Catholic Church Threatens To Stop D.C. Services For Needy If Gay Marriage Passes

[bobbyw24]

By Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein
Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/110634/thumbs/s-GAY-large.jpg

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

Continue . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html?hpid=topnews

[Bucjason]

I personally have no issue with gays getting married, but at the same time I think churches have the right not to partake, and even with-hold charity, if it violates thier beliefs.

[tonesforjonesbones]

Good for the church for taking a stand. tones

[tonesforjonesbones]

Gay marriage has not ever passed by vote of the people...it's all been activist judges and I take issue with that. tones

[zach]

If the church wants to abandon the city's needy, then fine.

But every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Every decision we as individuals or organizations make affects everyone and everything around us.

Stop helping people because a form of living commitment is disagreed upon based on a religious conviction?
Fine. It's their choice to withdraw, but that's a sad state of affairs.

[Dieseler]

There's still a church in Washington D.C.?

[LibertyEagle]

If the church wants to abandon the city's needy, then fine.

But every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Every decision we as individuals or organizations make affects everyone and everything around us.

Stop helping people because a form of living commitment is disagreed upon based on a religious conviction?
Fine. It's their choice to withdraw, but that's a sad state of affairs.

You're missing the point. They are a church and the government is trying to dictate to them how it is operated. THAT is the issue.


"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

[Dieseler]

This is some funny shit.
The State will cut off its own nose to spite its face.
Go D.C!

[zach]

You're missing the point. They are a church and the government is trying to dictate to them how it is operated. THAT is the issue.

Oh! Then yeah, I'd be pissed too.

[Carole]

I see no reason why the church cannot go ahead and perform its own social service programs as churches for hundreds of years have done.

There should be no need to be affiliated with "strange bedfellows" that are created by partnering with secular and political groups of any kind. This is what has gotten religion where it is today; abandoning their own principles for some imagined gain.

Church work is church work and has nothing to do with the state. The problems have only come as the religious organizations have joined with those outside of religion to do their good works.

Hospitals might be another good example of what can happen when the religious organizations do not stick by their own principles. They used to build the hospitals; now they seem to have been pushed out or pushed themselves out by abandoning their original principles and remaining separate from the state.

[MsDoodahs]

I personally have no issue with gays getting married, but at the same time I think churches have the right not to partake, and even with-hold charity, if it violates thier beliefs.

Same here.

[TastyWheat]

It's the church's right if they want to protest in this manner, but they're making themselves look like pouty little schoolgirls.

[bobbyw24]

It's the church's right if they want to protest in this manner, but they're making themselves look like pouty little schoolgirls.

That was my point: the Church's role is to provide welfare to poor people (so that Gov't doesn't have to).

The poor people of D.C. couldn't care less about gay marriage--they just want food and shelter.

[Reason]

activist judges

lmao

[Bucjason]

I didn't realize charity existed anymore anyhow. According to liberals, without all the government welfare and social programs, all the misfortunate would die in the streets....

[idirtify]

I love it! The religion admits that prejudice is its nature. They might as well have said “Comon, everyone should know that we are unable to be non-discriminatory!” The funny part is that they are claiming immunity from the most basic responsibility of treating people equally; or at least claiming that their charitable donations buys them the right to discriminate. “Jesus Christ!”

[Danke]

It's their own fault if they incorporated.

[BlackTerrel]

You're missing the point. They are a church and the government is trying to dictate to them how it is operated. THAT is the issue.

I agree.

[thasre]

The article is saying, in what I'm sure are deliberately and misleadingly vague statements, that the Church will be cease "partnering with the City" in social services. It specifically mentions $10,000,000 that city programs are supplemented with through Church money. Conversely, it mentions $8,200,000 the Church receives in city contracts to do it's work. It doesn't say that the Church would just give up on helping the poor altogether, just that they would go it alone.

Frankly, regardless of what you think about the Church's position on this issue, I think it's a GOOD thing if there isn't going to be all that mingling of Church and State money. If the City really cared about helping people, they wouldn't even be involved in all this so-called "charity" that has the effect of keeping people in poverty, and they would leave it up to private associations to deal with. But they want to taint everything with public money so they can turn around and regulate things they have no authority over (like how religious groups respond to gay rights).

I think it sounds like a win-win situation if the Church backs out of its commitments to the City and goes its separate ways on providing aid to the needy. They cripple the City's nanny-ism and they strengthen their own cause by refusing to cave in to the Statists.