Sojourners Refuses Once Again to "Take Sides" in Struggle for Gay Rights

 

 

I've noted in a number of previous postings that I no longer offer support to Sojourners, though I'd like to do so.  We sorely need organizations in the U.S. that draw together coalitions of faith-based communities working for progressive change.  But Sojourners' (and Jim Wallis') ongoing refusal to  support gay rights (and gay and lesbian human beings) has become more than a blind spot in that organization's work for justice, as far as I am concerned.

The homophobia (and that's what it is, when battle lines are clear, and the refusal to take sides represents a failure to stand on the side of justice in a historic battle to see justice done) increasingly undermines for me any position Sojourners takes about anything.  And so I also increasingly turn a deaf ear to anything I read by Jim Wallis.

And Robert Chase's report yesterday at Religion Dispatches about Sojourners' recent refusal to support the "Believe Out Loud" campaign, since Sojo doesn't "take sides," hardly causes me to revise my opinions about the organization.  It's time for good people of faith to stop playing these shameful games.

Minnesota Theologian Gary Boelhower: Marriage Equality Is About Equality

And from Terry Weldon's outstanding Queering the Church blog yesterday, powerful testimony from a theologian, Gary Boelhower, teaching at St. Scholastica College in Duluth, Minnesota.  Terry links to an op-ed statement Boelhower wrote Monday for the Duluth News Tribune as the proposal to revise the Minnesota constitution to ban same-sex marriage, about which I blogged yesterday, goes to the legislature. 

Gary Boelhower prefaces his testimony by noting that the Minnesota constitution explicitly states, "No member of this state shall be … deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen."  As he notes, he and his fellow citizens who are also gay or lesbian are asking merely to enjoy the rights and privileges afforded by the state constitution (and the national one) to all citizens--by virtue of the humanity they share with other citizens.

Boelhower notes that there is a range of viewpoints among faith communities in his state about same-sex marriage and the morality of homosexuality.  His own union with his partner will be celebrated in a United Church of Christ later this year.  

But neither he nor other LGBT citizens of Minnesota who are asking for a right afforded to all other citizens--the right of civil marriage (which brings with it a significant number of rights and privileges from which gay families are excluded prima facie when civil marriage is denied to gay couples)--are proposing that any faith community be forced to accept same-sex marriage.  This is a debate about the human rights afforded to all citizens in a civil context, in the context of pluralistic secular societies in which the religious viewpoint of any group should not be enshrined in civil law:

I am not asking your church to change its teachings. In the U.S. we are free to express a diversity of spiritual traditions. Religious marriage will justly remain the prerogative of each faith tradition.

But the state of Minnesota is constitutionally bound to treat all citizens equally; that includes civil-marriage equality.

Last Tuesday, Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature announced plans to put a gay marriage ban before voters in 2012 (“Minnesota lawmakers push for gay marriage vote,” April 27). To ban gay marriage would institutionalize injustice in our constitution, which wisely emphasizes the rights of all citizens and protects against the discriminatory reservation of certain rights to only some citizens.

As we know from our history, it is not unusual for those in power or those in the majority to reserve certain rights and privileges for themselves. Not until 1920 did women have the right to vote. Not until 1967 were laws criminalizing interracial marriage ruled unconstitutional. It is not coincidental that strong religious arguments were used to enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships.

In seeking marriage equality, I am not asking for special privileges; I am simply claiming the same protections and responsibilities as my heterosexual married neighbors.

This is an admirably clear statement.  And, reading it, I have to wonder why some U.S. citizens and members of faith communities still don't see the point that is so clear here: this is a cultural debate about something that has happened over and over in American society as the foundational principles of our democracy are extended to groups that have been excluded from full participation solely due to indefensible discrimination.  The cultural discussion in which we're involved right now in American society, vis-a-vis marriage equality, is not a discussion about how and whether religious viewpoints should dictate legal norms in American society.

Religious viewpoints can't do that.  Not in a bona fide secular democracy.  Not in a pluralistic society normed by foundational documents that enshrine democratic principles in those normative documents.  

This is a debate about equality.  It's a debate about the full inclusion in our democratic society of a group of citizens stigmatized by prejudice, who continue to be excluded from the social mainstream by legalized discrimination that impedes their ability to contribute, to pursue their careers, to raise families, and so forth. 

What on earth does any Christian church imagine it's doing, defending the exclusion of some members of the human community from the social mainstream, solely because a church wants to envisage those human beings as less than human?  And in what way does the attack on those stigmatized human beings by leaders of any religious community--in Minnesota, notably the state's Catholic bishops--contribute to a healthy society that respects human rights?

These are questions that aren't going go to away anywhere in the United States anytime soon--anywhere including Minnesota.  No matter how much Catholic leaders shout to the rest of us that they're defending human rights by denying them to gay and lesbian people.

Minnesota Moves Towards Statewide Vote on Constitutional Ban for Gay Marriage

As an update to my several recent postings about the role the Catholic leaders of Minnesota are now seeking to play in the political life of that heavily Catholic state, particularly in attacking its gay citizens: at the end of last week, the judiciary committee of the Minnesota senate passed a bill that will call for a statewide vote to amend the state's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.  The bill now goes to the state legislature, which has been Republican-controlled since the 2010 elections, and is likely to pass at that level.

This is a step that Minnesota Republicans have been maneuvering to take for some years now, but which they've been thwarted in taking by Democratic legislative majorities in the past.   It is a step explicitly endorsed by the Catholic bishops in Minnesota, who want to assure that their state does not follow the example of the neighboring state of Iowa and permit civil marriage for same-sex couples.

It's difficult to predict the outcome of this statewide vote, if this constitutional amendment does, indeed, receive legislative approval.  Numerous historical examples demonstrate that, given the opportunity to do so, the majority will almost always vote to deny rights to minorities.  This becomes even more likely in times of economic and cultural difficulty, when the feel-good effect of finding a stigmatized minority on which to vent anger and even hatred is appealing for many citizens.  And when that feel-good effect is actively cultivated and even blessed by religious leaders, those calling for human decency in deliberations about the human rights of a targeted minority often find themselves not making much of a dent at all on the consciousness of many people.

Constitutions, and the court system in the U.S., are set up precisely to protect minority groups from the tyranny of the majority, by articulating foundational principles to which everyone must adhere in order to build an inclusive civil society, and by assuring legal protection for those principles when they are attacked--as they always are--by those intent on discriminating.

For those who want to follow the Minnesota situation and read about it in depth, Michael Bayly (who lives in St. Paul) is providing his usual stellar commentary at his Wild Reed blog and the Progressive Catholic blog.  A selection of recent articles by Michael that I recommend:

"Disappointing but Not Unexpected: 'Marriage Amendment' Bill Passes MN Senate Judiciary Committee"

"Calling All Supporters of Marriage Equality"

"Rep. Steve Simon on Gay Marriage and the Arc of History"

The day will come--and it is not far down the road in much of the developed world--when the leaders of the Catholic church in the late 20th century and first part of the 21st century will be judged very harshly for their active support of legalized discrimination against a vulnerable minority group.  As a majority of American Catholics turn against such discrimination, the willingness of the U.S. bishops actively to promote it and to see it enshrined in legal documents begins to appear less and less like a demonstration of Christian charity, and more and more like a political decision that is willing to make the lives of some human beings miserable to serve the interests and goals of an elite group within the society--to whom the leaders of the Catholic church have handed over their souls and forfeited the future of the church they lead.

