Tag: Marriage Equality

Posted on

Bishops warn of ‘national conflict’ over gay marriage

The nation’s top Catholic bishop issued a stern challenge to the Obama administration’s decision not to support a federal ban on gay marriage, and warned the president that his policies could “precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions.”

In a letter sent Tuesday (Sept. 20), Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he and other prelates have grown increasingly concerned since the administration announced last February that it would no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court.

The Obama administration says it believes the law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman is unconstitutional.

Dolan said the bishops are especially upset that the administration and opponents of DOMA are framing their argument as a civil rights issue, which he said equates “opposition to redefining marriage with either intentional or willfully ignorant racial discrimination.”

He also argued that traditional marriage is best for society, and that treating gay marriage as a civil right would lead to discrimination against believers and against church agencies that could not, for example, accommodate gay couples as adoptive parents.

“The administration’s failure to change course on this matter will … precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions,” Dolan warned.

The two-page letter was followed by a three-page analysis from the USCCB’s legal staff that charges the administration with “hostility” to traditional marriage and a “new, more aggressive position” on behalf of gay marriage. In especially strong language, it also argues that the administration treats millions of Americans who oppose gay marriage “as if they were bigots.”

The tenor of the bishops’ warning appears to signal an escalation in their battle against gay marriage, as well as a hardening of their opposition to Obama just as the 2012 presidential campaign gets underway. The bishops’ new hard line was welcomed by conservatives, and it comes as Obama is facing record-low opinion ratings.

The bishops’ stance carries risks, however, as voters appear to be focused on the state of the economy more than gay marriage. Moreover, polls show a steady erosion of opposition to gay rights of all kinds among the U.S. population, with Catholics more open to endorsing gay relationships than many other faith groups.

The bishops have been careful to frame their opposition to Obama’s policies in the context of religious freedom and defending the right of individuals and religions to act according to the dictates of their conscience.

On Monday (Sept. 19), the day before Dolan sent his letter to Obama on gay marriage, the bishops of Washington, Maryland and Delaware sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that strongly objects to proposed regulations mandating health care coverage of contraception.

For the Catholic Church, which considers the use of artificial birth control a sin, the mandate is “a radically new and unprecedented attack on religious freedom,” said Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien and Wilmington Bishop W. Francis Malooly.

Full Article HERE!

Posted on

Catholic Priest Writes Book on Ministering to Gays

A controversial retired Catholic priest has penned a new book aimed at helping parishes that seek to reach out to homosexuals.

And it doesn’t focus on changing their orientation.

James Schexnayder’s book, Setting the Table: Preparing Catholic Parishes to Welcome Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People and Their Families, is intended to serve as a resource guide for churches attempting to create “safe, supportive and healing places” for non-heterosexual individuals and their families, according to an article in the latest issue of Oakland’s the Catholic Voice.

“This book came out of my experiences not only locally, but in working with various diocesan clergy regarding welcoming gay and lesbian families into parishes,” Schexnayder told the Voice.

“There is nothing in it contrary to Church teaching.”

Schexnayder in 1994 was a co-founder of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, now known as the Catholic Association for Lesbian & Gay Ministry.

He’s been criticized in the past for advocating views insiders see as inconsistent with those of the church, such as suggesting that homosexuals are directed toward chastity, but not celibacy, in their sexual relations.

“Regarding sexual behavior, the Catholic Catechism… does not use the word ‘celibacy’ for gay and lesbian people; the word is ‘chastity,’” Schexnayder told an audience at Spring Valley’s Santa Sophia parish in 2002.

He says the issue is “about successful integration,” and that homosexuality can be a spiritual blessing.

At the same talk, he also touched on a controversial view of same-sex marriage, according to a report at California Catholic Daily.

“I don’t think the Church is going to deal with gay and lesbian marriages, but in its history and those who have done research on this, the Catholic Church and other Christian churches like the Orthodox church, have in fact in history blessed same-gender unions as spiritual bondings, and there are saints who have had very committed relationships.”

