In all likelihood, you know by now about the rift between the archdiocese of Washington and the DC city council over what the latter thinks is an issue of gay rights, but really relates to religious freedom. First off, the Church really needs some better communications people. The archdiocese got killed in the media over this. Why? The Washington Post spun it as the Church punishing the homeless because they hate gay people. Cue, the big bad Catholic church, the inquisition, and the nazi pope. Of course, if a Post reporter ventured into one of the many black baptist churches in southeast DC, I’m pretty sure he or she would hear far more aggressive rhetoric against homosexuality, but the Post will never go there, will it?
So what’s the real story? At yesterday’s 10am Mass at St. Matthew’s cathedral, Fr. Mark Knestout addressed this issue head on. He didn’t mince words. He spoke with passion, but also with reason and compassion. The issue, he noted, was not really about same-sex marriage at all. The issue was that the DC city council has deliberately and maliciously chosen to narrow a religious exemption that had worked for decades. They amended the bill with one purpose in mind – to teach the Catholic church a lesson. Even the ACLU supported the archdiocese on this one. Fr. Mark also noted that Catholic Charities will never ever end its mission of helping those in need. Nothing would change. If the DC council chose no longer to award contracts to Catholic Charities, that is solely the choice of DC council. It was an excellent homily. Fr. Mark even asked the congregation to contact the DC council. He singled out David Catania, one of the instigators of this revised bill, and a Catholic who actually called the archdiocese for a papal Mass ticket last year…
In other news, Fr. Mark’s older brother, Bishop Barry Knestout, sent out a letter stressing the importance of contributing to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Noting the severity of the economic crisis, he stressed the importance of the CCHD in “funding low-income community groups across the United States that find lasting solutions to the root causes of poverty”. He noted how essentially this funding was to alleviating poverty, especially in current circusmstances. This is important, and sends a rebuke to those narrow partisans that are attacking the CCHD, and implicitly, the USCCB.
In each case, we see the archdiocese of Washington (and the Knestout brothers!) standing up for the basic principles of Catholicism, resisting attacks from the partisans of the right and left. Good for them.
Of course, the Archdiocese was campaigning against the bill before there was an issue about religious exemptions, and the Catholic Church is not only opposed to same-sex marriage, but to any and all gay-rights legislation. One can hardly blame supporters of gay-rights legislation to be thrilled with the Church’s position.
It seems to me the Archdiocese is framing this very much as a matter of same-sex marriage, putting out their statement under the heading of “Marriage Matters.”
I do hope a compromise can be reached, but as has been discussed on dotCommonweal, there are a number of approaches that can be taken in the legislation, or by the Archdiocese acting alone, to eliminate the issue of recognizing same-sex marriage for employee benefits.
First off, the Church really needs some better communications people.
Susan Gibbs is a very talented and dedicated person. But you cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
The failure is at a higher level and the Church’s original statement (not their clean-up statements) led people to this conclusion.
Many members of the Council were (yes, past tense due to the fallout) open to find some workable solution all sides could agree to. The Archdiocese made the mistake of going public before it had its message pulled together. And it fell flat on its face.
Kurt, yes, I should have said communications strategy. I agree Susan Gibbs does a fine job. This fiasco was not of her doing.
I think one thing they should have pointed out was that the Levada compromise offered a tidy solution to the issue of same-sex benefits. That said, this issue is broader than Levada.
That said, this issue is broader than Levada.
Are you referring to the six adoptions they do a year? They have communications problems there as well. They said they cannot provide adoption services to same sex couples. If that is truly their view, the DC Government should cancel their contract immediately. I have told the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club that “gay people have no right to adopt children.” Of course, nor do opposite sex married couples have a right to adopt. ALL RIGHTS in an adoption are with the child.
In the same way, adoption is to serve the child, not the potential parents. If the Archdiocese does not understand this, they need to be freed from their six a year adoption program.
“This is important, and sends a rebuke to those narrow partisans that are attacking the CCHD, and implicitly, the USCCB”.