In a state that has constantly been in the national news for several years now due to the number of teen suicides in which bullying because of perceived sexual orientation has played a key role, you'd think the leaders of a group looking to Jesus as its founder would find other ways to spend their time and energy.  Wouldn't you?

Alan McCornick on King & Spalding: It's About the Right of People, Not Ideas, to Legal Defense

Second postscript: after I wrote yesterday about the King & Spalding decision to drop the defense of DOMA, I discovered that Alan McCornick has also posted about this topic this week, at his wonderfully thought-provoking Hepzibah blog.  As with everything Alan writes, this posting is dense, and I won't try to summarize it: I challenge readers to read it for yourselves, working carefully through Alan's well-constructed prose.

I do want to take note of one observation Alan makes, which casts light on my own argument yesterday, and which makes this point far more clearly than I did.  This has to do with the right of everyone to a defense.  As Alan points out, that right applies to persons and not to ideas.  Those now arguing that Paul Clement and Bancroft are doing something noble by asserting DOMA's "right" to a legal defense are confusing persons with ideas in precisely the same way that the U.S. Supreme Court wishes to confuse persons and corporations in its 2010 Citizens United decision.

Here's how Alan puts the point:

Doesn’t everybody deserve their day in court? Aren’t they right when they say if everybody in the executive branch of government decided cases a priori, wouldn’t that disturb the balance of powers? Should this not stay in court all the way to the top if necessary? That's Clement's argument, and that's why he resigned when his firm refused to pursue the case

Well, no.

First off, it’s people who deserve their day in court, not ideas. If by some cruel accident we elected a fascist to office (a few years ago that would have seemed a lot more ridiculous), and once elected he announced he wanted to make all the Jews in town wear a yellow star, and a class action suit grew out of this and he went to court over it, I’d say, yes, by all means, give bozo his day in court. 

And I agree.  To return to the life story I told yesterday as a parable--the story of my adolescent conversations with my father about the ethics of legal defense--I never disagreed with my father that everyone has a right to a legal defense.  The point of our contention was whether a guilty person being defended by an attorney has a right to a defense that seeks to represent that person as innocent rather than guilty. 

People have a right not to be judged guilty before their guilt has been proven.  And they have a right to a legal defense in which their guilt or innocence is ascertained within the court system.  They have a right to a court hearing even when they are guilty, though it seems to me that in this case, how their attorney defends them and deals with their guilt when it is clear to the attorney does deserve careful consideration.

Ideas are something altogether different.  I agree wholeheartedly with John Aravosis when he notes that no one today would seriously propose a court defense of laws reinstating legal segregation.  We've worked our way through the excruciating cultural debates that led to cultural and legal decisions in that area that are, most of us hope, now irreversible.  These debates--and the legal battles they entailed--are not to be revisited.

And we're rapidly approaching the same point in our culture, vis-a-vis the human rights of gay and lesbian persons.  Very soon, we will be at a point of no return at which social consensus decides that it is enervating, undemocratic, dangerous to civil society to revisit the notions of legally enshrined discrimination on which DOMA rests.  

And in my view, King & Spalding recognize this, and have rightly agreed that DOMA--the idea of legally enshrined discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens in the area of marriage rights--does not deserve a defense.  If we are not willing to argue that the courts ought to revisit questions of legal segregation on the basis of race, I wonder why some of us remain willing to argue that proposals to legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation deserve a legal defense.

To me, it seems obvious that what those defending DOMA's "right" to a court hearing, and applauding Paul Clement for his noble and principled stand about the right to a defense, are really saying is that powerful ideas and powerful people always deserve their day in court.  And that our society falls apart when the right of powerful ideas and powerful people to a court hearing is questioned.

And that presupposition touches, of course, on the ethical vacuousness that I repeatedly questioned when I discussed the legal profession with my father during my teen years.  The idea that lawyers should always be hired guns for those with the most power and money in any given society, and should call their willingness to defend power and wealth a praiseworthy representation of everyone's right to a legal hearing: that sticks in my craw.  It's, in my view, tantamount to defining a lawyer's work as a form of prostitution.

King & Spalding Refuse to Defend DOMA: Framing the Ethical-Legal Discussion

I'm finding the furor of many of those commenting on the recent decision of the King & Spalding law firm to drop the defense of DOMA fascinating.  As many readers may know, this Monday, the D.C. law firm whose services had been retained by Republican House Speaker Boehner to defend the Defense of Marriage Act announced that it will no longer be available for that service.  At that point, the King & Spalding point man assigned to the case, Bush solicitor general Paul Clement, resigned from King & Spalding and joined the firm Bancroft PLCC, which has announced it will carry on the DOMA defense.  Clement is a Republican who routinely donates to Republican candidates.

The anti-gay machine of the religious and political right is, predictably, reacting with outrage to the decision of King & Spalding to drop the defense of DOMA.  There's the usual talk of bullying gays threatening decent, God-fearing American citizens intent only on exercising their right to free speech and to freedom of belief.  Candace Chellew-Hodge surveys the field of arguments now being offered by religious right leaders against King & Spalding at Religion Dispatches today, noting their predictability.

But if Amanda Terkel's report at Huffington Post yesterday is correct, much of the pressure for King & Spalding to drop the DOMA case was internal.  It came from King & Spalding employees concerned about their futures, if they had been associated with a law firm known to defend a discriminatory law.  There was also concern about the fact that King & Spalding touts itself as a gay-affirming employer that values diversity, and concern that many of its contracts are with companies which have specific policies in place forbidding discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.  Some of these companies appear to have been leaning on King & Spalding to reconsider its defense of DOMA.

Clement is seeking to claim the moral high road as he continues the DOMA defense, and is noting that he is standing for the right of any client in the American court system to a robust legal defense.  A number of significant voices are being raised now to support Clement and that right, including that of Attorney General Eric Holder and influential gay blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is doing a series on his Dish blog about the tensions in the gay community between those who argue that discrimination does not deserve a legal defense, and those who argue as a matter of principle that everyone has a right to a defense.

John Aravosis at AmericablogGay, who is an attorney himself, disagrees, and has been posting a vigorous series of commentary defending King & Spalding's decision, and rebutting the arguments of Clement and his defenders that they represent principle and the moral high road.  As Aravosis has noted, it would be interesting to ask firms like Bancroft and all those defending the right of a client to a defense whether they'd defend segregation with the same alacrity with which they're now seeking to defend a law that many Americans regard as, on the face of it, discriminatory against a minority group. 

As I wade through these articles and consider both sides of the debate, I recall vividly a number of heated discussions I had with my father about precisely these issues when I was an adolescent.  My father was a small-town lawyer, and was determined that I would follow in his footsteps.

