Catholic Archdiocese threatens to cut off aid for tens of thousands over gay marriage in D. C.

   Crucify him!  Crucify them!  Again!

The following news story appeared today on the two Internet websites, The Huffington Post and The Raw Story: "The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care." The story was written by Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein and went online today.

The bill is said to make the following provision: religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city if and when the law is passed because they would be required, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples.

Here's the scope of the Archdiocese's participation: "Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers."

The Archdiocese's statement follows a vote Tuesday by the council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to reject an amendment presented by Council member Yvette M. Alexander that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings.

"Lets say an individual caterer is a staunch Christian and someone wants him to do a cake with two grooms on top," she said. "Why can't they say, based on their religious beliefs, 'I can't do something like that'?" This amendment failed to pass.

After the vote, the Archdiocese sent out a statement accusing the council of ignoring the right of religious freedom. A spokesperson said Wednesday that the amendment's exemption is too narrow. She said that religious groups receiving city funds, under the proposed law would be required to give partnered or married gay employees medical benefits, make open adoptions available to same-sex couples or rent a church hall to gay or lesbian couples.

But "the problem with the individual exemption is, anybody could discriminate based on their assertion of religious principle," a spokesperson for the city council said. "There were many people back in the 1950s and '60s, during the civil rights era, that said separation of the races was ordained by God."

Clearly the Archdiocese does not have a problem in employing gay or lesbian people and giving them fewer benefits than others. Inequality in the workplace does not seem to be an issue here. Hey, I did not make up this story. You can look this up on the two websites I mentioned. I drew from them for my article. The main difference in my article is that I have not used most of the names that were given, other than City Councilwoman Alexander. I think she deserves to have her name attached to her attempt to coddle the bigotry of the Archdiocese. Her name does appear in the original article, along with the names of several other spokespersons for the City Council and the Archdiocese.

And though she failed, the Archdiocese is hanging tough. Does everybody get this? Rather than giving up on their continual war against gays and lesbians outside the Catholic church, they will drop their support of more than 60.000 innocent bystanders who are in dire need of shelter and other critical services!

The Archdiocese of Washington, D. C., our Nation's capitol, is demanding that they be allowed to interpret "religious freedom" as their freedom to continue their bigotry and discrimination against LGBT people. They insist on it or else they will throw tens of thousands of people under the bus to get their way. I am not accusing them of this; they said it for the record today.

I couldn't make this up. In fact, I'm such a wimp that I wouldn't dare. I don't write my articles just to outrage people--but this is the liberal side of the street. My opinions aren't unusual in the liberal Church. And yet I wonder if Catholics who are outraged by this news will direct any anger against the Archdiocese of Washington, D. C. So many people are just incapable of criticizing their church, for whatever reason. I expect anger to be directed at me--it's just another example of shooting the messenger.

But how do you like the message? This isn't the noble, egalitarian Catholicism that I was scolded about yesterday. This is reprehensible and I call it what it is. I have Bishop Spong in my corner, along with thousands of other Christians who do not countenance hate.

And if you're an Episcopalian who is considering "skeedaddling" to Catholicism--really? Why again?