I was raised Catholic & then I was saved…from Catholicism. It wouldn’t surprise me if they gave up the city contracts & passed the collection plate around twice, expecting their dire followers to pick up the slack.

$8M is a large amount of money, though. Deal or No Deal? It will be interesting to see what ‘they’ choose.

I think they are being too clever by half. Of course they could still provide services. No one can force them to preside over same-sex marriages. There are, I assume, southern Protestant ministers to this day who will not preside over a mixed-race marriage.
The Catholics are merely holding poor people hostage in an extortion attempt to force their anti-gay agenda on the city.
It’s like, “Give me your money or I’ll stop feeding my dog.” The city should call their bluff.

Well, better openly bigoted than barely-thinly-veiled.

I have to wonder what the response of the people being held hostage is. Will more see the church as bad guy, or support it in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome?

Those are some awfully nice homeless people you’ve got there… It would be a shame if anything were to happen to them.

Not only is it a pathetic threat, the Church is also lying. No one is saying they have to be secular. They don’t have to marry gays, they don’t have to approve of them either. All the law is saying is, any organization that accepts government funds cannot discriminate in hiring or provision of benefits.

They aren’t even morally consistent. I’m sure they provide benefits for remarried divorcees who haven’t been through the proper Catholic annulment process. Hypocrites.

Since it’s Open Forum Friday…

Have you ever heard people complain that others are taking ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas’? Well, it’s true.

Did you know that Sarah Palin was in Fort Wayne last Thursday (on her book tour)? I didn’t – and I’m not sure whether I’m embarrassed or proud about that.

$8 million is a lot of money. I’m pretty certain that if the Catholics don’t want to do this work that others would be glad to take that money and spend it wisely and fairly. Personally I think that the Catholics are entitled to make this choice. It seems like an odd bit of reverse extortion to me.

I’m writing here because my wife found a Facebook post urging Catholics to weigh in on this thread. Where to begin …

First, it’s probably best not to look at Ms. Gibbs’ statement as a threat or extortion, but as a frank assessment of the corner the Archdiocese of Washington feels it’s being boxed into by the DC government.

In the AP story on this, Gibbs begins her statement with “We’re not threatening to walk out on this city,” but says that the law as it’s currently being proposed would force city contractors to ignore/abandon their religious principles.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jNevWFd2BZmIvPtul1FPLDxckGRgD9BUVPL81

In short, this is a religious liberty issue for the archdiocese. The District is free to change its laws, but the Catholic Church (or any religion, given the Constitution) can’t be forced to compromise the free expression of its principles.

A second point, if it’s not accurate to call this extortion, it’s also not fair to cast this in a light where the Catholic Church is eager to dump its services to the poor or is being cold-hearted about it. Even the current pope has said that serving the poor is as important to the Church as the Bible or the Sacraments. Ms. Gibbs is again trying to illustrate the gravity of the situation the DC government has created.

The simple answer to this is that laws, any laws, can be written in careful, nuanced ways that do not infringe on Americans’ freedoms of religious expression, conscience, etc., and given the enormous amount of social services provided by the Catholic Church, I would like to think the DC city government, or any government, could see the advisability of at least granting them some sort of waiver.

Call it what you want, the end result is that the Catholic Church has decided that it would rather see people go hungry than allow equality for gays.

The Church does have the right to hold whatever bigoted policy it chooses but they do not have the right to government money. The government has principles too and first amongst these is that every American is equal. They cannot do business with any organization that does not treat all Americans equally.

Slowly but surely the US government is coming around to the realization that homosexuals are people too, and are deserving of every right afforded to everyone else. If the Church cannot accept this and feels it must abandon compassion in the name of discrimination, well, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

This threat by the Catholic church is disgusting. No one’s going to force them to marry same-sex couples and they know it. They’re just that much against having to give equal consideration to hiring gay people and having to pay benefits for those people’s spouses. In other words they want to retain their right to discriminate and they’re willing to let homeless people go hungry to do it. Providing benefits required by law to gay spouses does not mean the Catholic church has to see those people as married in the eyes of the church. They just have to comply with the law and pay the benefits.

I also agree with Tony’s comment that if they provide benefits to the spouses of people who get remarried without first getting a proper annulment, they are being hypocrites on this issue.

As an institution that prides itself in being the most generous on a dollar basis, it seems it should put it’s money where its mouth is, literally.

Just because one can never have too much context or documentation, this issue was addressed at much greater length and nuance on the Washington Post’s blog in an op ed by Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112101818.html

Coincidentally (or not?) the Catholic extortion continues. Patrick Kennedy is now being refused communion because he’s pro-choice.
Refusing to let a man be a cannibal? That’s just not right.
You’d think a church that loses more members (and priests) every year would stop turning people away.
Off-topic, but is anyone here willing to sign on as witnesses for Lilly’s and my living wills? You guys are the only folks we both know well enough to ask. We can bring them to the next coffee-shop get-together.
On that cheerful note…

@Littlejohn –

I also saw that Patrick Kennedy was being punished/denied communion due to his stance on abortion.

Speaking of communion, I had an experience with the Anglican church quite a while back, which left an impression on me. At the time, my wife and I were traveling overseas and happened to be in New Zealand over Easter. My wife was Catholic back then, and an Anglican Church was the closest thing to a Catholic church we could find in downtown Auckland.

Anyways, the Easter service was pretty typical – nice music, people singing, etc. One thing though, when it came time to come up for communion, the priest invited all in attendance to take part. Me being an unreligious folk, who had attended and observed many a Catholic mass as an outsider, had never been offerred this invitation before. I was a little perplexed by the offer, but I decided to accept and see what it all was about. So, I waited in line to get my cracker and drink a bit of wine with the rest of the crowd.

I can’t say it was a life-changing experience, but it was nice of the priest who presided over the service that day to put the offer out there.

So when I read about Patrick Kennedy being denied the opportunity to take communion by a rule-abiding priest who is on a power trip, I can’t help but think its a wee bit silly…

I’m not surprised that the church would stoop to that level. It’s consistent with their history- remember witch hunts,wars,the pedophile shuffles, and denunciation of birth control and womens’rights? Causing others to suffer for not doing or believing what they say has been their history for centuries, and their declared strongarm tactic against same-sex marriages only proves once again that they care very little, if any,about the people they cause to suffer. Isn’t extortion by a recognized instution a crime in your state? It certainly is in mine.

There are churches throughout the country that are happy to marry homosexuals and do so, but are not recognized by the government. Gay marriage opponents use the law to impose their morality upon all such churches and then have the audacity to claim that their opinion is that which supports religious freedom. What the hell?

Ya’ll need Buddy Christ in your life.

Even those who would rather let the homeless starve than watch two sexy females make out.