Catholic Charities, gays and DC's poor

Why are people even mentioning gay adoption? Gay adoption has been legal in most states for decades.
All studies show that kids of gay couples are just as healthy or healthier mentally and physcially than kids of straight parents.
This is not an issue
Surprise-gay people are just like regular people!
That is why we will win-we do not need to wait for people to catch up (just like when interracial marriage was legalized-many states had laws against it)
God is love so He is with us-

And gay marriage actually HELPS marriage-it's true and factual. In MA, where gay marriage first became legal 6 years ago, divorce is lowest in the country-got that bigots? LOWEST in the country
Praise God!

"Is mutual masturbation a civil right and therefore protected by legislation or is it a genetic/psychological defect(s) that should be addressed/solved by the global medical research community????

Since homosexuality is NOT a defect in any way and is also not mutual masturbation you question is worthless (big surprise).

Homosexuality is just as normal as heterosexuality and civil same-sex marriage is a civil right (since according to the Loving ruling marriage is a civil right.)

"And the answer is?????"

------

Irrelevant.

Once again:

Is mutual masturbation a civil right and therefore protected by legislation or is it a genetic/psychological defect(s) that should be addressed/solved by the global medical research community????

And the answer is?????

Hmmm, we see some thumping of the OT and a 1939 copy of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Some counter-thumping:

If god were omniscient and all-good, he/she/it would never allow children to be born with birth defects and we would never have to suffer pain.

And the Psalms were composed by Jewish scribes who invented the likes of Abraham and Moses and any of their "prescriptions" are simply more "jehovahing" the thoughts and writings of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and other ancients of the period.

And then for those whose eyes have not seen:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a
mythical character as was mythical Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

Current crisis:

Realization that the Jews are not god's chosen people.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

continued below:

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

Current crises:

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

3. Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley, Roger Williams, the Great “Babs” et al, founders of Christian-based religions or combination religions also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

Current crises:

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology, all male hierarchies and strange banking and funding.

However, the question still remains, is mutual masturbation a civil right protected by legislation or should this genetic/psychological defect be addressed/solved by medical research??

Fr. Reese says: "What is needed right now is a toning down of the attacks against the church by those who support the city council's position."

Very, very, very generous solution. And what the Church should do?

:::crickets, tumbleweed, silence:::

The Church claims it "hates the sin and loves the sinner." Actually? By action, it is fair to say The Catholic Church at least loves Homosexuals more than Westboro Baptist Church, so, please, everyone: "What is needed right now is a toning down of the attacks against the church by those who support the city council's position."

The divorce analogy is an apt one and pretty much says it all. As one of the gay DC residents whose tax dollars are going towards these contracts, I'm not especially sympathetic to the Catholic church. Why should they receive a special right to discriminate AGAINST ME that other groups competing for those same funds don't get? If the Catholic church wants to stamp its feet like a petulant child and threaten not to take MY TAX DOLLARS anymore, I say we call them on it and find somebody who's willing to obey the law.

Uh-huh. In which case, why didn't they tell the congregation that the new priest had had a problem keeping his hands and other parts OFF of the children?

Felons may reform and not commit any more crimes, but the recidivism rate for pedophiles is incredibly high.

Gamble with your children if you wish, but make certain to let them know that their protection isn't your priority.

"I am still unclear as to how they could ever have justified not turning child molesters over to the police. That's what lawsuits are all about.
Posted by: Skowronek"

When you believe people are inherently good and when you're called to forgiveness, you probably lean more towards reconciliation than punishment."

Posted by: cprferry | November 16, 2009 2:26 AM"

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
FR. J. REESE
“GAY MARRIAGE”

IRT:
“I have never bought the argument that gay marriage is a threat to families.”

ANS:
Maybe its time that you do. I can believe that some Catholic priests would say such a thing since the Church’s last scandal was caused when the Church bought into the political correct idea that gays posed no threat to the priesthood.

http://www.narth.com/docs/needboth.html

“Dr. A Dean Byrd's full report will become part of "The Family in the Third Millennium: A Compendium of Scholarship and Opinion Supporting Family as the Fundamental Unit of Society," a scholarly work to be published in 2005.

According to Dr. Byrd, research study after research study has shown that "Children navigate the developmental stages more easily, are more solid in their gender identity, perform better in academic tasks at school, have fewer emotional disorders and become better functioning adults when they are reared by dual-gender parents." It's called the Natural Law whose author is God. He is omniscient and doesn't make mistakes.

"On the contrary, however, studies of children reared in lesbian homes indicate that girls become more masculinized and boys become more feminized in their behaviors. (Stacy and Biblarz, 2001) Both boys and girls in homosexual households were more likely to experiment with homosexuality than those reared in heterosexual homes.

"Dr. Byrd also detailed the significant physical and emotional health risks of those who identify as homosexuals, including a reduced lifespan, suicidality, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and domestic violence." I wonder why that would be harmful, doesn't everyone do it?

"Lesbians are also at three times the risk for breast cancer than their heterosexual counterparts and face a whole range of STDs, including bacterial vaginosis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C. Homosexual males face anal cancer, syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes simplex virus, and AIDS infection.” That could happen to anyone, couldn't it? So what is the fuss?

"I am still unclear as to how they could ever have justified not turning child molesters over to the police. That's what lawsuits are all about.
Posted by: Skowronek"

When you believe people are inherently good and when you're called to forgiveness, you probably lean more towards reconciliation than punishment.