When it became apparent that I was not interested in the law (or the other approved professional study my parents persistently dangled before me--medicine), my father and I routinely locked horns in my final years of high school.  The repeated arguments centered around what he did as a lawyer, and why I ought to respect that and consider it my own future.

From my side, there was one constant, overriding argument about what my father and other attorneys I knew did: over and over again, I would ask my father how it was possible knowingly to defend someone you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be guilty of some heinous crime.  How do lawyers put themselves at the service of morally reprehensible, slimy groups and individuals, I asked my father repeatedly, while claiming that they are doing a noble thing in doing so?

In these showdowns, I've invent the worst possible case scenarios--a man coldly murders his wife to get his hands on her life insurance, then absconds with their daughter, a child, whom he rapes repeatedly.  Would you defend him?

And my father would routinely respond to each horrific scenario I could put before him, "Of course.  Everyone has a right to a defense."

Because we lived in a part of the country in which serious cultural and legal battles were being fought over the issue of integration--this was the 1960s, when the Civil Rights act finally broke the back of legal segregation--some of the scenarios dealt with questions about the Ku Klux Klan and known racial terrorists.  These were pointed and very existential questions for my father and me, and he knew this very well: as I think I may have mentioned in at least one previous posting on this blog, when I was in high school, my father ran for a judge's position in our area.

And when he did so, he made me go on the campaign trail with him.  On one occasion, as he was campaigning, he disappeared into the back of a local barber shop with a group of men and held a private meeting of an hour or so.  When I asked him later who the men were and why they had secluded themselves in the back of the barber shop, he told me they were Klansmen, and he had promised them that if they gave him their support, he'd look out for their interests as a judge.

This was an eye-opening experience for me.  It taught me (or reminded me, since I had already learned this in various ways as an attorney's son interacting with other attorneys and judges in our small town) that the judiciary is hardly ever free from the taint of prejudice, from the effect of backroom deals cut by candidates for judges' positions with shady groups fomenting hatred and defending discrimination.  I learned in interacting with my father and observing how he did business as a lawyer that lawyers (many if not most of them, I concluded) routinely side with and defend those who have the upper hand in their community, against those who are beaten down by the power structures of a community.

I learned, in other words, to view the claim that lawyers are doing a morally admirable and noble thing when they defend any and all comers for a legal defense with, shall we say, a somewhat critical and even cynical optic.  And I must confess that the shit-detector hermeneutic of suspicion I developed in my adolescent discussions of the legal profession with my father kicks in now as I read all the defenses of Paul Clement and Bancroft as the current moral heroes of the DOMA debate.

Please forgive me if I don't buy this rhetoric.  Not a bit.  Everyone may deserve a defense.  But not every cause deserves a defense.  We're clearly at a tipping point in American society akin to the one I lived through in the 1960s as legal segregation was struck down throughout the U.S., and it became increasingly unfashionable and even reprehensible to try to mount open defenses of racial prejudice and racial discrimination in American culture.

White Southerners fond of segregation--people like my own father and many members of my family--had aat that point, whether they liked it or not, to get used to the change in the moral climate of the country.  They had to get used to the fact that they were no longer the moral rulers of society, and that the rules by which they played were flawed--that these rules might serve their own interests, but not the interests of many human beings who were now being recognized by the law as fully human persons with the same legal rights any person deserves.

A similar cultural shift is now taking place in the U.S. vis-a-vis LGBT rights.  I would urge Paul Clement and all this who see him as a noble exemplar of the best moral values of our culture to get used to that shift.  And to stop already with the attempt to present themselves as high-minded people fighting for what is right and best.  Because not too long down the road, they're going to be seen by the vast majority of right-minded citizens as morally dubious agents who defended gross discrimination--every in the way we now view George Wallace or Lester Maddox or Bull Connor or Jesse Helms.

NOM's Louis Marinelli: Brian Brown "Trying to Intimidate Me to Stop Talking"

An update to a story about which I've blogged recently:

I wrote yesterday about former NOM activist Louis Marinelli and his break with NOM, after he began to recognize that the gay folks he and NOM bash and use as objects in political games are real human beings.  I noted that Marinelli has begun to disclose insider information about how NOM functions, and is revealing some of the sleazy tactics NOM uses to do its dirty work as it bashes the gays.  I concluded by saying it will be interesting to see just how much Marinelli is willing to reveal, from his years of close association with top NOM leaders.

And now I'm seeing a report by Joe Sudbay at AmericablogGay yesterday, in which he says Marinelli did an interview with Mike Signorile last Friday, where he stated that NOM's president Brian Brown has been threatening him with lawsuits trying to intimidate him into silence.  Marinelli concludes that NOM doesn't want the truth about the organization and how it does its dirty work to be told.  

And here's what's strange about NOM's interest in Marinelli and NOM's attempt to shut him up: after Marinelli broke with NOM, Brown indicated NOM wasn't concerned in the least about this defection, since Marinelli had just been a low-level "bus driver" for the organization.  In fact, Brown found the "tempest in a teapot" about Marinelli's conversion "hilarious."

Brown's not responding to requests for interviews about Marinelli's claim that Brown is seeking to intimidate and shut him up.

Why does NOM insist on pursuing its goals so secretively, I wonder?  Goals it identifies as morally admirable and essential to the moral health of society . . . . Why has NOM fought tooth and nail to prevent disclosure of its donor base, even filing suit in several states to withhold this information from the public when state laws require such disclosure?

Why are those who worked so hard to snatch the right of civil marriage from California's gay citizens with prop 8, telling us all the while that they were doing righteous work with this crusade, now trying in every way possible to keep videotaped coverage of the prop 8 trial under lock and key?

I don't get it.  These anti-gay crusaders have been telling us for years now that they represent the moral high road for the nation, and that they're engaged in a holy battle in which God fights with them.  People confident that they are doing good and right don't try to hide their identities and engage in legal battles to keep information about their donors secret.

Do they?  It's almost as if the insistence on doing their work under cover of darkness signals their awareness that taking human rights away from a minority community, and stirring animosity and prejudice against that community, are not noble pursuits at all.  Rather, shameful ones . . . .

Another Conversion Experience among Anti-Gay Activists: Marc Mutty of Catholic Diocese of Maine Reveals Troubled Conscience

Something is happening these days.  First, a leading propagandist for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), Louis Marinelli, has what amounts to a conversion experience and begins to see the real human faces of the gay people he and NOM have attacked over the years.  Whose lives they've deliberately sought to make miserable, in the name of God.

And now this: Marc Mutty, the chair of the Yes on 1 campaign that fought successfully to yank the right of civil marriage from gay and lesbian citizens of Maine, tells the public his conscience is deeply troubled by what he and others attacking the gay community have been doing.  Mutty is public affairs director of the Catholic diocese of Maine, and he spearheaded and coordinated the organization that removed the right of marriage from Maine's gay citizens.