I believe it is the bishops [or the bureaucrats of the USCCB] who are shooting themselves in the foot.
It seems pretty cut-and-dried to me: if you’re willing to accept public funds, you should be willing to accept the guidelines that are stipulated.
Very simple, really.
Does the church provide adoptions to single parents? If so, then I think we are in a definite pickle with refusing to place children with same sex couples. If not, then I don’t see why it is so problematic to say that we think children should only be placed into homes with a married mother and father.
Does the church provide adoptions to single parents?
If there is a general policy, I can’t find it, but searching the web, I found Catholic Charities web sites for a number of locations that said such things as “single parents welcome” or single parents accepted on a “case-by-case basis.” So unless there are rogue branches of Catholic Charities out there, it would seem single-parent adoption is not prohibited.
The main sticking point, however, seems to involve providing benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. One might wonder why, if same-sex marriage is so horrifying, anyone who would enter into such a union would be accepted as an employee anyway.
Isn’t there a difference between saying it’s horrifying and saying its morally disordered and we can’t endorse it (and that officially recognizing it is to endorse it in some way)? It seems to me that it’s different that Protestant marriages, because Protestant marriages possess the proper form, even if they are deficient in some way. I think MM is right that the Levada path was the way to go, and it seems to me the Diocese could do that unilaterally.
The only thing the Church is being asked to do (for its six adoptions a year) is to not exclude gay couples on the front end. Each Catholic Charities social worker (of whom, under this legislation, the Church can use religious criteria in hiring) makes an individual judgment as to what is in the best interests of the child.
I would not be surprised if a traditional, heterosexual married couple won out in in one of the rare instances where there were multiple applicants for a child.
On the other hand, the Boston Archdiocese did not look good when they insisted on a front end exclusion of gays but refused to establish a front-end policy that children could be placed with racists.
Do they exclude heterosexual couples whose marriages are not recognized by the Church from these benefits?
Why do they not say from the start that they will not hire homosexuals and be done with it?
More and more I have the feeling that the culture of the new breed of US bishops resembles that of gangsterism.
Why are religious organizations allowed to discriminate in the first place ? There is one set of rules for religions and the military and another for everyone else. An organization that actively campaigns against gay rights hardly has any justification for crying about getting bad press. The LDS are more liberal, for crying out loud:
“Last week, the Salt Lake City Council, with the blessing of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed a law extending protection against discrimination in housing and employment to gay and transgender people. ”
A gay Catholic organist who’s “found out” gets to play at the Episcopalian church…
And, how come the NYC service only places 6 a year ?
“if a Post reporter ventured into one of the many black baptist churches in southeast DC, I’m pretty sure he or she would hear far more aggressive rhetoric against homosexuality, but the Post will never go there, will it?”
In fairness….of course they won’t. These congregations didn’t release a confusing announcement that appeared to say “I’m going home”.
Honestly though, it sounds like the ones who stand to lose the most is Catholic Charities. Their budget is funded to the tune of 75% by tax dollars.
To put the 6 number in context, there were only 50 total adoptions in all of DC in 2008. Not saying the church should not do more adoptions, adoption should be preached from every pulpit. But the issue with the number of adoptions by Catholic’s is us, not the bishops.
Kevin,
I think the point about adoptions is that DC need not be so worried about losing the adoption services of the Archdiocese of Washington that they should feel compelled to compromise on a piece of civil-rights legislation. Other services the Archdiocese provides might be missed, but not six adoptions a year.
I have slowly become aware of how much Catholic Charities is a cover name for a method of spending tax dollars. I can of feel like we are back in the old days when you bought a can of “bacon with beans” and found it had a pound of beans and one small piece of bacon in it. That was considered false advertising, and I feel a bit like the term “Catholic Charities” is also a form of false advertisement.
Of course this is all one big cynical game of cat and mouse that the sides play with each other.
I bet in a couple of decades our church will be properly delighted to arrange adoptions for same sex couples.