"I told him it seemed a bit hypocritical for the church to seek to deny benefits from the government and then ask them to give to the church!"

Yeah, truly. It's like asking members of SNAP to give to the church's legal defense fund (of pedophiles).

Psalm 139, verses 13-16 (referring to God as omniscient creator):

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"That God is omniscient or possesses the most perfect knowledge of all things, follows from His infinite perfection. In the first place He knows and comprehends Himself fully and adequately, and in the next place He knows all created objects and comprehends their finite and contingent mode of being. Hence He knows them individually or singularly in their finite multiplicity, knows everything possible as well as actual; knows what is bad as well as what is good. Everything, in a word, which to our finite minds signifies perfection and completeness of knowledge may be predicated of Divine omniscience, and it is further to be observed that it is on Himself alone that God depends for His knowledge. To make Him in any way dependent on creatures for knowledge of created objects would destroy His infinite perfection and supremacy."

The Catholic church has a "moral opposition" to gay marriage, but no moral opposition to being judgmental? Now they are using this moral opposition as a marketing tool to lure Anglicans into the Catholic church.

I'm peeved because I had a representative of a cardinal (I won't say which one) at my dinner table the other night, who solicited donations and help from everyone at the table - all non-practicing gay Catholics (except me, I'm Congregationalist). I told him it seemed a bit hypocritical for the church to seek to deny benefits from the government and then ask them to give to the church!

On the other hand, we have this from the famous Catholic theologian, Father Edward Schillebeeckx:

From his book, The Human Story of God,
Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

"Christians must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history" .

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices.

Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we
and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings.

For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

In other words, according to Schillebeeckx,
god had nothing to do with the defects we are born with which gets us back to the following:

"No simple cause for sexual orientation has been conclusively demonstrated, and there is no scientific consensus as to whether the contributing factors are primarily biological or environmental. Many think both play complex roles.[1][2]

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have both stated that sexual orientation probably has multiple causes.[3][4] Research has identified several biological factors which may be related to the development of a heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual orientation. These include genes, prenatal hormones, and brain structure.

Conclusive proof of a biological cause of sexual orientation would have significant political and cultural implications. [5]"

CCNL wrote:

"So we have a Christian God who supposedly created all of us to include homosexuals. Said God is therefore responsible for the defective gene/mind-set that causes homosexuality? One might conclude from this that the Christian God would therefore approve same-sex unions since that is the only sin-free state where any type of couple-sex can be performed."

If you believe in God the creator--perfect in all ways, omniscient, omnipotent, no beginning, no end--then yes, that same God created homosexuals too. If God created homosexuals, then they are not defective.

I am not homosexual, no inclinations in that direction, known that as long as I can remember, and I don't see how I could possibly be forced to become homosexual. I don't see how those who have known they were homosexual could be forced to become heterosexual.

The RCC can't administer the contract if they are subject to this law. So it goes. I am still unclear as to how they could ever have justified not turning child molesters over to the police. That's what lawsuits are all about.

ccnl1 wrote:

"So we have a Christian God who supposedly created all of us to include homosexuals.."

___________________________

So we have a Christian God who supposedly created all of us to exclude homosexuals?

Hmmm, the NT (the RCC's operating manual) says nothing about gay sex? Au Contraire!!! Thou shalt Not Commit Adultery and Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife/Husband/Partner with the corollary of Thou Shalt Not Fornicate pertain not only to heterosexual couples but also homosexual couples. This probably is no concern to non-Christians or non-Jews but it should be a major concern to those religious types that believe in the teachings of the OT, NT, the Commandments and all of its corollaries.

So we have a Christian God who supposedly created all of us to include homosexuals. Said God is therefore responsible for the defective gene/mind-set that causes homosexuality? One might conclude from this that the Christian God would therefore approve same-sex unions since that is the only sin-free state where any type of couple-sex can be performed.

'MATTHEW 25"

"The dispute is being portrayed as the Catholic Church versus gay rights even though everyone knows that Black ministers in Washington are also opposed to this legislation." So what's your argument here, bigotry justifies bigotry?

Divorce and contraception are legal but against church doctrine. Why didn't the church leave long ago? Hypocrites.

The RCC's desire to be exempt from laws promoting civil rights is not exactly ironic given its history.

However, it does not speak well either for the church or its defenders.

The RCC must either conform to US law or face the same legal consequences that every other institution would. Thus far, this has been the case neither with pedophile priests nor with its aggressively lobbying congress, nor with its position on gay marriage.

As a result of their interference in US governance, we have created legistlation to meet the RCC's demands, Conscience Clauses.

The practice of changing legislation to meet the needs of moral outlaws was the central practice of the Third Reich.
--------------------
The solution is simple. If the RCC disobeys US law, it must face prosecution. As for gay marriage, marriage must be removed from the religion business.

No ministers, priests, rabbis, imams should be permitted to marry anyone.

1. A mind-boggling team that includes the ACLU and most religious freedom legal institutes and academics in the country are lining up to make sure this ordinance is stopped by injunction until SCOTUS can declare it unconstitutional.

2. This probably will not be necessary, because the defendants of normal marriage will petition the Congress to block the DC ordinance. These will be the same folks who have now blocked alleged "gay marriage" in 31 states. They do not want to bring or send their children to the nation's capital to be schooled in perversion.

3. Here's the deal that was made in the 60's: You can engage in any perversion you want behind closed doors, but it can never spill out into social commerce. Many of us think that is way more than fair.