In yesterday's Portland Press Herald, Bill Nemitz reports on a soon-to-be-released documentary in which Joe Fox and James Nubile interview those who worked on both sides of the fence in the Maine elections in the fall of 2009.  Those interviewed include Mutty.  And what he tells Nemitz is fascinating, as a glimpse into the troubled conscience of someone working to remove rights from fellow human beings, while knowing that his activity is morally questionable, and that the methods used by anti-gay activists are often ethically unjustifiable.

Mutty tells Fox and Nubile, "I fear I'll be remembered for the work I did on this campaign."  And he states that he hopes to ask "for forgiveness for the ways in which I might have betrayed my own self in this endeavor."  When asked if he would lead the campaign to remove the right of marriage from Maine's gay citizens again, he replies, "No, I would never do this again.  That isn't saying the cause isn't worth fighting for. I'm saying that I personally could not do it." 

He also admits frankly that his side lied knowingly and willingly to try to secure votes to overturn the right of marriage for Maine's gay community.  One of the key talking points of Yes on 1 was that, unless gay marriage were overturned, teachers would be forced to teach same-sex marriage in schools in Maine.  Mutty now states that he and proponents of Yes on 1 knew all along that when they told the public this, they were lying.

But politics requires evading the truth, since it's not about being right, but about taking a two-by-four and slamming your opponents over the head with it.  In the case of the anti-gay marriage campaign in Maine, Mutty says the two-by-four was studded with nails that the Yes on 1 campaign deliberately placed there:

All we have to do is create doubt.  You don't have to convince people that you're right.

I know we need to do what we have to do -- not only slam people over the head with a two-by-four, but a two-by-four with nails sticking out of it.  And it's nuts ... unfortunately, I think it's a lousy approach. But it's the only thing we've got -- it's the only way. That's the way campaigns work.

And now Mutty has to live with the consequences of the choices he made in 2009, of the things he did to secure victory for his side--for the Catholic diocese of Maine, of which he is an employee and which he was representing in this ethically rotten campaign against the human rights of a minority community.  And he's wondering how to do so--how to incorporate into his life now what his conscience tells him about his past behavior, about the damage he has done to fellow human beings.  He's wondering what effect the decisions he has made will have on his career and reputation.

And what he'll be known for, when all is said and done.  A good question, one we all take to God at the end of our lives, when we who are Christian believe we will face a Lord who will ask us what we have done to him in the least among us.

As I say, something is in the air these days.  And that something appears to be the dawning of at least some glimmers of conscience among some of those who have, for a number of years now, knowingly and deliberately studded two-by-fours with nails and used their ugly political weapons--including outright lies--to attack, dehumanize, marginalize, and block the rights of fellow human beings.

What Nemitz does not mention, but what continues to deserve notice, is the close connection of Mutty's Yes on 1 campaign and of the Catholic diocese of Maine to NOM during the 2009 elections.  I blogged about this repeatedly at the time (e.g., here, here, here, and here).*  As my postings note, NOM played a key role in the Yes on 1 movement, and has repeatedly refused (and continues to refuse) to disclose its funders--despite a ruling of Maine's ethic commission backed by judicial order that NOM must share this information with the public.

When the Catholic diocese of Maine ponied up several large donations to Yes on 1 while closing parishes and schools due to financial distress, Mutty and the diocese stated, à la NOM, that they had no idea where the money came from--it was just "dedicated revenues" from a "rainy day" fund.  It later came out that Catholic dioceses across the nation had sent donations to support the battle to remove the right of marriage from Maine's gay citizens--money donated by Catholic parishioners in the expectation that it would be used to support churches, schools, and ministries like feeding the hungry, which was sent by bishops without the knowledge or consent of those donating it to remove rights from a minority group in Maine.

The Yes on 1 campaign in Maine had NOM's fingerprints all over it, and the tactic of lying blatantly about gay people and gay lives that Mutty now deplores is vintage NOM.  As Jeremy Hooper reported last week at Good As You, Louis Marinelli is beginning to spill the beans about some of the morally sleazy ways in which NOM does its dirty business-e.g., deliberately employing paid provocateurs to disseminate disinformation, while pretending to be aloof from the lie-telling and dirt-spreading, since NOM claims to have the moral high road in the battle against gay and lesbian persons, and to be on the side of God.  It will be interesting to see what more Marinelli will now be willing to reveal about NOM's sleaziness, after he has had his conversion experience.  (For in-depth information about NOM and how it does its dirty work, see HRC's NOM Exposed website.)

Meanwhile, the Mutty conversion story is fascinating and well worth following, too.  Nick Seaver has a good follow-up to Nemitz's article today at AmericablogGay, with a clip of a trailer from the Fox-Nubile documentary, for those who are interested.

*For those interested in tracking the Maine story at length, click on the label "Maine" below this posting, and all my commentary on the Maine situation should appear.

H/t to Alan McCornick of the wonderful Hepzibah blog, which links to the list of blogs Bilgrimage follows, for sharing the Nemitz story with me.

Faith in America on Archbishop Charles Chaput: "Anti-Gay Catholic Leader Lying--And He Knows It"

This is significant: I can't remember when I've seen this forceful of a response by a group of interfaith leaders to the belligerent public homophobia of a Catholic church official in the U.S.  The group Faith in America calls the archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, on the carpet today for his repeated efforts to block and remove human rights of gay and lesbian citizens of the U.S.

And Faith in America also calls Chaput a liar.  A liar who tries to twist his crusade against the human rights of a vulnerable minority community into a noble crusade on behalf of human rights.  A liar who wants us to imagine that, in some bizarre alternative universe whose rules make sense only to those of the religious and political right, fighting against human rights for a marginalized minority group somehow constitutes fighting for human rights and human dignity.

Faith in America's response to Chaput re: these issues concludes,

What you and others are espousing is religion-based bigotry – and it is one of the most vile forms of bigotry because of the religious and moral stamp of rejection and condemnation it places on the lives of LGBT people, especially LGBT youth and their families.

Religion-based bigotry has been used by the church and so-called religious organizations against other minorities many times in our past. Charles, do you recall the apology the Catholic Church issued to Native Americans for using misguided religious teaching to justify treating them as morally inferior? Do you recall the Catholic Church apology in 2000 to women for using misguided religious teaching to promote the attitude that they are inferior to men?

And let’s not forget, Charles, your now cozy anti-gay friends on the Religious Right and how the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for using misguided religious teaching to justify bigotry toward African Americans and interracial couples.

Do you really expect the American public to believe that you actually believe it was those fighting the oppression of those minorities who were the ones expressing bigotry.

Chaput stands out among the American bishops for his exceptional belligerence in attacking gay and lesbian citizens and gay and lesbian fellow Catholics.  In contrast to the archdiocese of Boston, which has made a public statement accepting the enrollment of children of gay couples in Catholic schools, Chaput's Denver archdiocese belligerently refused to admit the children of a lesbian couple in a Catholic school, in a highly publicized incident a year ago.