Full Article HERE!

Posted on

The gay agenda will see you now

So, how about it? Has it all come clear? Has the true horror been made absolutely and irrefutably real? Because know this for certain: There is no going back.

Behold, beautiful and confused children of Earth: The smoke has cleared, the glitter bomb has settled and finally, after years of deliciously imaginary back-room strategizing and decades — if not centuries — of secretly brainwashing millions of innocent children, punk-rock girls and repressed ’50s dads …

After panicking the religious right, inducing nightmares in the Pope and shamelessly luring countless congresspersons and church pastors, mayors and deeply shamed NFL players into the shimmery rainbow fold, the world-famous “homosexual agenda” has, once and for all, screamed itself alive.

Have you noticed? Have you read and felt and pored through, stifled a sniff and perhaps even let a few tears flow? Have you yet had your heart cracked open, just a little? Or maybe a lot?

I dare you. I dare you right now.

Especially you, over there on the convulsive and ever so baffled religious right. Especially you, bleak and loveless Mormon Church elders. Especially you from the aged, encrusted generations who are right now looking around in buzzing terror and not sure what to make of it all. Especially you up there on the pulpit, waving your arms and wielding your Bible like it was a dull switchblade, wailing that the fabric is coming undone and nothing will ever be the same again.

You know what, pastor? You are absolutely goddamn right. You know what else? Thank sweet Jesus for that. I mean, really.

To make it even easier to understand, to produce irrefutable evidence of the agenda’s ultimate goals, to further confound (or perhaps finally enlighten?) those who still think homosexuality is a choice, who think it the devil’s work and believe it morally repugnant, well, we have pictures. Lots and lots of pictures, all from New York, all from the first days of legal gay marriage in that fine state.

And lo, they are enough to shake you to the core, reignite the soul, reaffirm your simplest faith in this rough beast known as humanity. They are enough, if you look just right and open a bit wider, to make you forget the woes of the world and be reassured that the simplest truths remain, as ever, the most profound.

Or let’s put it this way: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a photo of two people aswim in true and respected love is worth just about every book, poem and bible ever written in this messy and godsmacked little realm we call home.

Don’t believe me? Click the gallery I’ve included in this column, or any other floating around the Web right now, and be amazed, refreshed, ignited, heartspun and soulwarmed, over and over again, as many times as you like, as many times as it takes. I’ve looked through all these pictures a dozen times, and take my word for it, it never fails.

Here it is, over and over, one stunning photo after another, an endless parade of people simply bursting at the seams with love and human potential, radiating and terrified and madly aglow with the possibility of it all.

Here they are, in an incredible array of shapes and sizes, ages and hair colors, backgrounds and melodramas, each and every one finally able, with the state’s full blessing, to consecrate their vows. Hey, just like you! Imagine.

The good news is, there is almost no way your Republican dad, your deeply homophobic brother, your Puritanical grandma, or pretty much anyone with a functioning and extant heart can see these pictures and not suddenly be drained of all protest, all resistance, all ridiculous fear of what “the homosexual agenda” is really all about. It is, after all, about just one thing, and one thing only. And it always has been.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask. Perhaps you believe there are many who will simply never be convinced. The fear is too deep, the religious indoctrination too harshly stamped, the heart too cold and locked down.

It’s very possible. When I first posted a link to some of these photos in Twitter and on my Facebook page, amidst all the positive comments, the cheers and tears from all normal and vibrant souls, even then did a few scowls sneak through, some who were still disgusted at the thought, sickened by the images, grossed out by the very existence of gay people in the way only violently uptight, over-sheltered straight people can be.

To which you can too easily reply, Have you seen straight people lately? Bridezillas? Bridalplasty? The abject nightmare of deeply freaky straight people getting married in strip clubs, in full furry costume, at Star Wars conventions, as Klingons and Smurfs and Star Trek characters, at drunken monster truck rallies, Krispy Kreme donut shops, Guns ‘R Us? I’ve been to many beautiful weddings in my life. But know this now: No one can top straight people when it comes to gross and ridiculous couplings.