4. Are you really willing to bet on home rule for something this stupid? Over the last 125 years, DC has gained and lost home rule several times. Sounds like a great start to a new cycle.

5, Fr Reese: Thanks for selling the Church that has provided you every material benefit you have received during you adult life down the river, again. But we expect it from you at this point.

CCNL!,

Why is how gays engage in sexual relations or if they can procreate without medical help relevant to the issue?

It is not.

Just as it not relevant if the majority of people find gay sex "yucky".

Civil rights are not up for a vote.

The main point of Rev or Father Reese's article is that as usual the Catholic Church seems to focus a disproportionaste amount of time some issues (same-sex marraige) and ignores others (divorce) while both seem to be equally problematic. He is correct that they give medical benefits to divorcees but... whoa .... they must stop at same-sex couples, yet from what they have said both activities are equally sinful.

Hmmm, there is that " Carstonio " person again. Yes indeed said person in on the potential imposter list. Again be wary of all posters on semi-anonymous blogs!!!

And once again, some reality about gay sex:

Hmmm lets see, in gay sexual activity, who plays the guy and who plays the gal? Who is on top and who is on the bottom? A coin flip? To say the least, an unusual situation. Then there are those "made in China" toys/strap-ons. Lets hope the FDA has checked them for lead and other toxic components. And do said "toys" come with sanitizers and/or sterilization instructions.

Lots and lots of "gays" doing their hot and heavy things on Internet tube sites but nothing about coin flipping, who is on first, and sanitizers sites?? There must be some "Gaying It For Dummies" books out there somewhere. Hmmm, I wonder if said books/sites have to have FDA and CDC approval??

Is said activity wrong and worthy of a trip to hell? Of course not but to the general heterosexual and Christian population it is yucky, unusual and not normal to them. With that mind set, approval by the majority is not always sanctioned in law.

The general population to include many of the voters in California, rightly or wrongly, find gay sexual activities, married or not, to be "yucky" and unusual and typically associate such activity with the spread of AIDS which is of course wrong. Said AIDS epidemic in the gay male community at the start of the AIDS crises will always remain unfortunately a stigma on the gay community.

" And after all of this rhetoric, gay "marriages" simply simplify and somewhat sanitize what are still "yucky" acts caused by a variant gene(s) and/or hormone imbalance. One wonders if stem cell research will find a cure??
Hmmm, would the embryos formed from the sperm of gay guys and the eggs from gay gals make more ethical embryos for this and other types of research?? "

Impressive list of gay people who did not let their yucky defect get in the way of being a contribution to society. Unfortunately, they were not able to contribute to the evolutionary process of DNA improvement via procreation.
And one will never know whether they would have achieved even greater achievements without said defect.

continued below:

From below, on top, backwards, forwards, from this side of the Moon and from the other side too, gay sexual activity is still mutual masturbation caused by one or more complex sexual defects. Some defects are visually obvious in for example the complex maleness of DeGeneres, Billy Jean King and Rosie O'Donnell. Of course not all having these abnormal tendencies, show it outwardly as alluded to in the following synopsis:

From Wikipedia:
"Biology and sexual orientation is research into possible biological influences on the development of human sexual orientation. No simple cause for sexual orientation has been conclusively demonstrated, and there is no scientific consensus as to whether the contributing factors are primarily biological or environmental. Many think both play complex roles.[1][2] The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have both stated that sexual orientation probably has multiple causes.[3][4] Research has identified several biological factors which may be related to the development of a heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual orientation. These include genes, prenatal hormones, and brain structure. Conclusive proof of a biological cause of sexual orientation would have significant political and cultural implications. [5]"

"Let's look at this from a different angle.
If a gay group was getting taxpayer funds for, say, HIV prevention programs, and they decided that they didn't like Catholics, and refused to hire Catholics, or refused to provide them medical benefits, would the Church and all the rest of you think that was acceptable?
Posted by: Hillman1"

The Church is prohibited from discrimination under their contracts with DC and by their own deeply held beliefs. Homosexuals are welcome at any and all of the social services provided by the Church.
The issue is that if the Church does not acknowledge gay marriage in all circumstances, such as renting out reception space, allowing adoptions to gay parents or extending benefits to gay partners, it can fall out of compliance with DC law and be rejected from performing those services.
There's strong religious objections to the endorsement, whether it be social, political or economic, of gay marriage. Not out of hatred or fear, but out of respect for God's natural law.

How sad the Catholic Church in America, like its evangelical counterpart, has been hijacked by mean-spirited, grumpy old white neocons like Donohue and O'Reilly whose real motive is to use gays as a political wedge issue.

Although I have some still unresolved traumatic issues as a result of the Church's tradition of it's clergy abusing little boys while knowing the Church will pay off later (no I didn't take any of the Church's money), I remember, in general, Catholics in my childhood being loving and accepting like Jesus taught them - including gays in their family and among their employees. It's still that way in Mexico. Catholics I know here hire gay workers in their home and even in their churches and it's no big deal to exploit as a political wedge issue. People quietly and lovingly go about their own business without bullying like the American Archbishops and Donohue and by jamming their hateful exclusion down others' throats.

Just as I feel bad for how Palin evangelicals have exploited religion for their theocratic agendas of hate and exclusion, I really feel bad for poor old Jesus for what megalomaniac American bullies in $10,000 dresses and pointy hats do to others in his name.

