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LGBT

Ohio Catholic High School Fires Gay Teacher For Naming Partner In Mother’s Obituary

By Zack Ford on Apr 18, 2013 at 11:19 am

Carla Hale (Photo Credit: Brooke LaValley, Columbus Dispatch)

When Carla Hale was fired from Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus Ohio because she’s gay after working there for 19 years, students were quick to rally to her cause. A Change.org petition calling on the Catholic high school to reinstate her already has over 11,000 signatures. And now, Hale has come forward to tell her own story. When her mother died in March, she included her partner’s name in her obituary, and apparently an anonymous parent thought that was sufficient reason to complain to the Diocese of Columbus. Hale told the Colmbus Dispatch that the school then fired her a week later:

HALE: If it were not for an obituary that appeared in the paper, none of this would be happening… She asked me if I really wanted to put her name in there — in the obituary — but as we sat there that day — my mom really loved Julie and Julie  loved my my mom and as I sat there with my brother, you know, it was like… his wife was mentioned, my niece’s husband was mentioned, so why not? Why not my person I love?

Watch it:

This is hardly the first time the Catholic Church has punished employees simply for being gay. Last year, a music teacher in Missouri and a music director in North Carolina were fired for planning weddings with their same-sex partners. Many more such incidents likely go unreported. The Church refused to comment because it is a personnel matter.

The city of Columbus has nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation with no exemptions for religious organizations, and the Columbus Dispatch argues that she would have a viable case if she filed a complaint.

LGBT

Detroit Archdiocese Doubles Down On Opposing Communion For Pro-Equality Catholics

By Zack Ford on Apr 9, 2013 at 9:55 am

Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron

This weekend, two prominent Catholics in Detroit made public statements suggesting that Catholics who support marriage equality or a woman’s right to an abortion should not receive communion. Archbishop Allen Vigneron suggested taking communion while opposing the Church’s positions would “logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury.” Professor and Vatican legal adviser Edward Peters (father of National Organization for Marriage Communications Director Thomas Peters) said such Catholics “risk having holy Communion withheld from them… being rebuked and/or being sanctioned.”

On Monday, in an attempt at damage control, archdiocese spokesman Joe Kohn issued a statement confirming the validity of what Vigneron and Peters said:

KOHN: The archbishop’s focal point here is not “gay marriage”; it is a Catholic’s reception of Holy Communion. If a Catholic publicly opposes the church on a serious matter of the church’s teaching, any serious matter — for example, whether it be a rejection of the divinity of Christ, racist beliefs, support for abortion or support for redefining marriage — that would contradict the public affirmation they would make of the church’s beliefs by receiving Communion.

As the archbishop states, the pastors of the church are ready to assist Catholics to help them understand and avoid this conflict.

This approach of pressuring Catholics out of full participation in the Church for non-conforming positions would be a significant reversal of the Church’s tactics. There continues to be a massive disconnect between the hierarchy of bishops and the millions of people who identify as Catholic, with polls consistently showing, for example, that Catholics support same-sex marriage at rates higher than the national average — even by double digit margins. The bishops attempting to influence social policy derive their symbolic power from the parishioners they represent, even if the Church structure is not a democracy. If they actually attempt to limit participation (and arguably membership) to just those who subscribe to the Church’s beliefs, they would have to eliminate more than half of their membership.

It remains unclear what kind of “assistance” pastors are prepared to provide, but it seems like the Church is prepared to threaten parishioners that they must choose between receiving the Blessed Sacrament or supporting their LGBT loved ones — a new interpretation of “bully pulpit.”

Health

NYC Public Schools Can’t Teach Sex Ed On Campus If The Catholic Church Owns Their Property

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Apr 8, 2013 at 1:40 pm

In New York City, the public school students who attend classes in a building owned by the Catholic Church can’t actually attend all of their classes there. As the New York Daily News reports, students need to leave campus in order to receive state-mandated instruction on sexual health, as part of a long-standing agreement between Church officials and the city’s public school district that has recently come to light.

New York state law requires sex ed classes to include information about condoms, birth control, and HIV and STD transmission, and those standards were strengthened specifically for New York City’s public school district under a new citywide standard enacted in 2011. So far, those initiatives have been wildly successful, and New York City’s teen pregnancy rate has plummeted by more than 25 percent over the past decade.

But Church officials say that type of comprehensive sex ed instruction violates Catholic doctrine. In Catholic-affiliated schools, students are taught abstinence-only education with no mention of contraceptive methods — and at least in New York City, the Church’s influence can even impact public schools’ ability to teach sex ed.