Chaput's Catholic News Agency does all it can, day after day, to spread the Catholic anti-gay gospel, identifying homophobia with authentic Catholic teaching and attacking fellow Catholics who do not toe Chaput's homophobic line.  CNA is working hard right now to stir up the American political and Catholic right to create trouble for Mexican bishop Raul Vera Lopez and his ministry of pastoral outreach to gay Catholics in the Saltillo diocese.

Because of the prominence of the Denver archdiocese in the American Southwest, with its large Latino population, Chaput and CNA have a particular concern to keep Latino Catholics in line, to assure that the growing Hispanic population of their area--a key constituency for whose votes Democrats and Republicans are competing--remains "authentically" Catholic.  Catholic, as in opposed to gay rights.  Catholic, as in Republican-trending.

In the past two days, Chaput's CNA has published two articles in addition to the one to which I link above (and here) attacking Bishop Vera Lopez's ministry to gay Catholics and comparing this ministry unfavorably to the Catholic organization Courage, which promotes the bogus notion that one can be "converted" from homosexuality.  It is no accident that CNA is playing Courage, with its anti-gay, bogus conversion-therapy messages, against ministries that seek to include gays and lesbians in the Catholic church.  As Timothy Kincaid noted at Box Turtle Bulletin in January, the head of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, has appointed Oakland bishop Salvatore Cordileone chair of the USCCB's new Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage.

As Kincaid also notes, both Dolan and Cordileone sit on Courage's "Body of Members," which provides oversight for the organization.  By making this appointment, Dolan is giving Courage--with its anti-gay bogus conversion-therapy message--quasi-official status as "the" U.S. Catholic organization presenting the "authentic" message of the Catholic church on gay issues. 

And when one recalls the active role that Cordileone played in removing the right of civil marriage from the gay citizens of California, one sees clearly the political stakes involved in this promotion of Courage and in attacks like CNA's recent attacks on gay-inclusive and gay-affirming ministries within the Catholic church.  Since his appointment to "defend" marriage on behalf of American Catholics, Cordileone has been busy lambasting President Obama and his administration for refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and has claimed that this refusal to defend a law that the administration regards as unconstitutional and discriminatory is an attack on democracy and an act of discrimination in and of itself (!)--discrimination against minority groups that oppose same-sex marriage.  Cordileone has boasted about the significant role he played in helping remove the civil right of marriage from gay citizens of California, and has told the media that the movement to accord rights to gay persons is inspired by the devil.

Make no mistake about it: what Chaput and the bishops with whom he is allied have been doing and continue doing in attacking the rights of gay citizens of the U.S. is overtly political.  It is more political by far than it is religious.  It is all about trying to secure Catholic votes for the single political party with whom these bishops imagine their church should be affiliated.

And it's about doing the bidding of powerful, wealthy Republican business leaders with whom Chaput is allied, and whose word counts predominantly for him as he pursues his episcopal ministry.  Faith in America is right on target to call Chaput out for his malicious lies about his brothers and sisters who happen to be gay, and to expose those lies as all about anti-Christian biogtry.

Heartwarming Irish Video against Bullying of Gay Youths

A heartwarming video that will begin airing on Irish television this coming week, to educate against bullying of gay youth.  The video and anti-bullying campaign are sponsored by the group BeLonGTo Youth Services, whose mission statement says,

We believe that LGBT young people need to be respected and cared for on the same basis as all other young people, and that when they are safe and supported in their families, schools & society they will thrive as healthy and equal citizens.

As a nation, Ireland, a traditionally and heavily Catholic country, is far, far ahead of the United States (with our preposterous belief* that we are God's city on a hill uniquely blessed by God) in respecting the human rights of LGBT persons.

Maybe one day we Americans will begin to understand what human rights are all about.  Just a little bit.

H/t to snicks at AfterElton, who credits Joe.My.God for information about this video.

*A preposterous belief that leads to this horror, which in turn elicits this horror, against which Dom Hélder Câmara warned us when he wrote about how one act of violence leads to another in a spiral of never-ending violence.   Sound spiritual insight to which we, a nation with the soul of a church, seem strangely unwilling to listen . . . .

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and the Future of American Catholicism: Laity Defending Human Rights Tradition Abandoned by Bishops

One of the themes about which I've blogged persistently on this blog, when I've dealt with the pro-life movement, is that I find many of the claims of Catholic pro-lifers not at all credible, due to the lack of a consistent commitment among Catholic pro-lifers to the value of human life--across the spectrum, from the prenatal stage to death.  I've noted, in particular, that the constant attacks of the ardently "pro-life" U.S. Catholic bishops on the human rights and human worth of gay and lesbian people radically undermine, as far as I'm concerned, the claim that the bishops really believe in the value of human life as they work to outlaw abortion.  I've come to the conclusion that factors other than a defense of human life--chief among them, the desire to control women and women's reproductivity--lie behind the bishops' "pro-life" crusade.  

And because this is how I've come to see the pro-life movement within American Catholicism, I'm very interested in what has happened in recent weeks in the state of Illinois, where a Catholic governor, Pat Quinn, supported and signed into law legislation providing for civil unions for same-sex couples in that state.  Acting, as he did so, against the fierce opposition of the Catholic bishops of Illinois, including the past president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Francis George.

And here's what has happened in Illinois since the civil unions bill passed: Pat Quinn has also recently signed into law a bill abolishing the death penalty in that state.  And as he did so, he noted that he was moved to take this step by meditating on the teaching and example of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago (and see also Tom Gallagher at NCR).  

Bernardin was a leading proponent of what is called the seamless garment or consistent ethic of life understanding of Catholic teaching about life.  This calls for a consistent approach to the value of life from prior to birth to the grave.  This approach to Catholic pro-life teaching argues that it is inconsistent--it is not coherent or credible--for Catholics to defend the value of life only in the area of abortion.  When Catholics focus exclusively on pre-born life while ignoring the value of the lives of some human beings following birth, they completely undermine the credibility of their pro-life stance when it comes to the issue of abortion itself.

I'd argue that we're seeing an interesting development with what has taken place in Illinois recently, and with its Catholic governor: we're seeing lay Catholics of sound conscience taking the lead in promoting a consistent ethic of life, while the bishops themselves undermine that ethic by rejecting Cardinal Bernardin's consistent ethic of life for a hard-line abortion-exclusive focus, and while attacking their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.  The morally based political decisions taken by Pat Quinn in recent weeks illustrate the importance of being consistent, of linking support for the human rights and human worth of gay and lesbian persons to the pro-life debate.  

The bishops continue to miss the point, and as a result, they continue to lose credibility as moral teachers.  As Michael O'Loughlin points out in a recent posting at America's "In All Things" blog, in his "60 Minutes" interview two weekends ago, the president of the USCCB, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, equated gay marriage with incest, and last Friday, the USCCB issued an appalling news statement asking the federal HUD agency not to add sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories in HUD program anti-discrimination guidelines.

The bishops want to keep discrimination alive against gay and lesbian persons in the area of housing.  They are actively defending discrimination against LGBT persons, while (as they speak insincerely out of the other side of their mouth) they claim that Catholic teaching prohibits such discrimination.  