D.C. should do what Henry the VIII did, kick the Catholics out and take their property, but that would be wrong and against the law. Just like what the Catholics are doing to gay people and any other group over the last 2000 years!! If the church really cared about people, they would sell off all of their art and other non essential material things and help people. They don't follow Christ. When I went to the Vatican it was all about the Pope's, not Christ. All they want it money and power!!

DC has the right to prohibit discrimination with it's tax dollars. The Catholic Church has a right to refuse to participate in the program.
Period.

Beyond that, issuing ultimatums to the government as if the US were already a Donohue Catholic theocracy reaps well deserved attacks on the Catholic Church whose hypocrisy is beyond belief in that they don't similarly discriminate against those divorced or, apparently (by their aiding and abetting, against gay pedophiles in their clergy.

Father Reese's lame justification of this papal bullying is just another part of this hypocrisy.

johnadams1,

"Of serious concern is the question of placig foster or wards of the state with gays. That is a a serious concner and needs full discussion. Fr Reese should have mentioned that. "

Actually it is not of concern since the track record of gays as parents shows that they are just as capable as heterosexuals. The idea that they indoctrinate their children into homosexuality or lesbianism is not valid. The only problem (outside of the problem that foster children in general may experieince) that those children tend to experience is caused by rodents they run into outside the home who harrass them because they have gay parents. But that is no different form the harrassment that mixed race children have experienced from the same type of rodents.

"1. The Church does not proselytize when it offers charity. There are no sermons before food and blankets are given out. No one needs to go to confession before receiving health care. The Church serves the basic needs of all humans out of love for them as children of God."

I appreciate that stance, given the experiences I've had and read about with fundamentalist Protestant charities.

"2. The Church is calling for society itself to define gay marriage as inappropriate and dangerous to the family model."

No organization should decide for society whether gay marriage is appropriate or inappropriate. It can only decide for the organization's members.

Also, "inappropriate" is too vague a term. Would you be specific? And how is dangerous to the family model? That sounds like the Focus on the Family scare tactic where gay marriage tempts straight people to abandon their families and run off with gay lovers.

"It is particularly concerned that it is not allowed to consider gay marriage as inappropriate in its own actions and own conscious."

Hillman's suggestion is an excellent one - the Church does not have to agree with the law to abide by it. No one is saying that its believers have to change their personal opinion of gay marriage. The issue here is simply treating gay married couples no differently than straight couples. Several here have said that the Church doesn't discriminate against gay individuals. The same principle should apply to gay couples.

"An exemption from the law for religious organizations would affect very few people"

Really? Tell that to the spouse of a gay person that desperately needs medical coverage. Tell that to the children of a gay couple that have to watch one of their parents die needlessly because they couldn't get medical coverage.

So if discriminating against blacks or Jews or other religious groups would 'only affect a very few people' then it's ok?

How about, instead, the church man up and say something adult like 'we don't accept your marriage as blessed or in accordance with church doctrine, but we accept that you are legally married in a civil marriage, so we will abide by the law'.

Any way you slice it, denying medical benefits to ANYONE is morally reprehensible, and an unChristian thing to do.

Let's look at this from a different angle.

If a gay group was getting taxpayer funds for, say, HIV prevention programs, and they decided that they didn't like Catholics, and refused to hire Catholics, or refused to provide them medical benefits, would the Church and all the rest of you think that was acceptable?

Linguine33 wrote:

"The church spent over $553,000 to defeat the same-sex marriage amendment in Maine. That was, when you come down to it, tax money given to the church to care for the needy. Does all the money the church gets from tax subsidies and government handouts go to the needy, or is does some of it end up as political contributions?"

Well, honestly, we don't know if that was money donated specifically for that use or not. Once you give money to a charity, you are trusting them to spend it in the manner they told you they would spend it. If money were donated towards a dedicated fund (new roof, for example), but it was re-directed elsewhere, then there are potential problems.

Didn't that happen with the United Way about a dozen years ago?

Charities aren't obliged to spend every single penny they bring in, either. Some don't spend any of their money on fundraising, etc; most do.

Do we allow the Church to accept government funds, then discriminate against, say, Hindus, or Jews, or blacks that aren't Catholic? Do we allow them to deny marriage benefits to mixed faith couples? Or atheist couples? Or divorcees that remarry?

After all, they believe that anyone not married by the Church isn't truly married.

No? We don't allow that?

Then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against gay couples.

If gay marriage is legal in DC then anyone getting DC funds needs to honor it.

And, really, would Jesus be in the business of denying medical benefits to anyone, gay or straight?

"No argument about the suffering and injustice. Part of my hypothetical question is why couldn't an organization like the Church simply alleviate the suffering and combat the injustice without proselytizing or evangelizing? Or without deciding which types of personal lives are appropriate or inappropriate?
Posted by: Carstonio"

1. The Church does not proselytize when it offers charity. There are no sermons before food and blankets are given out. No one needs to go to confession before receiving health care. The Church serves the basic needs of all humans out of love for them as children of God.

2. The Church is calling for society itself to define gay marriage as inappropriate and dangerous to the family model. It is particularly concerned that it is not allowed to consider gay marriage as inappropriate in its own actions and own conscious.

I appreciate Bishop Knestout's clarification (Nov. 13 @ 6:33 p.m.) that Catholic Charities WILL continue to provide services to the poor even though it will not be able to accept contracts that call for it to treat all employees equally. And, of course, it is much better to keep children in the instability of foster care rather than to allow them to have permanent homes with loving families which happen to be headed by gay people. (Perhaps the Archdiocese is concerned that based on its own experience with institutionalized molesting of other people's children, and the frequency of incest committed by straight fathers, gay parents would molest their own children?)

