By now we are all aware of Newt Gingrich's disingenuous attack on "anti-Christian" bigotry in last Saturday night's GOP debate (that was the 1,000th such debate, am I right?). The money quote:
Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?
Wow, those big, bad meanie liberals (alongside those dirty sodomites, of course) have attacked the poor, pitiful - and apparently powerless - Catholic Church with their "secular bigotry." You can almost see the evil bureaucrats descending on innocent priests and nuns to grab the little children and hand them over to TEH GAY!
But is what Gingrich saying even true? Did the Church face the choice of either considering gays and lesbians as potential adoptive parents or have the states close their doors? Well, sort of, and, at least in Massachusetts, they chose to comply, placing 13 children in same-sex homes over the course of about two decades, beginning long before the advent of equal marriage. Follow be below the fold to learn the truth about adoption, equal marriage and the Catholic Church.
I realize it's akin to commenting on the eastern rise of the Sun to note that Gingrich was twisting the facts to fit his argument of "bigotry" against the largest religious sect within Christianity, but the facts here should be made clear:
1. The same-sex marriage laws in both Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, as well as the Civil Union law in Illinois, did nothing the change the rules on whether gays and lesbians had the right to adopt. That's because in all these states, the adoption laws were liberalized well before the marriage/partnership laws. According to the Human Rights Campaign, DC and Illinois have explicitly allowed gays and lesbians to adopt since 1995 and Massachusetts since 1993 State law summaries - HRC. In fact, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, in its marriage decision, Goodridge vs. Dept of Public Health, actually used the Commonwealth's adoption laws as one of the bases of its decision:
The rights of couples to have children, to adopt, and to be
foster parents, regardless of sexual orientation and marital
status, are firmly established... As recognized in the court's
opinion, and demonstrated by the record in this case, however,
the State's refusal to accord legal recognition to unions of
same-sex couples has had the effect of creating a system in which
children of same-sex couples are unable to partake of legal
protections and social benefits taken for granted by children in
families whose parents are of the opposite sex. The continued
maintenance of this caste-like system is irreconcilable with,
indeed, totally repugnant to, the State's strong interest in the
welfare of all children and its primary focus, in the context of
family law where children are concerned, on "the best interests
of the child."
Goodridge vs. Dept of Public Health
2. In Massachusetts, when the marriage decision came down, it was revealed that Catholic Charities in Boston had, in fact, been complying with the law and had placed, by its own count, 13 children in same-sex household through its Commonwealth-funded foster program, begun in 1987. In 2005, the Boston Globe reported:
Despite Vatican teachings that allowing homosexuals to adopt children is "gravely immoral," the social services agency of the Archdiocese of Boston has allowed 13 foster children to be adopted by same-sex couples in the past two decades, saying state regulations prohibit the agency from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
"If we could design the system ourselves, we would not participate in adoptions to gay couples, but we can't," said the Rev. J. Bryan Heir, president of Catholic Charities in Boston. "We have to balance various goods."
The 13 adoptions, a tiny fraction of the 720 placed by Catholic Charities in that period, took place as part of a contract with the state Department of Social Services. The children placed with the gay couples are among the most difficult to place, either because they have physical or emotional problems, or they are older.
Archdiocesan Agency Aids in Adoption by Gays (from the GLAD website, original article is behind Boston Globe subscription site)
So apparently adhering to state laws was part of "balancing goods," until, that is, Sean O'Malley took over from that bastion of morality, Bernard Law, as Bishop/Chief Executive of the Boston Catholic Diocese. Once he found out what was happening, he demanded the charity - which was supposed to be an independent arm of the Church - begin discrimination. That did not sit well with the charity's Board of Directors (the following is from LifeSiteNews, not exactly a liberal outlet, hence the "homosexual agenda" language, but they get the facts straight, and for free):
Seven members of the board of Catholic Charities of Boston have resigned in “outrage” over the Catholic Church’s opposition to homosexual adoption. The Massachusetts bishops are in the midst of a legal battle to have the Catholic Church exempted on grounds of religious freedom from the state law that says homosexuals must be allowed to adopt children.