But I won’t say that. Because that would be tacky, and also beside the point. Besides, the protests have been relatively minor, tame. Note how there hasn’t been a single GOP candidate who has dared to slam the New York weddings. The Prop 8-loving Mormons are nowhere to be found. Redneck dudes in baseball hats have retreated to the man cave en masse to sulk and watch gay porn in silent resentment.

Do you think they sense the writing on the wall? Do you think they intuit which way history is leaning? Which state will be next (note: all of them, eventually)? Or do you think they finally understood the true nature of the terrifying “homosexual agenda?”

Maybe, just maybe, they finally saw it, in blazing full color, in a devastatingly simple photo gallery somewhere, and finally had their fears laid to rest, their ideologies reconfigured, their hearts blasted open. Hey, it’s possible.

Love can do that, you know. It always has.

http://tinyurl.com/3wwq28s

Posted on

Archbishop Urged Md. Gov Against Supporting Marriage Equality

When Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (pictured, left) announced he would sponsor a marriage equality bill, he was bucking pressure from the Roman Catholic archbishop of Baltimore, who said the action amounted to “promoting a goal that so deeply conflicts with your faith.”

The Baltimore Sun reports that Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien (right), in a letter dated July 20 and released Monday by O’Malley’s office, wrote, “I am well aware that the recent events in New York have intensified pressure on you to lend your active support to legislation to redefine marriage,” referring to the enactment of marriage equality in New York State. O’Brien continued, “Maryland is not New York. We urge you not to allow your role as leader of our state to be used in allowing the debate surrounding the definition of marriage to be determined by mere political expediency.”

Two days later, O’Malley, a Catholic, announced that he would introduce a marriage equality bill next year. Similar legislation passed the state Senate this year but was pulled from the House of Delegates because it did not have the support of a majority. O’Malley had said he would sign this year’s bill, but the fact that he is lobbying more actively for such a measure now is likely to help it pass.

In making his announcement, O’Malley said other states had found a way to provide equal marriage rights to gay couples while protecting the rights of those who object on religious grounds, and he was confident Maryland could do so.

Last week he responded to O’Brien, and the letter was made public Monday. “On the public issue of granting equal civil marital rights to same sex couples, you and I disagree,” O’Malley wrote. “As governor, I am sworn to uphold the law without partiality or prejudice. When shortcomings in our laws bring about a result that is unjust, I have a public obligation to try to change that injustice.”

http://tinyurl.com/3bgcogr

Posted on

Scottish Government is committed to holding a consultation on the issues of same-sex marriage

A public consultation on whether to redefine marriage in Scotland will be launched before the end of 2011, the Scottish Government has said.

A spokeswoman told The Scotsman newspaper: “The Scottish Government is committed to holding a consultation on the issues of same-sex marriage and civil partnership, with the process beginning later this year.”

Campaigners for same-sex marriage are pushing for the traditional definition to be overturned and a new definition imposed.

CRITICISM

During the run up to the Scottish election earlier this year, the SNP made a promise to hold a consultation on the subject, and Scottish Labour promised to look at “options”.

The Scottish Lib Dems went a step further, saying they would back a change to the law. The Scottish Conservatives were silent on the issue ahead of the election.

The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has criticised calls for marriage to be fundamentally redefined.

John Deighan, the Parliamentary Officer for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland asked: “Are we saying that, for the past few thousand years, Western civilisation has been wrong and because of the lobbying by pressure groups over the past ten years everything should now change?”

CONCERN

Mr Deighan also asked: “What are we going to teach our children at school, that you can marry a man or a woman when you grow up?”

The Guardian’s Michael White has previously expressed concern about same-sex marriage, saying that heterosexual marriage is distinct because it “is there to produce and raise children in a more or less stable environment”.

In Canada a legal case involving a polygamist has seen him argue that since the law there permits gay ‘marriage’, his multiple marriages should also be allowed.

http://tinyurl.com/3deqzw3