Meanwhile, as they also continue to promote an argument they have to know is false--that permitting same-sex couples the right of civil marriage will undermine heterosexual marriages--data from the Netherlands on the tenth anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in that nation show a five percent divorce rate for gay male couples in the Netherlands in the past ten years.

As opposed to a 38 percent divorce rate for traditionally married (heterosexual) couples.

Governor Quinn in Illinois, along with the majority of American Catholics who defend the human rights of gay and lesbian persons, points the way to a Catholicism that is truly pro-life, and that retains some credibility in the public sphere as it proclaims the values of life.  The bishops don't.

They seem intent on abdicating moral leadership hand over fist these days, as they also remain largely and conspicuously silent about the organized attack on the value of the lives of working Americans in Wisconsin and other states.  An attack spearheaded by the political party with which they have worked long and hard to align American Catholicism, to their extreme discredit as pastoral leaders . . . .

Catching up on News at Two Catholic Colleges--Marquette and Chestnut Hill

 

Catching up to some stories about which I've blogged here in the past:

I mentioned this yesterday: the situation at Jesuit-owned Marquette University in Milwaukee.  In yesterday's posting, I alluded to what happened at this Catholic school last spring.  As I noted last May, controversy developed following an announcement by Marquette's president Fr. Robert A. Wild, SJ, and provost John J. Pauly that the university had rescinded an offer of an administrative position to an out lesbian scholar, Jodi O'Brien.

In response to this development, a nationwide conversation about how gay and lesbian faculty, staff, and students are received at Catholic universities in the U.S. ensued.  Because the controversy created such turmoil at Marquette itself, the school's vice-president for student affairs L. Christopher Miller commissioned a study of issues of gender identity and sexual orientation at Marquette.  That study, compiled by Ronnie Sanlo, director of UCLA's master's program in student affairs and senior associate dean of students at UCLA, was made available last month.  I reported on it here.

In extensive interviews with members of the campus community, Sanlo found a climate of fear and harassment for LGBT persons at Marquette.  One of the concerns Sanlo heard is that the university offers no partner benefits for gay and lesbian employees.  Her report recommended that the school consider taking the step of implementing such benefits.

And now, as Jim McCrea noted in a comment to my posting yesterday mentioning Marquette, on Thursday, Fr. Wild announced to the campus community that the school has decided to offer such benefits.  Sharif Durhams and Don Walker report on the announcement yesterday in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.  According to their report, Wild says he's been struggling with the thought of offering such benefits for some time now, since the Jesuit principle of cura personalis would seem to imply, at a pastoral level, that there's something uncaring and inhumane about denying access to health care benefits to a couple in a recognized civil partnership.  

However, as Durhams and Walker also point out, in recent weeks the university's Academic Senate and council of Student Government have both voted to urge the school's administrators to offer such benefits to gay couples at Marquette.  And it surely can't be coincidental that these votes came right on the heels of the release of Sanlo's report, noting the general climate of hostility to gay and lesbian persons on the campus, and recommending that one way to address the prejudice would be to extend partner benefits to gay employees.

In  other words, what's happening at Marquette right now proves the validity of the point I made repeatedly in yesterday's posting about the growing support of lay Catholics in the U.S. for gay and lesbian rights: that such support doesn't mean much, in the long run, until it's translated into action.  And action means pushing back in concrete ways against the prejudice and discrimination embedded in our own institutions.

What's happening at Marquette shows that pushback can be effective.  I applaud Fr. Wild for being a man of Jesuit conviction and conscience.  But I think I'm inclined to applaud even more all the courageous members of the campus community who put the feet of the Marquette administration to the fire and forced the administration to live up to its Jesuit principles re: extending health care benefits.  

And not just to talk grandly about them.

A second catch-up story: a month or so ago, I blogged about the firing of Fr. Jim St. George, an openly gay, partnered priest of the Old Catholic church, by Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, a Catholic school owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph.  As my posting noted, after firing St. George, who was an adjunct faculty member in its religion department, the college issued a statement through its president Sister Carol Jean Vale stating that permitting those in same-sex partnerships to teach on Catholic campuses is "contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church." 

And now the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that St. George and the college have reached an amicable agreement consistent with the religious beliefs of each party.  No further information about the terms of the agreement is available.  The Inquirer article does note, however, that St. George had substantial support among Chestnut Hill students, and they were preparing to rally on his behalf when news of the settlement broke.  

And so this would seem to be another illustration of the value of solid pushback against the homophobic prejudice that clearly does remain embedded in concrete, systemic, and extremely hurtful ways in Catholic institutions, despite the belief of a majority of lay Catholics in the U.S. that such prejudice is wrong.  As I said yesterday, we have work to do.  And what has happened at Marquette and Chestnut Hill suggest that collaborative efforts of lay Catholics to stand in solidarity with their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and to demand an end to discrimination can be effective.

Celebrating (?) U.S. Lay Catholics' Support for Gay Rights

News about recent poll findings showing American Catholic support for gay marriage growing by leaps and bounds has been making the rounds of blog sites recently.  A recent report compiled by the Public Religion Research Institute finds American Catholics more supportive of legal recognition of same-sex relationships than members of other Christian faith communities and the public at large.  Catholics also support legal protection for the rights of gay and lesbian persons at a somewhat higher rate than does the public at large.  Journalist Lawrence O'Donnell devoted one of his "Last Word" broadcasts at MSNBC to a discussion of these data recently, calling on those who speak of "the Catholic vote" as predictably conservative to stop misrepresenting what a majority of American Catholics think about gay issues--in contrast to what Rome and the bishops dictate.

And as I said recently when I noted Andrew Sullivan's response to similar findings in an ABC-Washington Post poll, I celebrate the fact that a majority of American Catholics support the rights of LGBT persons.  The strong support of American Catholics for gay rights (and the trend of increasing support) has been known for some time now, as a matter of fact.  

However, as I also noted in the posting responding to Andrew Sullivan on this topic to which the preceding link points, I remain skeptical about the developing tendency to celebrate lay Catholic support of gay rights in the U.S.--when that celebration causes us to ignore some still-alarming data about the involvement of powerful American Catholics in movements to block gay rights in the U.S.  I'm convinced that, if we're truly committed to justice and equality for gay Americans, our celebration of Catholic support for gay rights has to be tempered with sober recognition of the continued ability of some American Catholics to keep dealing out significant misery to their gay brothers and sisters.

And I think that even as we celebrate, we American Catholics who stand in solidarity with those who are gay and lesbian need to continue working to block the fervent, powerful, and often very successful attempts of some Catholics in the U.S. to set the cause of gay rights back at every turn.  Here are my concerns:

No matter how strongly a majority of American Catholics stand in support of gay rights, there remains the undeniable fact that some of the most powerful and highly placed opponents of gay rights on the American political scene are Catholics.  Who have strong funding support--or so it seems--from Catholic groups, as they work constantly to overturn legal recognition of the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons.  These Catholics frequently note that they are pursuing their work of blocking gay rights precisely because they're Catholic.