Thanks for the primer and the sane voice in the wilderness!

The restructuring of marriage has wide implications and none of the questions have been answered.

Fr Reese in citing a red herring of gay 'marrage' being a threat to straigh marriage is beneath consideration in a serious discussion.

Of serious concern is the question of placig foster or wards of the state with gays. That is a a serious concner and needs full discussion. Fr Reese should have mentioned that.

Perhaps Fr Reese can 'call out'the bishops for being 'obsesses' with gay marriage' but he must understand the general public, especially in light of the priest scandal, is 'obsessed' with the safety of children.

So it was expected that Fr Reese tell us his thinking on that issue--we already know the bishops' position.

The restructuring of marriage has wide implications and none of the questions have been answered.

Fr Reese in citing a red herring of gay 'marrage' being a threat to straigh marriage is beneath consideration in a serious discussion.

Of serious concern is the question of placig foster or wards of the state with gays. That is a a serious concner and needs full discussion. Fr Reese should have mentioned that.

Perhaps Fr Reese can 'call out'the bishops for being 'obsesses' with gay marriage' but he must understand the general public, especially in light of the priest scandal, is 'obsessed' with the safety of children.

So it was expected that Fr Reese tell us his thinking on that issue--we already know the bishops' position.

"a case of misplaced priorities. "

translated : Your priorities.

No surrender, No retreat. Truth cannot be compromised.

Hmmm, there is that " Carstonio " person again. Yes indeed said person in on the potential imposter list. Again be wary of all posters on semi-anonymous blogs!!!

And indeed let us stop tax breaks for all non-profits who have some type of moral or ethical agenda:

e.g.

The Democratic Party
The Republican Party

American Civil Liberties Union
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Amnesty International
Anti-Defamation League
Association on American Indian Affairs
B'nai B'rith International
Children's Defense Fund
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
The Carter Center
Center for Constitutional Rights
Committee for Missing Children
Doctors of the World
Human Rights Watch
NAACP

American Humane Association
American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Animal Legal Defense Fund
Animal Welfare Institute
Associated Humane Societies
Best Friends Animal Society
Born Free United with Animal Protection Institute
Defenders of Wildlife
Doris Day Animal League
D.E.L.T.A. Rescue
Delta Society
The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee
Farm Sanctuary
Humane Farming Association
Marine Mammal Center
National Audobon Society
Land Conservation and the Environment
American Farmland Trust
American Forests
American Rivers
Center for Biological Diversity
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Cousteau Society
Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International
Earth Island Institute
Earth Justice
Environmental Defense Fund
Farm Aid
Greenpeace
Keep America Beautiful
National Parks Foundation
Ocean Conservancy
Wildlife Conservation Society
Ads by Google

General Emergency Relief
American Jewish World Services
American Red Cross
See Also: Red Cross USA, Facts About American Red Cross, and Red Cross History
Fire Fighters' Charity
Refugees
American Near East Refugee Aid
American Refugee Committee
Medical Assistance
Americares
Catholic Medical Missions Board
Direct Relief International
Doctors without Borders
International Medical Corps
Medical Teams International
Operation Smile

Africa America Institute
AFS USA
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
American Indian College Fund
Asia Society
Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence
Hispanic Scholarship Fund
Scholarship America

American Heart Association
American Stroke Association
Arthritis Research Institute
Avon Foundation
City of Hope/Beckman Research Institute
Epilepsy Foundation and Research
AIDS Research Alliance
ALS Association
American Diabetes Association
Autism Speaks
Deafness Research Foundation
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Lupus Research Institute
National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression

continued below:

Alzheimer's Association
Kidney Fund
American Leprosy Mission
American Liver Foundation
American Lung Association
American Parkinson's Disease Association
Arthritis Foundation
Bailey House
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Easter Seals
Huntington's Disease Society of America
Multiple Sclerosis Foundation
National Association for the Terminally Ill

American Brain Tumor Association
American Cancer Society
Cancer Care
Cancer Center for Protection and Prevention
Cancer Federation
Cancer Fund of America
Cancer Recovery Foundation
Cancer Research Institute
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Finding a Complete List of Nonprofit Organizations

Jesuit father Reese made a few good points, but it's all futile because he is defending the indefensible. Have no doubt that the Catholic church makes big bucks on Catholic charitable services worldwide. They never report the really big contributions from their most religious members. Those go right into the private pockets of the bishops and the cardinals. Meanwhile, these same bishops and cardinals have spent a couple of centuries defending their Jesuit and other priests from charges of sexually abusing the sons... and occasionally even the daughters... of their parishoners worldwide, but nowhere more prominently than here in America. The Catholic church is utterly corrupt and financially weaked especially here in America, but they still feel free to issue diktats to our elected political leaders at all levels because their Pope was a Hitler Youth earlier and remains a fascist dictator at heart even today. This is shameful.

Now after all these decades of tax money going to the catholic church, (of all faiths) it begs to wonder, "how many people were turned away because they did not bow and kiss the feet of the bishop"?

No argument about the suffering and injustice. Part of my hypothetical question is why couldn't an organization like the Church simply alleviate the suffering and combat the injustice without proselytizing or evangelizing? Or without deciding which types of personal lives are appropriate or inappropriate?