In a unanimous vote in December, the 42-member board of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston refused to accede to the request by Archbishop Sean O’Malley and the Catholic Conference of Massachusetts to cease including homosexual partners as adoptive parents.
President of Catholic Charities in Boston, Rev. Brian H. Hehir, a prominent academic and social liberal, said at the time that the board’s decision to continue placing children with homosexual partners was taken in order to allow Catholic Charities to continue, within the state law, to find loving, normal families for needy children.
“If we could design the system ourselves, we would not participate in adoptions to gay couples, but we can’t,” said Hehir. “We have to balance various goods.” The Catholic Church, however, has repeatedly made it clear that there is no “good” to be found in either allowing children to be placed with homosexual partners, or in lending legitimacy to the homosexual “lifestyle.” A document from the Vatican said plainly that homosexual adoption is a form of child abuse.
Now, however, the board is being more straightforward about its dedication to the homosexual agenda. Seven members of the board are resigning because, they say, the Massachusetts bishops’ opposition to homosexual adoptions, “threatens the very essence of our Christian mission.”
“(We) cannot participate in an effort to pursue legal permission to discriminate against Massachusetts citizens who want to play their part in building strong families,” the resigning board members’ statement said.
Boston Catholic Charities Board Members Resign over Church Defence of Children
Note, we do not know how many children may have been adopted through Catholic adoption agencies in Massachusetts - or in Illinois or DC - to single gays and lesbians, some of whom may not have revealed their orientation, or adopted by one partner in a same-sex relationship, with the second partner pursuing adoption later (aka "second-parent adoption"), but all of them would have been expected to obey the existing local laws. In fact, in the Boston Globe 2005 story cited above, the Worcester diocese reported referring gay and lesbian prospective parents to other agencies and the state began an investigation to see if the law had been violated.
3. None of these agencies was forcibly shut down by the state (or District). In all cases, the agency either shut its doors, transferred its services to a non-Catholic Charities agency, or the state ended its contract. There was never coercion or threats by the state.
4. The anti-discrimination laws that forced Catholic Charities and their related adoption services to treat gays and lesbians as equal human beings also prevent discrimination against a whole host of groups considered sinful by the Catholic Church, yet the Church has never raised a peep about being forced to comply with that manifestation of "secular bigotry." In fact there are federal laws that cover these sinners but provide no protection to LGBT citizens. Mormons, for instance, are considered heretics (a "pseudo-Christian cult" as the nun who taught me religion put it), yet these agencies cannot discriminate based on religion. People who have been previously divorced and remarried, without a Catholic Church annulment, are considered adulterers by the Catholic Church, but, you guessed it, they can't discriminate based on marital status. Atheists, fornicators, idolators - all must be considered equal by the Church yet somehow it's only TEH GAY that suddenly makes the bishops remember they have "religious principles" to follow.
It's not only adoption, either. Catholic hospitals and institutions of higher education also must treat the heretics, adulterers, fornicators, etc. as equal to good Catholics - providing equal benefits to their employees regardless of religion or marital status, for instance. Yet it is only when it comes to LGBT people that the Church finds itself unable to bend its all-important religious beliefs (Washington Post):
Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.
"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."
Same-sex marriage leads Catholic Charities to adjust benefits
So Mr. Orzechowski, are you going to demand all the divorced people on your staff refund the money spent on their spousal healthcare benefits in the past? Yeah, thought not.
Now, I hate to be cynical, but as a recovering Catholic it is difficult to avoid when dealing with the modern Church. Ever since the full extent of the cover up by the Church's leadership in the ongoing sexual abuse scandal became known, that same leadership has desperately searched for a boogeyman to blame, and a way to deflect criticism. It has found both in its continuing attacks on LGBT citizens who have done nothing wrong but refuse to live by the Church's rules.
So the next time some conservative pol complains about states "forcing" the Catholics to stop adoption services, demand answers to the following questions:
Why did Catholic Charities in Boston adopt children into same-sex households for 18 years?
Why didn't the Catholic Church ever complain about having to ignore other sins when serving the public?
Should a gay social worker be forced to place an innocent child in a Catholic home?