural law – we have this right from “Nature and Nature’s God.” The problem – gays deny “Nature and Nature’s God” in that they deny that “Nature and Nature’s God” has made them male OR female. The ‘gay rights’ argument tanks on that logic – you can’t claim rights based on something you deny exists!!!
Please leave the children alone…
http://actsoftheapostasy.blogspot.com/2010/02/study-children-with-same-sex-parents.html
if you want to, go on with your immoral lifestyle, but leave the children out of it… have you no sense of decency at all…
The “I’m a taxpayer, too and I object” argument is a double-edged sword. If Catholic Charities should be denied government contracts for services based on the beliefs of some tax payers, so in turn should Planned Parenthood be denied governments contracts, based on the beliefs of others.
If the current law claims that Catholic Charities must place children with same-sex couples in order to provide adoption services on behalf on the state, then Catholic Charities is left with no choice but to cease providing those services (at least if the Church wants to maintain its integrity). Will children suffer? Maybe, but not at the hands of the Church. The only decision the Church has to make is whether or not it wants to be complicit in that suffering. It chose not to.
For those who take exception to the notion that placing children with same-sex couples will cause children to suffer, that is something you are going to have to get over. When you intentionally deny a child either a mother or a father, you are causing that child to suffer. Mothers and fathers matter in the lives of children; preferably biological, but if not then adoptive. Deny this reality, and you discredit yourself as someone who truly cares for what is in the best interest of children.
As to where we go from here, that is up to us Catholics. Vote your faith – get involved politically, and not just on election day. Promote candidates that support your Catholic values. Give your time and money, and live your faith in the public square. Laws can be changed, but only if we, as faithful Catholics, get involved in the political process.
Afterthought: The bigger problem is with state licensing. While we can say it’s easy for a Catholic agency not to take contracts from the government, what about those agencies, Catholic or otherwise, that are bound by state licensing laws? What about a private adoption agency that takes no money from the government, yet is licensed by the state and in turn required to adopt to same-sex couples in order to get a state license? Here’s the real rub. Regardless of the funding source, the Church is put out of business by the state, simply for living out its beliefs.
Factually incorrect. The Archdiocese of Washington was completely unaffected by the changes to the marriage laws in DC, as those laws exempted religious institutions from performing, participating, providing services, or renting space for marriages that do did not meet their religious requirements. These religious exemptions could not have been more broad.
The Catholic Charities of DC, a separate business entity from the “church” that provides public services in exchange for money, was impacted, but not from this law. It seems that they had been in violation of DC’s non-discrimination laws for years and they ceased adoption services as a political statement, not as a legal reaction to the recently enacted law.
Since Catholic Charities was taking millions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for their adoption services, it is within the right of the government to preclude those monies from being used to discriminate against some of the very citizens that fund the services.
Im shocked at the ignorance in defense of the RCC.
ALL legit studies show that kids of gay parents are just as healthy or healthier than kids from straight parents. So, the RCC claiming they are protecting kids is just a flat out lie. They also use studies that compared kids of straight parenst with kids of single parenst to “prove” that the “regular” family unit is best for kids. Anotehr lie…no shame at all
Addign insult to injury is the fact that the RCC adopts to divorcees, the gravest sin in the bible. This proves the animus toward gays
We do notneed catholci charities.
God loves everyone so any discrimination in His name is of satan
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