"Or else make its services available only to members of parishes on a free-will basis?
Posted by: Carstonio"

Radical leftists would love that, wouldn't they? For the Church to shrink and hide itself from culture. Alas there is too much suffering and injustice in the world for the Church not to be active and take a stand for the dignity of all humankind.

oh jezus maria pleeze even if i had to go hungry and homeless for a week i would not go to the catholic charity for help.
a church run by a popi who runs around in full san francisco drag, was in the hitler jugend when young, heads a church where his employees have raped 1000s of little girls and boys this is enough to ruin my appetite in no time!!!

I gave up on 'the church' years ago because of their inability to deal with the real world. It's truly amazing how corrupt organized religion really is. If they don't want to help all the people in need then I say they should just leave town, and good riddance.

Hypothetical question - why couldn't an organization like the Church simply conclude that whatever its non-Catholic clients do in their private lives is none of the Church's business? Or else make its services available only to members of parishes on a free-will basis?

The church spent over $553,000 to defeat the same-sex marriage amendment in Maine. That was, when you come down to it, tax money given to the church to care for the needy. Does all the money the church gets from tax subsidies and government handouts go to the needy, or is does some of it end up as political contributions?

Reese -- It's hard to say who is more at fault here, your Jesuit superior or your local ordinary, for not having suspending or laicized you according to ... whichever canon. Your persistent, manifest disobedience is so obvious, it's not worth my time to look it up. Anathema sis.

There is no need to look for a compromise. The church can obey the law or lose its contracts with the city. The city should not be funding organized bigotry.

Reese writes: "The dispute is being portrayed as the Catholic Church versus gay rights even though everyone knows that Black ministers in Washington are also opposed to this legislation." What, exactly, is that supposed to prove? The Catholic Church delivered an ultimatum to the city in the hope of stopping a piece of gay rights legislation. What do the views of Black ministers have to do with anything? Reese is just making a very disingenuous attempt to muddy the water.

Odd - I tried to respond to Markypw's comment before but it didn't post. Here goes a second try.

Markypw wrote: "Is it a fact that there is a valid distinction between withdrawing money for the poor and canceling the contracts under which that money is provided to the poor?"

The Church won't be withdrawing money for the poor, and it won't be the one canceling contracts. It's DC's money, and it will still be budgeted for the poor - it will just be processed by another intermediary. The amount of DC money budgeted for the poor will not go down. The amount of non-DC money the Church gives to the poor will not go down (in fact, it might go up as the Church tries to replace public money with private in its budget).

Let's say the government imposes new conditions on defense contractors, and it cancels (or decides not to renew) a previously awarded contract because a particular contractor can't, won't or doesn't fulfill the new conditions. As a result, the contract gets awarded to a competing defense contractor. Would you accuse the first contractor of "withholding money from national security"?

The catholics have a lot of nerve giving DC an ultimatum, with all of its gay priest and nuns...

The Roman Catholic church has every right to withdraw its services for any reason whatsoever. Its reasoning is faulty, but that is their problem. Understanding of human nature has advanced since Holy Scripture was written. New knowledge, such as that Earth circles the Sun, is not easily accommodated in The Church. That is well understood.

Shed a tear for the Church and its poor PR skills?!

When you have that much muscle, of course, you really don't need to worry --
concern should be for low-income women who will struggle to obtain legal medical services they need if the RCC's recent Congressional lobbying efforts stand.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/anntelnaes/?nid=roll_telnaes

"There is one glaring inacuracy to this post. The DC anti-discrimination law is not new. It has been illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation and their marital status in the District since the 1970s.
http://ohr.dc.gov/ohr/frames.asp?doc=/ohr/lib/ohr/pro_acts_of_discrimination.pdf
The only thing that is new is that gay couples will now be able to claim marital status. The Catholic Church seemed to be ok with treating gay couples equally, so long as they weren’t given the M-word. Now they’re just using the pending marriage equality bill to roll back gay rights, so that married gays have less rights than domestically partnered ones.
POSTED BY: EFS5R"

The Catholic faith does not allow discrimination of any individual children of God, whether they be heterosexual or homosexual.
You are right in stating that the DC gay marriage law, which defines homosexual marriages as equal, is a huge overstep by the government that would force Catholics to violate their consciouses.
Homosexuals are fully equal children of God according to the Church, but homosexual relationships are immoral and disrespectful of God's law and the sacrament of marriage.

A lot of people seem to not get the distinction here, so I'm going to try and restate it.

Catholic Charities is a national, faith-based, social services organization created by the Catholic Church and administered by and funded in large part by each bishop within whose diocese it functions. The Church provides $10M or so worth of aid of its own money every year. The city provides grant money and funds for local social service initiatives each year. One of the reasons the Church gets such a large chunk of money (over $8M) is in no small degree due to the fact that (a) Catholic Charities already has the infrastructure in place and so can handle larger projects and initiatives than any other social service entity in the city and (b)it has a very long, and very strong history of reliable social service programs in the district, which permits the city to waive a lot of the standard due diligence etc, which saves the city money. The city is now changing the rules as to what strings come attached with the grant money. The Archdiocese, privately and publicly, has asked the council to change or qualify the current language. They haven't. Indeed, the original bill set before the council _had_ an exception for religious institutions which the council then stripped out.

So it seems fairly clear as to who is unwilling to compromise.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Recent news reports have mistakenly claimed that the Archdiocese of Washington and its social services arm, Catholic Charities, are threatening to cease providing social services in the District of Columbia if the proposed bill to legalize same sex marriage is passed.

