So, are you still a practicing Roman Catholic? Do you have the courage to look at the church's recent history regarding your GLBT friends and neighbors? The church's laypeople do some wonderful work. The Pope and Roman Catholic hierarchy have shown blatant hate towards the GLBT community in their recent political actions, frequently using church funds to promote and secure GLBT inequality. Some of our more devout members and allies may be uncomfortable discussing the Church's sins against our community, but they have stepped firmly into the political arena now on our issues, issues of common decency and fairness and come down on the side of the "religious far-right" and other hate groups like Focus on Family. Shame on them. I am an ex-Roman Catholic, so these opinions are not coming from completely out of left field. What follows is a chronology of Vatican and Roman Catholic Hierarchy involvement in the battle for equality and dignity for GLBT individuals in the US and worldwide. Please join our discussion.
I think the GLBT community should have one clear take home message from this past tuesday, playing nice isn't working. If the Roman Catholics and the other rightwing religious groups want a culture war, we'll take it to them. Time has come to stop pulling our punches and hit them hard with everything we've got, on every front.
This morning we'll pull the scarlet colored robes off Pope Benedict XVI for all the progressives to see and to let our allies know just who our enemy is and how they lie and distort the facts to win over less informed to their cause. It feels very distasteful to be 'going after' this 'venerable institution' that has done so much good work these past decades, and I must add whose laypeople continue to do great work, as othniel and austex can and will attest to. mofembot has agreed to share her wisdom on the Mormon Church's history and perspective in this culture war at a later date. Thanks {{{mo}}}!
FYI, This is the opening salvo from the 'Yes on 1' team in Maine, Boston College Professor Scott Fitzgibbons spouting the bold-faced lies that he knows damn well to be untrue from the experience here in Massachusetts. (Boston College is New England's largest Roman Catholic University.)
This Pope is a homophobe, as are most of the cardinals and bishops he and his most recent predecessors appointed. If you are still a practicing Roman Catholic you need to examine just exactly what the Roman Catholic Church now stands for and whether you want to participate in the hate that spews forth so regularly from the Vatican and from your local dioceses headquarters.
Today we begin a series that will expose some of GLBT equality's most vocal foes, who contribute significant funding to these ballot initiatives to keep us from equality or take away gains we've already made. With tuesdays victory in Maine under their belts they are now gearing up to attack our just granted equality in NH; and they are already on the ground stirring up trouble in DC.
The faithful who continue to look the other way and remain silent while their church drifts further into wingnut territory passively support this oppression. Those who throw money in their collection plates, which unlike the Mormons is not a requirement, are actively aiding and abetting GLBT oppression. This is a list of the expenditures of the Roman Catholic Diocese to the marriage foes in Maine-
10/20/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $50,000.00
10/20/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $10,000.00
10/20/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $1,000.00
10/20/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $699.52
10/8/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $57,849.89
10/1/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $48,000.00
9/30/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $5,000.00
9/23/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $14,621.87
9/23/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $500.00
9/22/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $500.00
9/18/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $13,737.26
9/18/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $215.00
9/15/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $1,550.00
9/14/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $568.51
9/14/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $394.00
9/14/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $298.00
9/8/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $686.21
9/1/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $2,500.00
8/26/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $52,000.00
8/14/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $3,000.00
7/27/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $200.00
7/16/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $149,300.00
6/9/2009 StandForMarriageMaine.com Portland ME CON $100,000.00
The Pope earlier this year had the audacity to go to Africa and preach that the use of condoms increases the spread of AIDS. Dignity USA responds-
Marianne Duddy-Burke, DignityUSA’s Executive Director, said, "The Pope’s statement that ‘...the distribution of condoms...aggravates the problems’ is amazingly insensitive to all the people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. A 2006 United Nations report confirms that, ‘Sub-Saharan Africa remains the worst-affected region in the world. In 2005, there were 24.5 million in sub-Saharan Africa living with HIV. Globally, 64% of all people living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.’ This UN study goes on to cite Zimbabwe as a country that had a 2% decrease in HIV/AIDS due to condom use and deferral of sex by young people.
"Numerous medical studies prove that proper use of condoms greatly reduces the spread of HIV/AIDS. This includes the wives and partners of HIV positive men who have relations with their husbands or partners infected by HIV/AIDS—whether by choice or coercion. DignityUSA has long called on the Vatican to acknowledge the importance of educating people on the proper use of condoms, and to support making them widely available as a way of saving lives of vulnerable people around the world."
Nicole Sotelo, Communications Director of Call To Action, said, "Catholics throughout the world understand that condoms save lives. We must stop making orphans of children throughout the world because of misinformation. To this day, the Vatican bans the use of condoms by Catholics. This is just morally wrong."
Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director of New Ways Ministry, added, "Once again, the Pope's use of discredited beliefs endangers people across the globe. This is a violation of the deepest values of the Catholic faith. We urge Catholics to express their concern about the Pope’s stance on condoms directly to the Vatican, and to support organizations providing medically appropriate information and resources to people with or at risk of becoming infected with HIV."
This will just blow you away... Late last year the Vatican voiced it's opposition the a resolution in the UN to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide.
DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry and Call To Action-three Catholic organizations that support gay equality-will hold vigils in five cities across the nation on Wednesday, Dec 10, to protest Vatican opposition to a United Nations resolution that would decriminalize homosexuality. In more than 80 countries, gay people can still be imprisoned or even executed. The resolution will be presented to the UN on the day of the vigils.
"We applaud the United Nations for its call to end the laws that make gay and lesbian people criminals," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, DignityUSA's Executive Director. "But our joy is overwhelmed by our shock over Vatican's opposition to this initiative. Using faith and religion as an excuse to support laws that allow countries to imprison or execute gay people is shameful. We cannot be silent-the Vatican does not speak for all Catholics on this."
As we all know the Roman Catholic Church also played a significant role in funding the anti-equality side of the CA amendment battle.
Today, as the U.S. bishops begin their meeting in Baltimore, we express our dismay regarding the bishops' use of significant resources - including $200,000 toward Proposition 8 in California - to block same-gender couples from access to the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. We are opposed to ballot initiatives against same-gender marriage because this takes the dangerous path of putting the fundamental civil rights of a class of U.S. citizens up for a vote.
In 2007 a Vatican communique claims the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians threatens the human desire for peaceful coexistence (emphasis mine):
Washington, DC — While announcing the theme of the upcoming 40th World Peace Day, due to be celebrated January 1, 2007: "The Human Person: Heart of Peace," the Vatican used some of the strongest language in years attacking gays and lesbians. Along with claiming "human dignity is contradicted by widespread incongruent lifestyles," the Vatican continued, "Propaganda and the growing acceptance of disordered lifestyles contrary to human dignity are weakening the hearts and minds of people to the point of extinguishing the desire for ordered and peaceful coexistence. All this represents a threat to humanity, because peace is in danger when human dignity is not respected and when social coexistence does not seek the common good."
In responding to the Vatican, DignityUSA executive director Debbie Weill commented, "DignityUSA is pleased with the Vatican’s commitment to world peace and that the upcoming World Peace Day will focus on the dignity of the human person. As the preparations for the day continue, DignityUSA urges the Vatican to note that all of the countries of the world which offer equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders are at peace, with no apparent plans whatsoever for ending their peaceful coexistence. These countries, including Canada and Spain are also ordered societies. The Holy Father’s recent trip to Spain clearly demonstrated this gay equality country continues to be quite civilized and in control."
Weill added, "In the United States, the state with the lowest divorce rate just happens to be the only state that respects the civil rights of gays and lesbians to marriage, Massachusetts. With gay marriage rights being in place for over two years now in Massachusetts, certainly there would have been some negative impact caused by gay marriages if it were anything near the threat the Vatican claims it to be. We must continue to ask, why is the Vatican so obsessed with a no-threat matter like sexual orientation, while failing to address critical issues of human society and world peace. Such baseless Vatican statements only continue to distance Rome from many American Catholics, both straight and gay, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, including a growing number of American Catholic church leaders."
The leaders of Dignity USA, groups representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics and allies, spoke out against pressure brought by Catholic leaders forcing an end to the involvement of Catholic Charities of Boston in adoption. Truly vile these Roman Catholic "leaders":
Despite a unanimous vote of Catholic Charities’ 42-member board in December 2005 to continue considering same-gender couples and gay and lesbian single persons as adoptive parents, that decision has now been reversed. Catholic Charities of Boston announced in a statement to the press, "we have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve," regarding their wish to continue adoption work under a contract with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus the insistence of local church leaders and Vatican officials that gay and lesbian parents not be considered. Massachusetts has a non-discrimination law governing state-funded services.
"In all of this pressure and posturing, the real losers are the children who will now likely have to wait longer for adoption," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, Dignity/Boston spokesperson. "Catholic Charities did the right thing for years for children in need of stable, loving homes -- they considered different family configurations for their challenging cases. Now, Catholic Charities is being forced out of adoption work altogether by church leaders who cannot tolerate any recognition of same sex partnerships or gay or lesbian people raising children." Duddy-Burke and her spouse Becky are adoptive parents of a daughter. They worked with the state Department of Social Services on their adoption.