These include Maggie Gallagher, whose National Organization for Marriage has strong ties to the Catholic church, and whose funding--insofar as we have any evidence at all about it, since NOM persistently fights attempts to force the organization to disclose its funding sources--comes largely from Catholic (and apparently Mormon) sources.  They also include Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, who is routinely trotted out as "the" Catholic voice on gay and other issues, when the media want a Catholic opinion. 

They include the financially powerful Tom Monaghan, whose money runs anywhere in the nation that right-wing causes, including the attempt to block gay rights, are pursued.  They include Erik Prince, who is thickly connected to various right-wing interest groups in the U.S., and whose family's money helped turn back gay marriage in California in the prop 8 battle.  They also include Newt Gingrich and Deal Hudson, both of whom have worked extremely hard inside beltway circles to combat gay rights.

They include a number of Catholic justices on the Supreme Court who have not displayed conspicuous sympathy for gay rights, and whose judicial support for rulings in favor of the rights of gay and lesbian Americans is not likely to be counted on.  They include the powerful and well-funded Knights of Columbus, who donated a huge amount of money to the fight to remove the right of civil marriage from gay citizens of California, and who are thought to have played a key role in producing and disseminating the anti-gay marriage video that the bishops of Minnesota sent to all Catholic households in that state in the 2010 elections.  They also include the Catholic cult group American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, which sent representatives to march in favor of prop 8 in California, and which organizes rosary crusades throughout the U.S., often disseminating anti-gay literature at these events.

I'm deliberately refraining from cluttering this posting with links substantiating each of the claims I make above.  There's plenty of good evidence to support each statement I have just made, much of it easily accessible online, and much of it available right here on Bilgrimage, for anyone seeking more information about what I've written re: any of these figures and issues in the past.  

To repeat my point: no matter how strong and widespread lay Catholic support in the U.S. for gay rights is, as long as these powerful anti-gay players--Catholic anti-gay players, who cite their Catholicism as the reason for their opposition to gay rights--remain on the scene, working tooth and nail to block gay rights in many areas, the widespread lay Catholic support for gay rights doesn't ultimately mean a great deal.  Not, that is, until and unless lay Catholics in the U.S. not only work to support gay rights, but also work against the malicious attempts of some of their own co-religionists to block gay rights and demonize gay people.

A second think-carefully-as-you-celebrate point I feel compelled to make, as we look at the growing support of American Catholics for gay rights: as what happened at Marquette University last year demonstrates, many Catholic workplaces in the U.S.--a majority of them, I'd propose--continue to discriminate actively against those who are gay and lesbian.  Many Catholic institutions base hiring and firing decisions solely on sexual orientation; they have long done so, and they continue to do so.  And the U.S. Catholic bishops continue to fight for the "right" of Catholic institutions to engage in discrimination based on sexual orientation in hiring and firing decisions.

Precipitous celebration of Catholic support for gay rights means little--in the real world--until lay Catholics push hard against this kind of obscene (and still widespread) discrimination in Catholic workplaces throughout the U.S.  Pretending that we support gay rights when, in fact, we actively discriminate against people on grounds of sexual orientation in our own institutions is not merely disingenuous: it's morally reprehensible.  As long as some Catholic universities can refuse to hire a faculty member solely because she is an out and vocal lesbian, or a gay Catholic couple can be told by a Catholic school that their children are not welcome in the school because their parents fail to adhere to Catholic teaching, or an out gay faculty member at a Catholic university can be fired with a statement that his being publicly gay contradicts church teaching: as long as these and many more acts of blatant discrimination against gay and lesbian persons continue to occur in Catholic institutions throughout the U.S., our celebration of Catholic support for gay rights is premature.

And misplaced.  Since we're covering over discrimination (and we're also further dehumanizing and marginalizing the many gay and lesbian persons who have reported such incidents of discrimination in Catholic institutions) with our glib, premature celebration.

Though we can and should celebrate findings that American Catholics are following the moral arc of the universe as it bends to justice for LGBT human beings, there's still work to be done.  Abundant work.  That work is the work of translating what we American Catholics believe and say into action--action on behalf of justice.

And some of that action--a large part of it--will require much stronger pushback, organized pushback, from lay Catholics in the U.S. against both homophobic Catholic bishops and the Vatican, and the minority of lavishly financed homophobes who continue to bring disrepute to Catholics in general by using their Catholicity as a cover for prejudice and discrimination.

Remembering Oscar Romero: God Hears the Cries of the Poor

 

Today is the anniversary of Oscar Romero's assassination in 1980.  Since several readers have mentioned in comments here lately that they don't know much about Romero, in commemoration of his life and profound witness to the gospel, I thought I'd point readers to some valuable resources to learn more about Romero.

The first is a wonderful set of articles and liturgical resources about Romero at the U.S. Catholic website.  The second is a collection of Romero's homilies, in a volume entitled The Violence of Love, compiled and translated by James R. Brockman, SJ.  It's online at the Plough website, and has a good foreword by Henri Nouwen.

Finally, I never think of Romero and the struggle of the poor in Latin America for socioeconomic security and humane lives without thinking of the magnificent 1986 film "The Mission," tracking the history of the establishment of the Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay.  Here's a YouTube clip of Carlo Romano and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI playing the theme music of the film, "Gabriel's Oboe":

And, since one memory always links to another, remembering Romero and "The Mission" always brings to my mind the memory of the wonderful Jesuit whose scholarly work laid a foundation for "The Mission," C.J. McNaspy, the anniversary of whose death in 1995 recently came around.  Not only did C.J.'s book on the Jesuit Reductions play a role in providing the scholarly underpinnings for the 1984 Roland Joffé film, but he served as a musical advisor for the film, as well.

C.J. was my teacher when I was an undergraduate at Loyola in New Orleans.  I learned much from him--about music, philosophy, history.  But above all about the Jesuit ideal of living as a man for others.  His stories about what some of the early advocates of integration in New Orleans--he was among them--endured as they met and planned strategy in a culture hostile to racial reconciliation were hair-raising, and very moving.  These were people who put their lives on the line, as did Romero, to proclaim the gospel.

And so I never think of Romero without thinking of C.J.  Both are saints who occupy prominent spots on my own personal iconostasis.  C.J. died soon after Steve's and my careers as Catholic theologians were definitively ruined by what Belmont Abbey College chose to to do us, by firing us without providing a reason for the firing in my case, and on spurious grounds in Steve's case.  He was very unhappy about this, since he had recommended us for our jobs there.

And, above all, because he believed profoundly in justice and charity.  And so I pray to C.J. McNaspy along with Oscar Romero for the reform of our church, and for its renewed commitment to justice and charity for everyone, including those on the margins of church and society.

Richard Sipe and Tom Rigert Call for Catholic Reformation (Starting with Benedict's Resignation)

When the situation in the Philadelphia archdiocese hit the news recently with a damning grand jury report and the indictment of the archdiocese's secretary for clergy Msgr. William Lynn, a wonderful reader of Bilgrimage, Kathy Hughes, asked if Richard Sipe had written anything about the Philadelphia situation.  I told Kathy I'd be on the lookout for Sipe's response.