Catholic Charities is not threatening to end its services if a same sex marriage bill passes. Catholic Charities is vowing to continue its services even if a same sex marriage bill passes. However, the bill, as it now reads, will diminish the resources we have to do so. Why is that so? Because without a meaningful religious exemption in the bill, Catholic Charities and other similar religious providers will become ineligible for contracts, grants and licenses to continue those services.

What we have said to the Council is this: While we are opposed to redefining marriage in the District of Columbia, if the Council moves forward to do so, we respectfully request that religious individuals and organizations be afforded protection from restrictions on their deeply held religious beliefs and that the Council preserve the ability of Catholic Charities and other providers to continue to serve the growing and unmet needs of the poor and most vulnerable residents of the District of Columbia.

Attached is a fact sheet with further information that we hope may assist you in understanding the issues. Please share this with your colleagues, friends, and others. Additional information, including testimony, press releases and other material, is available at www.marriagemattersdc.org.

Sincerely in Christ,

Most Reverend Barry C. Knestout
Auxiliary Bishop of Washington
Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia

I have no sympathy for a church that wants tax payer dollars and wants to discriminate against certain tax payers because they are gay or lesbian. I really don't want some man in Rome telling United States citizens how to spend their tax dollars.

I suspect Luthern Social Services would not qualify how it helps the poor and needy by holding the city hostage. Too bad the city did not do the same to the church when they were hiding pedeophile priests. To reason it is okay to disrespect thousands to make a political point...well that is not reasoned thought worthy of a JESUIT priest. I say give that contract to someone else and let the diosease and God sort it out later.

The Reverend Reese says,

"The dispute is being portrayed as the Catholic Church versus gay rights even though everyone knows that Black ministers in Washington are also opposed to this legislation."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

All Black ministers? Most Black ministers? Some Black ministers or a few very vocal Black ministers? (I was taught by the Jesuits how to spot faulty reasoning).

Your reasoning is like saying that if black people simply had not been black, there would be no reason for them to fear the KKK.

Since Thomas J. Reese is NOT a legal father in the family sense and the fact that Jesus told his followers not to call any religious leader "Father," referring to this man as "Father Reese" is contrary to scripture.

When any religious organization accepts money from the US Government, they should not discriminate against anyone who is qualified to receive the services for which the government funds are issued.

The Roman Catholic Church should stay out of the business of the governments of the United States of America. Besides, the RCC has its own government headquarters which is the Vatican in Italy.

I have my monthly rent subsidized by a HUD Section 8 program and I live in a privately owned apartment complex. Owners and managers of houses and apartment complexes who accept money from the HUD program cannot discriminate against anyone who has been approved for Section 8 assistance. That means they cannot discriminate against gay people, no matter what the religious beliefs of the owners or managers.

There is no logic to follow in Fr. Reese's assertion that what should happen is that the opponents of the Catholic Church's policies should stop the criticism and should cave in to the church's wishes. Why? The Catholic Church is not entitled to its own assumption of the moral high ground here. Many of us believe discrimination is what is immoral. Let the Church give ground.

There is one glaring inacuracy to this post. The DC anti-discrimination law is not new. It has been illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation and their marital status in the District since the 1970s.

http://ohr.dc.gov/ohr/frames.asp?doc=/ohr/lib/ohr/pro_acts_of_discrimination.pdf

The only thing that is new is that gay couples will now be able to claim marital status. The Catholic Church seemed to be ok with treating gay couples equally, so long as they weren’t given the M-word. Now they’re just using the pending marriage equality bill to roll back gay rights, so that married gays have less rights than domestically partnered ones.

Fr Reese does not buy into any damaging affect of legalized gay marriage and sets up a straw man opponent saying "people in heterosexual marriages to suddenly decide to leave their spouses for a same-sex partner". As if anyone really feared that. Perhaps if Fr. might consider the serious potential effects to society he might have something worthwhile to say about the mater.
Regarding the coverage of the remarried; one would think that there are no task forces checking to make sure that all the covered marriages are valid. Rather, I am sure that the church presumes validity. This is not comparable to presumption of marriage in the same sex case.
Not a single complaint against the archdiocese or the USCCB seems to be based on any sound reasoning.

Pathetic.

To DC:
We need to be extra kind and considerate to the child in need of adoption and give that child a mother and a father.

Why doesn’t the Catholic Church in DC try to adopt the compromise that William Cardinal Levada worked out when he was the Archbishop for the San Francisco diocese and San Francisco passed a law requiring all businesses doing business with the City to extend benefits to domestic partners? Cardinal Levada was able to get San Francisco to agree that it would find a business or agency as being in compliance with it's ordinance if the business allowed each of its employees to designate a legally domiciled member of the employee’s household as being eligible for “spousal equivalent benefits.”

This compromise has the benefit of not requiring the Catholic Church to inquire about the relationship between the employee and the person receiving the "spousal equivalent" benefits except to the extent necessary to verify that he or she is a legally domiciled member of the employee’s household. Cardinal Levada’s explanation of why this is an acceptable solution under Catholic doctrine was published originally in First Things and a reprint of it can be found here: http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9708/opinion/levada.html

One of the things that he stressed was that this compromise allowed Catholic agencies to avoid adopting benefit policies that equated domestic partnerships/civil unions/same-sex marriages with marriages between a man and a woman because this policy would apply to situations that do not involve marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships. For example, if my sister were handicapped and uninsured and I was an employee of the Catholic Church in San Franscico, I could have her receive health insurance benefits similar to those available to spouses as long as she was a “legally domiciled member” of my household.