The leaders of Dignity USA strongly condemn new Vatican admissions instructions which discourage gay men from applying for admission to Catholic seminaries worldwide, citing several problems with the forthcoming communication. The official document has been reported to advise seminary directors against admitting any candidates for the priesthood "who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’":
The Vatican continues to erroneously focus on gay men as the cause of the Church sexual abuse crisis while neither addressing the root causes of the crisis nor disciplining in any fashion the bishops who share responsibility for it, instead choosing to issue a blanket repudiation of gay priests and gay seminarians.
These instructions discuss sexual orientation in ways which contradict contemporary understanding of human sexuality and clearly indicate Church leaders are ill-informed on the subject. This willful ignorance of human knowledge about sexuality by anyone claiming to be a moral teacher is morally dishonest and incredibly harmful to the entire Church and must be condemned. Gay men have served the Church well as priests and bishops since the early days of the Church and will continue to do so. This new instruction will lead to a more secretive, hostile environment in some seminaries and throughout the Church which will be harmful in many ways, including driving gay men even deeper into the closet.
Previous Pope John Paul II wasn't much better. The leadership of DignityUSA strongly disagrees with the Pope’s statement yesterday in his "State of the World Message" where he said same sex marriage promotes a "direct challenge to the family":
"It is clear that the Pope has a very myopic understanding of family", stated Matthew Gallagher, Executive Director of DignityUSA. "The Pope needs to be open to the lived experience of countless couples as many people of faith and society in general move toward understanding ‘family’ in a broader sense. Family is more than one male, one female and their biological children. The modern world has learned to adapt and acknowledge a larger interpretation of the word ‘family’ ", continued Gallagher.
DignityUSA, the nation’s foremost organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, knows ‘family’ as a loving, intimate relationship between two consenting adults with that love coming from God for as the Gospel of John tells us "God is Love.". Gender is not the determining factor for family; love is. The Pope’s limited concept of ‘family’ seems based solely on a centuries’ old view as the contractual state of affairs between individuals to protect property rights and on ignorance of all medical and psychological knowledge about the goodness of children in same-gender households.
"No one has been able to show how the thousands of same-gender couples who have publicly proclaimed their love and commitment in Massachusetts, New York, California and Oregon as well as in many other countries - have done damage to the institution of marriage. In fact, these expressions of love can only make this institution stronger" stated Gallagher.
Dignity USA is strongly denouncing Vatican instructions to Catholic politicians and the public on opposing legal protections for same-sex couples. A document entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons".:
"Everything we've seen about this document so far leads us to believe it is an absolute perversion of the Catholic social justice tradition," said Marianne Duddy, DignityUSA's Executive Director. "It starts from the premise that all people are not created equal, and that laws should reinforce that inequality."
Duddy added, "The Vatican has poured out increasingly harsh rhetoric against equal civil protections for committed gay and lesbian couples and our families in recent years. This new document is intended to intimidate public officials across the globe into doing what the Vatican has not been able to do on its own — stem the growing tide for justice. It is a tremendous shame that the leaders of our Church are becoming the vocal proponents for intolerance and continuing discrimination."
Duddy went on to say, "Lay Catholics and politicians will resent the Vatican's unwarranted intrusion into our civil lives. It demonstrates a profound disregard for the basic principles of democracy and respect for individuals."
Finally, Duddy noted the growing support for legal recognition of same-sex relationships among American Catholics. "Most Catholics understand that ensuring that same-sex partners have the right to visit each other in the hospital, make health care decisions for an incapacitated partner, and decide where their beloved will be buried is a matter of basic fairness. This document widens the gulf between the people of our Church and its leadership and runs counter to the Gospel values our faith teaches."
The current and last two Popes have so stacked the college of Cardinals with ultra-conservatives it will take a lifetime before any real change in church doctrine is even possible. And while I will be one of the first to acknowledge that the church is involved in many wonderful charitable activities, the hate and spiritual dishonesty it displays towards the GLBT community now makes it no better than the Tony Perkins and Jerry Falwells of the extreme religious right. I implore you, if you can't find it in your heart to walk away from Roman Catholicism in favor of another Christian denomination, please be vocal in your opposition to the hateful rhetoric when it is presented by church leaders and clergy, and further, be very vigilant of where your parish funds are being spent. You may unknowingly be sending money to help fund these hurtful, hateful, bigoted and un-Christian ballot initiates both in your own state and across the nation.
Thank you,
tnichlsn
update- Cross posted at StreetProphets. That should be very interesting.