The Catholic Church is one of the biggest landowners in New York City, and leases about 40 buildings to the city’s Department of Education. That financial arrangement is attractive to the Church at a time when enrollment in private Catholic schools is declining, and Church officials see no reason to change their sex ed policy. “It is an arrangement that has been working well for both sides for years, and one we intend to continue,” Diocese of Brooklyn spokeswoman Stefanie Gutierrez told the New York Daily News.

Some public school students disagree. Tayshawn Edmonds, a 15-year-old who attends El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Williamsburg, has to walk 15 minutes off campus to attend his sex ed classes. “The church owns the building, so they call the shots,” he explained. “But I don’t see why they get to control what we’re doing at our school.”

The Catholic Church’s opposition to contraception persists into the realm of higher education, too. Across the country, Catholic-affiliated colleges are still fighting against an Obamacare provision that requires insurance plans to cover the full cost of birth control, even though there’s already an exception for the religious institutions who object to covering contraceptives. And at Boston College — which is a Jesuit institution — school officials are threatening disciplinary action against students who distributed condoms as part of a safe sex campaign.

LGBT

Rhode Island Bishop Falsely Claims Supreme Court Should Delay State’s Marriage Equality

By Zack Ford on Mar 28, 2013 at 9:01 am

Bishop Thomas Tobin

A Rhode Island Senate committee is still considering marriage equality legislation after last week’s marathon 12-hour open hearing, but a Catholic bishop claims that the Supreme Court cases are a sufficient reason to stall the bill. Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese released the following statement on Wednesday:

In light of the historic deliberations of the U.S. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, it would be appropriate for the General Assembly of Rhode Island to defer any action on this critical issue for the time being. Any legislative action that is taken now could very well be rendered completely null and void by the decision of the Supreme Court expected this June. It is likely that the Supreme Court will decide this matter for us, one way or another. Let’s wait to see what the highest court of the land says about this issue which is so very important to many Rhode Islanders.

This statement is patently false. Nothing about either case before the Supreme Court could possibly impact Rhode Island’s marriage law, except to make same-sex marriage legal there (less likely) or ensure that all married couples receive federal benefits (more likely). The possibility of the former offers no compelling reason not to proceed with legalizing same-sex marriage in the meantime, and the potential of the latter actually shows that advancing the bill will do even more to support same-sex families in the state.

Tobin is playing the only card he has left to oppose marriage equality: delay, delay, delay. He’s counting on lawmakers not to remember that justice delayed is justice denied.

Health

Catholic University Dropped Students’ Health Insurance For Fear Of Eventually Covering Birth Control

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Mar 25, 2013 at 5:05 pm

The Obamacare provision that requires insurance companies to cover contraceptive services with no additional co-pay has broad public support, but has still remained one the most politically contentious aspects of the health reform law. Despite the fact that the Obama Administration provides an exemption for religiously-affiliated organizations that may object to covering birth control, religious organizations across the country have continued to resist Obamacare.

Those fights over birth control have been spearheaded by religious universities and for-profit organizations, despite the fact that those types of institutions may have hundreds of students or employees who don’t share the same objection to contraceptive services. Obamacare opponents have been going to extreme lengths to drag out the largely failed “religious liberty” fight.

In fact, one Roman Catholic university in Ohio, Franciscan University, actually dropped health coverage for its entire student body last year simply because its officials were afraid of “one day having to provide coverage for contraception.” A federal judge recently dismissed Franciscan University’s lawsuit against the federal government and blasted its decision to deny health insurance plans from its more than 2,500 students:

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley sided with the government, saying the groups couldn’t prove they would ever likely suffer the harm they allege. He noted that 15 other federal courts have already ruled similar lawsuits weren’t timely and most of those 15 decisions determined the groups filing the lawsuits lacked jurisdiction.

The judge also criticized Franciscan University over its decision in May to drop its student health insurance program out of fear of one day having to provide coverage for contraception.

Marbley said the university can’t argue harm based on “a phantom specter” created by its own fears, which the government has stated are unsubstantiated, Marbley said.

“It is gravely unfortunate that Franciscan’s students have lost the opportunity to receive health insurance coverage from the University,” the judge said.

Overall, the Catholic Church has actually been largely supportive of efforts to expand access to health care, which the Church considers to be a basic human right. During the political battle to pass the Affordable Care Act, Catholic nuns filed a brief in support of the health reform law, explaining that the government has a “moral imperative” to ensure care for people who cannot afford insurance. The Catholic bishops have obviously taken issue with some provisions of the reform law, but they also admit that they can “recognize the good present in the bill.”

However, rather than weigh the positive effects of health coverage against their opposition to birth control, Franciscan University simply decided to throw out its student health insurance plans altogether. And university officials show no signs of letting up, despite their defeat in court. As Father Terence Henry, Franciscan’s president, said in a statement, “We will not stop fighting this unjust mandate, and we are in this for the long haul.”