I personally fully welcome adoption by gay couples – for me it is a step in the right direction – just like with us heterosexuals first we should focus on developing a strong committed relationship to our beloved partners – marry – than a healthy percentage among the heterosexuals and homosexuals would love to welcome children into the new family – this is what we humans have done from the beginning of times.
Gay adoption is here to stay – that Genie is out of the bottle – and our church with disproportionate percentages of (closeted) gay priests will not get it bottled up anyway -whom are they kidding.
The question that seems to be ignored is why should a religious entity be forced to violate its beliefs as a condition for providing social services?
One could argue that the government has a right to set the requirements for receiving government money. However, if the government has decided to contract out for services, shouldn’t do so in a manner that least infringes upon the religious liberties of the contractee? Otherwise, it should assume the administration the program entirely.
But there is more than just government money involved in this question. In some states, adoptions cannot be performed unless the agency is licensed by the state, even if no money flows from the government to the entity. If the state insists on non-discrimination as to who can adopt, you eliminate most, if not all, religious providers of adoption services since all religions, by definition, employ some form of discrimination.
Let us take the example of the LDS church. As part of their religious identity, the church takes care of Morman girls who face a crisis pregnancy. It helps the girls and arranges the adoption. Thus, it needs – in order to fulfill its mission – an adoption license. However, also according to their religious beliefs, the child will only be placed with a couple with a “temple recommend.” Therefore, again, in order to fulfill what the church believes to be its religious duty, it will discriminate as to who it will allow to adopt the child.
Insisting on non-discrimination in adoption services beyond what is clearly against public policy – such as race discrimination – infringes not only upon the rights of adoption agencies, but also upon churches that believe that performing adoptions is part of their ministry.
In addition, as noted above, the entire notion of nondiscrimination as to who can adopt turns the notion of adoption on its head. It is the child, not the adopting parents that have the legal right that justifies state interest.
I’m kicking myself for not knowing this. But in my defense, I’m just Joe Slob making observations. The Archdiocese, which one would think has competent Legal Counsel to review statements before they go shooting their mouth off, has a higher duty.
Employee health insurance is governed by ERISA and other federal laws that have a state pre-emption. Therefore so long as their is not federal same sex marriage, they are under no obligation to change their policies.
As for same sex adoption, it has now come out that the Archdiocese already has a policy of non-discrimination.
Somebody should do a statistical analysis of exactly what kind of children get adopted by “gay” couples and of how those children become oriented sexually in their adolescent years.
I’m willing to bet that the kids that get adopted by “gay” couples are the ones the heterosexual couples would reject for adoption and I’m also willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of those kids turn out to be happy heterosexuals.
The children whose “rights” are being violated by this form of clerical “discrimination” which “ctd” is defending above are, I would venture to say, the ones who are most at risk of being left homeless in the adoption mill.
I’m also willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of those kids turn out to be happy heterosexuals.
digby,
I am willing to bet that, too. But those concerned that the children raised by same-sex couples might turn out to be gay presuppose that there is something wrong with being gay. It is a presupposition that gay people or those sympathetic to them should not be making. If the children raised by same-sex couples turn out to be gay with the same frequency that children raised by opposite-sex couples turn out to be straight, then so what?
David,
While I agree that the way the question of the sexual orientation of children of gay parents is often presented makes some presuppositions that it should not, it is still possible to answer your “so what?”.
It would mean that we have something pretty conclusive regarding the dynamics that lead one to experience oneself as a homosexual. Now, since I agree with you and Digby that the vast majority of these kids would be heterosexuals, we would not in fact have such information. But if the vast majority were to turn out gay, the information itself, though it could be used for good or ill, would be something of interest.
As a matter of fact there have been some studies on how children of gay parents turn out. They are not extensive, but the general result seems to be that they turn into well adjusted heterosexuals.
I would guess that most gay couples that adopt children are above average in terms of social standing and probably pretty loving parents. I think that what studies have been made indicate that the outcome on the children depends more on how stable the parental relationship is rather than the sexual orientation.
I have known several cases of a homosexual entering into a heterosexual marriage, and the result was an absolute disaster for both the parents and the children.