And so I'm very interested to see that Richard Sipe and Joe Rigert have just now co-authored an essay for the Catholica site that doesn't specifically address the Philadelphia story, but notes that a "surge" of cases in many places indicates that the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clergy "is far more widespread than originally believed," and it reaches "right into the papacy itself."  Sipe and Rigert say flatly that Benedict has been complicit in covering up cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors.

And so what to do about this serious problem?  We cannot address it effectively, Sipe and Rigert argue, without recognizing that it's "a symptom of a systemic problem rooted in church structure and teaching."  It is, specifically, a symptom of "an outmoded, in some cases ludicrous, teaching on sex and sexuality."

 

In Sipe and Rigert's view, by adamantly closing off open discussion of various sexual issues about which lay Catholics' and many theologians' moral judgment differs from that of the hierarchy, by making the moral and teaching authority of the bishops rise and fall on their willingness to enforce hierarchical stands on these issues, and by urging bishops to challenge secular government and laws around Catholic hierarchical teaching, Catholic leadership has created a house of cards that will tumble to the ground if any aspect of this strategy is reconsidered.  Allow open discussion of sexual issues re: which a large majority of the faithful ignore magisterial teaching or encourage bishops to stop the obsessive haranguing about these issues and the attempt to coerce secular society to accept peculiar Catholic teachings re: these issues, and things will fall apart.

Because what we'll then see is the disparity between what the bishops and Vatican have been proclaiming, and how they have actually been behaving, vis-a-vis the abuse crisis.  With the diversionary sexuality debate off the table, we'll see, for instance, that as archbishop of Munich, Benedict himself permitted a priest to remain in active ministry after that priest locked an 11-year old boy into a bedroom, plied him with alcohol, and forced him to perform oral sex.

And so, though Sipe and Rigert think that open discussion about birth control, sex outside marriage, women's ordination, and obligatory celibacy for priests has long since been sorely needed if we're to get at the root causes of the abuse crisis, it's not enough.  What is needed now is a  thoroughgoing reformation of the church.  And one of the boldest and most effective steps Benedict might take if he cares about the future of the church is to begin that reformation by resigning.

Benedict should consider this epic gesture, Sipe and Rigert argue, for the following reason: 

Such leadership by example might help break the pattern and practice that holds the church hostage to a past that no longer meets the spiritual needs of the people. As presently constituted, the church structure allows male leaders—no women allowed—to maintain their power and control in an archaic monarchy; to regulate all sexual behavior, and to suppress any "sinful" deviation. A reformed church, open to the involvement of all people, would move from its obsession over sex to a healthy regard for human sexuality. 

It's the only way to deal with the sex problem of the pope and his church (boldface in original).

And so will the pope resign?  I'd be very surprised if that happened.  As far as I can see, the top leaders of the Catholic church remain intransigently committed to the bitterest rear-guard fight against any shift in moral thinking (and consequent shifts in secular law) that, in their view, challenges their teaching authority as moral arbiters.  In every area of sexual morality, but particularly in the area of gay and lesbian rights.

And that bitter intransigence, with its diversionary intent designed to deflect attention from the immoral behavior of the hierarchy in the abuse crisis, does not bode well for reformation.  It does not bode well for any systemic analysis of the real problems of the church that have led to the abuse crisis.

Just yesterday, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican representative to the U.N., reiterated the Vatican's opposition to the Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity proposed by the U.N. office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation--discrimination that in some nations around the world extends to outright violence against those who are gay or lesbian.  85 nations, including the U.S., have signed on to the U.N. statement, whose final official title is "Ending Acts of Violence and Related Human Rights Violations Based On Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity."

The Vatican's reasoning, as it opposes a statement to combat discrimination and violence against gay and lesbian persons?  Tomasi's reasoning, insofar as I can make sense of it, goes something like this:

1. We Catholics deplore discrimination, of course.  We have to do so because that's what followers of Jesus do.

2. But we are opposed to statements that might give anyone a legal basis to challenge our own discrimination--statements that might form a legal basis by which someone could ask us to make our statements about opposing discrimination real in our own practice.

3. And so we are opposed to this statement.

4. And, after all, gays and lesbians don't have any real rights at all to practice being gay or lesbian--and that's what this statement envisages.  There would not be (this latter proviso is not stated, but hovers behind Tomasi's statements, and it's made explicit in the current pope's 1986 letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons): there would not be any need for any of these statements about discrimination if those who are gay or lesbian simply kept their orientation to themselves.  It's the coming out of the closet thing that courts the violence, which is a deplorable but still understandable reaction to the insistence of gay folks on making their identities public.

Something like that.  The "reasoning" of the magisterium about human rights for gay and lesbian persons and about violence and discrimination against those who are gay and lesbian goes something like that.  Totally insincere.  Bafflingly callous.  And completely unconvincing, to anyone with a head on his or her shoulders or a modicum of moral insight.

And as the Vatican yet again refuses to sign onto an international statement deploring violence and discrimination against those who are gay or lesbian, and as Benedict himself has not uttered a single word to condemn the kill-the-gays bill in heavily Catholic Uganda, the U.S. bishops, ever doughty papal men, announce all over again that one of the most significant Catholic ministries to those who are gay and lesbian--New Ways Ministry--is not really, you know, Catholic.

Sort of like that "Catholic" hospital in Arizona which sought to save the life of a mother who, per strong medical indicators, was almost certain to die (along with her fetus) if she carried her child to term, leaving her children motherless: sort of like how that "Catholic" hospital isn't really Catholic.  And sort of like how Mercy Sister Margaret McBride, who served on the ethics committee at that "Catholic" hospital, which made the final decision to save the mother's life by aborting the fetus, deserved to be excommunicated for embodying the "Catholic" virtue of mercy in this case.

Benedict is made pope after having kept in ministry a priest who locked an 11-year old boy into a bedroom, gave him liquor, and then forced him to perform oral sex.  Sister Margaret McBride is excommunicated after having voted to save a mother's life in an excruciating moral-medical crisis in which the mother would surely have died by carrying her fetus to term.  The hospital that saved this mother's life and refused to leave her children motherless is no longer allowed to call itself Catholic.

And the Catholic church opposes discrimination against those who are gay and lesbian.  But it doesn't.  Not when opposing discrimination means that we ourselves are required to stop discriminating.  The Catholic church defends the human rights of everyone.  But it doesn't.  Not really.  It can't defend the human rights of gay and lesbian persons since those are, after all, only "alleged" rights.

Sipe and Rigert are right.  The Catholic church is direly in need of reformation right now.  If its leaders continue along the path they have committed themselves to in recent years, they will soon end up with a tiny cadre of hardcore true believers whose belief system and practice have little to do with what anyone of sound conscience can regard as morally defensible at this point in history.

And I myself think that's precisely where the current pastoral leaders of the Catholic church intend to go.  Because being little kings of a tiny nation of true believers is better, after all, than being little kings of a large, quarrelsome tribe that persistently challenges one's right to be a king at all.