LGBT

Puff Pieces Profiling Paid Anti-Equality Activists Plague The Mainstream Media

By Zack Ford on Mar 25, 2013 at 3:41 pm

Many paid anti-gay activists work for an organization connected back to Robert George.

This week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on marriage equality have understandably attracted media attention, but unfortunately the coverage has been peppered with blatant puff pieces that offer a free pedestal for paid operatives working against same-sex marriage. These articles claim to profile individuals who make their living off the anti-equality movement offer little context, instead invite them to share all their talking points without any rebuttal.

For example, last Friday USA Today ran a piece profiling some of the top lobbyists against marriage equality, while the New York Times profiled young conservatives working with many of the same organizations. NPR offered two puff pieces, one similarly profiling various conservatives and another just to highlight Maggie Gallagher’s views on the topic. Almost every individual in each of these stories advocates against equality as a profession. Here’s a list of who they are and how they used their free media pedestal:

  • Brian Brown is executive director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).  He told USA Today that “The people are definitely on our side,” even though polling continuesto show the exact opposite.
  • Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), told USA Today that “there will be collateral damage to other freedoms” because of marriage equality, but offered examples of people who seek to violate nondiscrimination protections.
  • Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), told USA Today that marriage equality will “lure” people into homosexuality, just like legalizing marijuana, gambling, prostitution, abortion, “or any vice that is legalized.” The article neglected to mention that CWA is recognized as a hate group along with FRC.
  • Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ committee for the “Defense of Marriage,” told USA Today that same-sex couples are inherently inferior, and that the LGBT movement should have a “live and let live” philosophy instead of calling equality opponents bigots.
  • Rev. William Owens, head of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, which is funded by groups like NOM and FRC, claimed to USA Today that marriage equality is “another nail in the coffin for black families,” confirming his role in NOM’s race-wedging tactics.

    • Read more

LGBT

San Francisco Archbishop: Sex Only Counts When There’s A Penis And A Vagina

By Zack Ford on Mar 22, 2013 at 3:19 pm

As conservatives make their case against marriage equality, they’ve found themselves stuck arguing that biological procreation is what counts and then trying to explain how infertile opposite-sex couples are okay. San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who is considered the father of Proposition 8 and who will be speaking at the National Organization for Marriage’s march next week, fell into just this trap in an interview with USA Today.

Here’s how he tried to explain why marriage is still appropriate for opposite-sex couples who cannot conceive but not for same-sex couples:

CORDILEONE: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a “one flesh” union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.

Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do. [...]

Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.

Conservatives have proven repeatedly, particularly in recent weeks, that they are incapable of acknowledging that same-sex couples are already raising children — and effectively at that. What Cordileone’s actually saying here is that gay couples’ relationships are simply inferior to straight couples’. This argument has nothing to do with children; it’s just plain bigotry.

Economy

How Pope Francis Can Impact Economic Policy And Help The Poor

By Travis Waldron on Mar 14, 2013 at 3:45 pm

Argentina’s Jose Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, became the new head of the Catholic Church yesterday, assuming the papacy that was vacated by Pope Benedict XVI at the end of February. As a cardinal in Argentina, Bergoglio eschewed excess, living in poverty and often visiting the nation’s slums and other impoverished areas. Francis took his name from St. Francis of Assisi, the most famous Catholic advocate for the poor, and as pope, he will have the chance to continue the Church’s legacy of fighting growing rates of income inequality and defending the poor.

Though Bergoglio took strides to distance himself from liberation theology, which advocates for the reform of capitalist economics in a way that benefits the disadvantaged, while serving in Argentina, he has in the past railed against economic inequality and the lack of focus given to the poor by the world’s economic elites. He has called “extreme poverty and and unjust economic structures that create great inequities” a violation of basic human rights, and he has chastised the wealthy for not “taking into account the poor.” In 2007, he went even farther, decrying the economic inequality that exists around the world:

“We live, apparently, in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

Recent popes have made similar declarations. In 2011, with streets around the world filled with protests of economic inequality and austerity that was inflicting even more pain on the poor, Benedict called for more economic equality and sweeping reforms of the global financial system in a way that would lead to the “achievement of a universal common good.” Benedict also called for greater wealth distribution to eliminate world hunger and for the greater protection of labor unions to help workers around the world.

Catholic social teaching, in fact, is rich with doctrine about the importance of defending and helping the poor. Still, the Catholic Church has been criticized for not taking sufficient action on those issues. Benedict, after all, formally censured the largest group of American nuns, who focus primarily on advocating for the poor through health care reform and poverty programs, because he said they were not focusing enough on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Francis has a chance to change that, whether by re-upping his anti-austerity messages in Europe, where spending cuts have driven up unemployment and decimated poverty programs, by leading opposition to increased income inequality in the United States, where cuts to poverty programs have helped exacerbate the effects of the recession, or by pushing for reforms to economic and health programs to benefit the poorest citizens of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia.