"Whatsoever you do to the least of my
brothers, that you do unto me."

Love your neighbor as yourself."

The article claims to provide "the facts."

Is it a fact that there is a valid distinction between withdrawing money for the poor and canceling the contracts under which that money is provided to the poor? I certainly can't see one.

What is the relevance of the "fact" that something like this happened elsewhere? Does it change what is happening in DC?

What is the relevance of the "fact" of opposition to the legislation by "Black ministers"? Does someone else's wrong make this one OK? Or is this just more crying of unfair treatment?

This is one rare instance in life where facts are not particularly important. The words of the Archdiocese have done damage regardless of the real facts. Those words have undermined every effort to provide for those in need by leveraging the social services to obtain an ulterior motive. Those efforts are what allow millions of people to maintain faith in the Catholic Church. The words of the Archdiocese has pulled the rug out from under those people.

I never thought I would see the day when the government of the District of Columbia would hold the moral high ground over the Catholic Church.

Sad indeed.

Hopefully, the Church has been consistent and removed the health coverage from all the priests who have been caught in pedophilia? (But I doubt it). If they still provide health coverage to priests who engage in sexual acts after they vowed celibacy, does that mean they condone those acts? Let's be consistent here.

fr ccnl1:

>Hmmm lets see, in gay sexual activity, who plays the guy and who plays the gal? Who is on top and who is on the bottom? A coin flip?...

MYOB for once, and grow UP. It is absolutely NONE of your concern. Want someone to ask YOU that question?

As a gay Christian who is MARRIED to my lovely wife, I find your comments extremely offensive for the most part, not to mention uneducated. Get the true FACTS about Marriage EQUALITY from such groups as www.pflag.com and glaad. Avoid like the plague the following CULTS, as they spew vicious lies constantly about glbts: fotf, frc, afa and the laughable cwa.

I think that the RCC should get treated like any other contractor. They have a lot of things going for them, with a large pool of volunteers and a devoted 24/7 priesthood that is also poorly paid relative to a secular person. The downside is that they have some pretty big transparency issues, being part of some weird quasi-national entity, and that even if the local DC Catholics wouldn't care about gay rights being applied to them, the wider leadership can't allow it.
I think it may be worth a little extra money to let a different charity do things. The Catholics will continue their own charity work doing as they will, and the city won't have to put up with an organization that can only abide by its own law.

Dear Father Reese.

I regret that many people take the view of "Good riddance" with respect to the Catholic Church's insistence that unless it can take taxpayer money with no strings attached, it will let the poor and the needy suffer. But I certainly understand it and wish that instead the Church would take the position that Jesus' exhortation in Matthew 25 took precedence over the odd rationales of celibate men who, presumably, have had only second-hand knowledge of love between two human beings.

I think that it is sad that Bigot Malone, Bigot of the Portland diocese, chose to divert over a half-million dollars to fighting marriage among people he doesn't even know, choosing instead to sacrifice the parishioners of St. Joseph's Church and St. Patrick's Church in Lewiston, who can no longer celebrate traditional marriage in the churches that they and their parents and grandparents worked hard to create and maintain.

The Archdiocese is perfectly able to turn down the taxpayer money, and there are probably other agencies willing to take up the slack. At Cana Jesus turned water into wine. It's too bad that the Archdiocese prefers to turn water into vinegar.

Maybe it is time for the state to stop partnering with religious organizations to perform legal contracts.
The state should only recognize civil unions and they are completed with executing a contract (license) and if a couple wants to get "married" someone else can do it, but the state does not recognize a marriage.
We should get a way from all this 'marriage' nonsense. Only individuals who can enter into a contract can have a civil union. Do we really believe that 15-17 year old should be married?
If a church feels a marriage ceremony is a sacrament, by all means they should have a ceremony, but it need not be a state function. License=civil union. Marriage=religious ceremony.

This piece strikes me as absolutely spineless. Basically, Mr. Reese's position is that "Yes, I personally agree that the Catholic Church's position may be inconsistent, but that's the way it goes when Rome is calling the shots. We think that we're the best social service provider in town, but if you enact legislation permitting gays to marry legally in the District, the Church will no longer contract to perform those social services."
In other words, it's Rome's way or the highway. As a non-Catholic gay DC taxpayer, my immediate reaction is that the Catholic Church's approach is blackmail pure and simple. There are many non-Catholic social service providers (e.g., Thrive DC, SOME, etc.) in this city that are in a position to pick up these contracts, and will no doubt perform adequately with the millions of dollars that are presently funnelled to the Catholic Church for such services. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church can go back to spending untold millions of dollars defending and settling lawsuits against its legions of pedophile priests.

By the way, what kind of ridiculous broad-brush statement is it to say that "everyone knows
the Black ministers in Washington are also opposed to this legislation"? My black minister and his male domestic partner may have a different view about that.

As usual, Fr. Reese is the voice of reason. Make the point, and move on.

He also is correct that the Church [more precisely, the bishops] unfortunately has an "obsession" with gay marriage and-- though he did not explicitly say this--with all "pelvic issues" including spending millions of dollars and untold hours of effort in lobbying to make abortion illegal, instead of trying to prevent it in the first place.

They could begin by promoting the principles of Catholic social justice which the bishops seem to forget about in their frenzy to court the Republican Party.

Fr. Reese is making sense. I hope the DC City Council listens.