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11/23/2009
D.C. Catholic BULLetins ratchet up first syllable
We all know that D.C. Catholics are working their rosaries off in order to derail marriage equality in the District. But what are they saying to their parishioners in order to justify their faith-based efforts to have their discriminatory cake and their civil tax-exemption too?
Well check out the following blurb, pulled St Peter's Cathedral's weekly bulletin Right between a notice for an annual school auction and another for the yearly "Anything But Turkey" dinner, comes this steaming helping of nonsense:
11/22/09 -- Weekly Bulletin [St Peter's]
So essentially, they are telling congregants (in what looks like a form message for all local churches) that it's the big, bad, civil rights-craving gays and allies that are the bad guys. Even though the SOLE REASON why Catholic Charities won't be able to fully provide services is because they don't want to provide these services to LGBT citizens, they are flipping the script so as to take all of the onus off of their own anti-gay views. They aren't acknowledging the key issue, which is their desire to take away both millions of taxpayer dollars from the public coffers AND thousands of rights from the citizenships of LGBT people and their loved ones. They aren't acknowledging the outright support that folks like out council member David Catania have shown to Catholic Charities. Instead, they are redressing the situation as one involving nothing more than respect for religion. It's beyond galling!
Congregants want to believe what is in their church bulletins. Congregants SHOULD be able to believe what's in their church bulletins. But in this case, we have a larger body being negligently, unapologetically disingenuous in order to raise uniformed ire! It would be one thing if they came right out and said, "Look, we simply don't wanna serve the needs of the local gay population, and we're hoping you will help us justify our right to retain both faith-based bias and public funds." While we will never respect the motivation, we could almost respect the transparency. But they are not doing this. They are deliberately obfuscating, in order to once again cast gays in the "militant" role and themselves in the "victim" one. And worse yet: They are doing it in church bulletins, documents that should be the most forthright, trustworthy pieces of paper within this or any cathedral's four walls. There's no other word for it but shameful.
**Don't forget: Stock messages in Catholic bulletins were frequently used against us in Maine: Instance 1, Instance 2
**UPDATE: It's def. a stock message. We found almost the exact same wording in Holy Trinity's bulletin
Your thoughts
I don't understand, what is the difference between gays and straits for church. I saw nothing written about homos in the Bible. Church made a lot of strange acts during the mankind history, so it's just one of its stupid prohibitions.
Posted by: Harry @ Israel | Nov 23, 2009 10:31:04 AM
Actually, there are two reasons why Catholic Charities claims it won't be able to fully provide services. One is, as stated in your article, no wish to provide any of their services to gay people. The second reason is they dread the though of having gay-married personnel and being required to provide all the benefits and basic human respect that they give to straight married employees' spouses.
Posted by: Coxygru | Nov 23, 2009 12:33:07 PM
Yep, the good ole Catholic Church. Content to serve the heretics and blasphemers, not to mention employing fornicators and adulterers AND recognizing their sexual liaisons as "marriages," even when those liaisons do not follow Catholic rules. Nice.
One wonders if the DC Council should add a "meaningful religious exemption" to existing anti-discrimination laws? Would the Church support that? I mean, why should evangelicals be forced to hire papists?
Posted by: CPT_Doom | Nov 23, 2009 1:00:11 PM
anyone can see for themselves just what catholic charities threatened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVj50a2dt4Y
Posted by: Pete | Nov 23, 2009 1:17:49 PM
...and why those KKK kaps were made to look like Bishop's Mitres.
Here from note on Manhattan Declaration: full note @ http://tinyurl.com/yzafkvd
"
I have sadly kept the final betrayal for last. The African American civil rights struggle was won by spiritual forces after a century of secular political machinations by friends and foes alike. Dr. King was helped by leading closeted and open gay voices whom he and his widow acknowledged. All their surviving children have embraced the legitimate passage of the mantel of justice and equality to GLBT persons regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religious belief or absence of same.
All, that is, but the eldest and only surviving daughter, the Reverend Bernice King, the new president of the SCLC. Unlike her parents and surviving siblings, Ms. King has joined forces with Akinola, Ratzinger, Dobbs, and countless AA conservative clergy who openly oppose marriage equality despite protections for church and conscience objections. These men and some women are right wing theocrats.
These are the spiritual waters that are competing for the souls of the First Family in the White House. In return, President and Mrs. Obama have visited their major sanctuaries as they continue to play the role of "undecided suitors." What is evident is that liberal and progressive AA voices, from the Episcopal National Cathedral to storefront churches, need not apply.
The Manhattan Declaration is nothing but old wine in new bottles.....old heresies voiced in modern terms.....and a marriage of oppositional organisational and theological forces allied against perceived common enemies. Abortionists and Queers is the new "atheistic Communist" and "liberal Christians" are considered apostate.
It is necessary to tell the old Gospel with a renewed and invigorated voice. It is time to advocate truth over deceit. It is time to call " a white sepulchre" the same way that Christ Himself defined them. These white sheets have grown pointed hoods, and now, it seems, it is impossible to discern Klan Kaps from Episcopal Mitres."
Posted by: LOrion | Nov 23, 2009 1:37:55 PM
A question I always ask when this story comes up but it never gets answered: Did the Catholic Church ban ALL non-catholics *jews, athiests, other sinners* from these things they say they can't let gays have or did they provide these things and then suddenly start harping on their 'religious beliefs' the moment they had to treat homosexuals as human beings?
If I could get just one link showing the church didn't deny these things to non-catholics I can use it to pimp slap every single bigot who tries to claim they're 'standing up for their beliefs'
Posted by: wackadoodle | Nov 23, 2009 1:43:00 PM
Catholic charities feels it simply cannot, while in the role of an employer, treat same-sex couples as civilly married couples because it disagrees with their religious viewpoint.
Fine.
I wonder why they've had no problem with adulterers that have civil marriage status. I'm sorry, by adulterers of course I'm referring to people in marriages with divorce in their past.
Shall we comparer the number of times the Bible condemns adultery with the number of passages that are believed to condemn homosexuality?
Posted by: Christopher Eberz | Nov 23, 2009 1:48:31 PM
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