Security

New Pope Spotlights Questions About Church’s Relationship With Military Dictatorship

By Hayes Brown on Mar 13, 2013 at 5:49 pm

Pope Francis I

The election of Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio as Pope Francis I has sparked new interest in the atrocities performed during Argentina’s period of military rule from 1976-1983.

Francis is the first pope to have been elected from the Americas, which will more accurately reflect the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America. That primacy, however, during the Cold War led to many dioceses throughout the region turning a blind eye to the atrocities of military governments. These right-wing governments, often taking power via coup, were supported by the United States and the church alike for their stand against Communism.

Particularly devastating was the period known in Argentina as as “The Dirty War.” Beginning as a crackdown on armed left-wing guerrilla groups following a military coup in 1976, the regime soon expanded its focus, imprisoning and torturing anyone thought to hold leftist views or criticize the government. Women who were pregnant at the time of their incarceration were allowed to bring their children to term, before being “transferred” — a euphemism used by the junta for execution — drugged and tossed from airplanes into the ocean. All-told, an estimated 30,000 civilians were “disappeared” by the government.

Years later, one priest told a panel of judges that the church at the time was “scandalously close to the dictatorship” in turning a blind eye, “to such an extent that I would say it was of a sinful degree.” Former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla claimed in an interview years removed from power that the Church was definitely “consulted” throughout the crackdown. That included offering their good offices and discouraging families from searching for relatives who had “disappeared.” That link was much stronger in Argentina than in neighboring dictatorships in Brazil and Chile:

“Patriotism came to be associated with Catholicism,” said Kenneth P. Serbin, a history professor at the University of San Diego who has written about the Roman Catholic Church in South America. “So it was almost natural for the Argentine clergy to come to the defense of the authoritarian regime.”

That tie has been a stain on Catholicism in Argentina ever since. The Argentine Catholic Church issued a document in 1996 admitting they had made “insufficient efforts” to prevent atrocities. When Pope John Paul II issued a blanket apology for church abuses throughout the ages in 2000, Bergoglio — by then the archbishop of Buenos Aires — insisted that Argentine Catholic officials wear garments symbolizing penance for sins committed by the clergy during the military dictatorship.

Bergoglio’s precise role during the Dirty War is still clouded. In 2005, when he was first considered as a possible replacement for John Paul II, a human rights activist accused Bergoglio of aiding in the military’s kidnapping of two Jesuits, filing criminal charges in a Buenos Aires court. That case has since not moved forward, though claims exist that he actively prevented human rights groups from finding political prisoners. However, at least one woman, former Buenos Aires Ombudsman Alicia de Olivia, has come forward to say that Bergoglio hid her from the military government during the crackdown.

Climate Progress

Will The Next Pope Tackle Climate Change?

By Matt Kasper, Guest Blogger and Jack Jenkins, Guest Blogger on Mar 12, 2013 at 11:39 am

Solar panels at the Vatican (Photo credit: AP)

The world is anxiously waiting for the College of Cardinals to select the next Bishop of Rome, especially the planet’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. The faithful have good reason to be anxious: After all, the new pope will have to address a number of polarizing issues within the Catholic Church.

In addition to the challenges of ecclesiastical governance, however, there also exists an opportunity for the next pope to address an issue affecting the entire world community, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike: the urgent threat of climate change.

The destructive impact of climate change has been felt not only in the United States through droughts and floods and sea level rise, but also in communities around the world. The science suggests that its effects will only worsen, intensifying the hardships experienced by the poor and vulnerable. In the midst of this global crisis, the next pope is poised to become a key voice on the issue of climate change by helping the international community find solutions to the climate crisis.

The compulsion for the pope to act on climate change isn’t just based in science. It’s also rooted in theology: Catholic teaching insists that believers put the poor and vulnerable first, and inaction to save the most susceptible is considered immoral. Indeed, it has been 13 years since Pope John Paul II gave his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, saying:

“[A]n adequate solution cannot be found merely in a better management or a more rational use of the earth’s resources, as important as these may be. Rather, we must go to the source of the problem and face in its entirety that profound moral crisis of which the destruction of the environment is only one troubling aspect…

The ecological crisis reveals the urgent moral need for a new solidarity, especially in relations between the developing nations and those that are highly industrialized… I wish to repeat that the ecological crisis is a moral issue.”

Pope John Paul II’s words were more than just a symbolic prayer: both he and Pope Benedict XVI used their position and the power of the Vatican to elevate the moral case for action on climate change.

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