The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC says they will cancel all their contracts to do charitable work with the city if the City Council legalizes gay marriage as they are expected to do.
The proposed D.C. law, expected to go before the council for a vote in the first week of December, would not require churches to perform same-sex weddings. But it would place churches and religious institutions under the auspices of the city’s existing equality laws, which forbids employer discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
According to the [Washington] Post, the charity arm of the D.C. archdiocese serves around 68,000 people in the city with services ranging from homeless shelters to health clinics to adoption services. The church spends around $10 million a year on D.C. charity work, and provides a third of the city’s homeless shelter beds.
All that could end if D.C. passes the gay marriage law, the church says.
Are you impressed?
I’m very impressed. I’m impressed that a bunch of pedophiles, who condoned, perpetuated and covered up the systematic rape of children would have the balls to blackmail a city and hold the poor hostage.
Catholic works of charity should not be politicized. The real Christian thing to do would be to disagree and make your wishes known, but ultimately to do what Jesus would have done, which is pretty unarguably that he would have taken care of the poor.
If I hadn’t left the Catholic Church long ago, this would be the last straw.
I was impressed with ‘liberation theology’ back in the 70s and 80s when priests in Central America and South America worked to make life better for the poor that comprise over 95% of the population. I thought that was what the Catholic Church should be about.
Now with all the child abuse by priests and the cover ups and the Pope protecting the pedophiles, the Catholic church does not have a reason to exist if they aren’t going to help make life better for the not so fortunate.
I’m sure there are other non-religious (or at least non-Catholic) non-profit organizations who would be willing to take city funding to do the same work.
Did the Catholic Church cancel its contracts (if any?) with the state of Massachusetts? Did they stop doing charity work there too?
They must think because DC is a smaller entity — being only one city with a lot of poor people — they have the leverage to get away with this.
DC gets jerked around a lot, mostly by the Congress — I hope they stand their ground on this, and find other non-profits to pick up the work the Catholic Church drops. This attempt at blackmail will only be repeated at a larger scale if it succeeds — I’d much rather see it backfire in their faces.
So “their holinesses” need a contract to do charity work?
I’m a little confused.
Last straw – hah! Let this be the last throes of ‘godly’ people trying to rule America.
If the church could not in good faith comply with this ordinance then it would have only two options – violate the ordinance or cease operation where the ordinance is operative. The second option is more honest.
Yes, but their beliefs are wrong.
In my opinion, just because a belief is ‘religious’ doesn’t mean that it’s entitled to reflexive deference.
More importantly, they are upholding their beliefs at the expense of poor people.
Basically, the Church is saying that its mandate to oppose gay marriage is stronger than its mandate to protect the poor.
I disagree.
According to your own beliefs…
Basically, what the Catholics are saying is that they can not violate one aspect of their beliefs (opposition to sin) in order to fulfill another aspect of their beliefs (care for the least of these).
And yet they have no problem sucking off the government tit despite the Permanent War, death penalty, and general banditry. There’s no consistency in the “pro life” fastidiousness. They make good little dramas. They should just stick to that and leave the moral judgments to the morally capable.
Not to defend the Catholic Church – an impossible task – but in this instance their hand is being forced. With those other instances they are at best guilty by association – taking money from a “corrupt” or “sinful” institution – but in this instance they would be forced to actively endorse sinfulness, and that’s where they’ve drawn the line. It’s the Catholic Church so there’s a million ways to skewer them – justly, in many instances – but in this case they are reacting to something that is being imposed upon them, and I certainly understand if some believe that it is justly being imposed.
Oh please. They’re being “forced” to hire “sinful” workers? How does that force them to “actively endorse sinfulness”? They’ve been actively endorsing sin for 2000 years or so. This is an attempt at political blackmail, plain and simple. If they want to play at the politics game they no longer have any right to the kind of kneejerk deference or respect that they’ve come to imagine is their due.
You seem to have misread the article and imagine that they’re being forced to marry gay people or something. All they’re being asked to do is mind their own God Damned business.
I read the article. They will be forced to hire people as their representatives who do not represent their values, so they’re stating that they’ll opt out of that paradigm.
And at long last, good riddance.
If the church’s real estate and personal property is tax exempt in The Village, I’d get an amendment to the district tax code together real quick to tax them just like the rest of us. The people would probably be money ahead and undue influence removed, at least to a degree.
LET THEM DO IT.
Well ,we have Nelson and Lieberman holding the whole damn country hostage over hcr, does this surprise anyone?
I say let them do it. The public backlash will be big and definately affect their donations.
Iam about as sick of them as I am of the Senate. I say it’s time to be calling some bluffs in DC.
Whose badly needed services would Jesus terminate?
I’m impressed that they’re proving that “faith-based” organizations should never have government contracts in the first place. They think their “moral imperatives” trump the law of the land, so they are unqualified to administer activities that mandate equal treatment to all citizens.
If this were some kind of real morality and not the superstitious bullshit of some old farts a few centuries ago maybe I’d feel a little differently. But you don’t get to make shit up and then try to blackmail the state into accomodating it. I’m sure plenty of other, better contractors will be found, and that the children’s virginity will be all the safer for it.
What is little noted is that a significant portion of the financing of Catholic Social Services programs comes from contracts with the Washington, DC, government.
The threat is a PR attack, but it is halfway or a third of the way idle. The city could contract with someone else.
The church wants to play hardball. Good. Let the state remove their religious exemptions and let these churches pay taxes on all their property. Let’s have complete separation of church and state.
seems the church forgot what they are suppose to be about. Not fighting the culture wars but, tending to the needy and sick.
I wonder how God would look upon this.
If He actually existed, they (Catholic AND Protestant clergy) would have a reason to fear the afterlife.
I remember what a friend’s father (and the town drunk) told our minister when asked why he didn’t go to church on Sunday. “I go to Armanetti’s tavern on Sunday Morning. I meet a better class of people there.” When I was old enough to go there, I found out that he was right!
Jesus would agree…
Let me think.
When the appointment of a fifth catholic on the Supreme Court happened, I personally said this was a damn bad idea. To have a minority sect holding the power of changing laws with no leash was crazy. That the first duty of any catholic was to follow the pope’s direction. I was labeled, “arrogant” “anticatholic” “biased” “conspiracy theorists” etc.
When I screamed that a sixth catholic was totally insane, I was labeled with such arrogant filth that I actually enjoy saying, “I told you so, you fucking shitheads.”
You think that the Kennedy in Rhode Island would be “ordered” by a crummy third rate bishop to not perform the sacraments of his insane sect five years ago? Because he wants the womb to belong to the mother and not the freak in Rome with his $2,000 dresses and his Prada shoes. This was only revealed to a prior girly man in the 1800s, but the ratzi the nazi is infallible per church doctrine.
You think that the bishops in Maine would have dared to risk their tax free status by ordering their congregations to vote against same sex marriage, even three years ago?
Well, you liberal idiots and conservative idiots are going to find out that A) the catholic church is sheer damned evil and has nothing to do with that comic book labeled the “new testament.” B) That the reformation did straighten out a few things but the “catholic church” will try to stage a comeback.
Transferring power to an ethic and spiritual minority was not a good idea. Please, read the sainted John Kennedy, he made his speech about catholicism clear and plain. Then if you stop and check the record of exactly what happened during his administration, he never once deviated from catholic doctrine.
Forget the part about when he was screwing any woman that moved, the catholic doctrine allows him to confess and be saved. Give me a freaking break, the man was an primo example of a total catholic asshole first, second and third.
God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
Gotta love religious terrorists.