By Chuck Colbert
Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)
Commentary
Several hundred Catholics in Maine have publicly declared themselves supporters of same-sex marriage, in direct opposition to their bishop, Richard J. Malone of Portland, who they say has gone overboard with a no-holds-barred campaign to roll back same-sex marriage in the Pine Tree State.
Maine voters are to decide Nov. 3 whether to keep or reject a bill extending civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples that the state legislature passed and the governor signed in May.
"Question One," on the ballot reads, "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?"
If passed, it would be the first time -- in more than two dozen tries -- that same-sex marriage would be approved by a majority vote of the people.
Stakes are high. Advocates for marriage equality, still smarting from a referendum last year in California that repealed same-sex marriages in that state, have marshaled forces in the state. Groups opposed to gay marriage hope that victories in California and Maine will give the cause momentum nationally.
Catholics have taken prominent roles in the campaigns on both sides of the issue.
Expressing a sense of urgency, more than 140 of the state's high-profile business, legal, and civil leaders have placed newspaper ads, giving voice to a Catholic case for same-sex civil marriage.
"We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state," they write in an extraordinary eight-paragraph statement (Click to see a pdf file), which ran as a paid advertisement in Maine's leading daily newspapers the two Sundays before the vote.
"We believe that the church has a right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its member and others," the signatories say, continuing, "But we also believe that the church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated to follow their own informed consciences on such issues."
More than 500 Catholics signed a declaration of support for same-sex marriage being circulated by the Portland-based Catholics for Marriage Equality, the group announced Oct. 28.
However, Bishop Malone is a primary leader in a highly visible and vocal campaign to stop any reformulation of civil marriage to include of same-sex couples.
Besides spearheading a parish-based petition signature drive, assisted by local and national socially conservative groups, Malone also padded church bulletins with anti-gay marriage messages — on six consecutive Sundays. He required that pastors throughout the diocese preach on traditional marriage.
Bishop Richard J. Malone has produced a DVD, in which he stars, explaining why marriage matters, and directed that it be shown in all parishes.
Last month, Malone called for a second collection to be taken up during Sunday Masses, with proceeds going to Stand for Marriage, the organization leading the repeal effort.
The second collection netted $86,000. In total, the Portland diocese has given $550,000 to the effort to repeal the same-sex marriage legislation. The Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus, has given another $50,000 to the cause.
While the church's view of sacramental marriage — with its sacred rites — is one thing, civil marriage, which is a basic human and civil right, is quite another. Lay Catholics are well aware of these nuances in their advocacy for pro marriage-equality.
The bishop has missed the point.
Particularly irksome for some Maine Catholics -- estimated at 15 to 16 percent of the population — is Malone's insistence "that it is the doctrine of the Catholic church -- not my personal opinion — that all Catholics are obligated to oppose legal recognition of same-sex marriage." He said that in a September pastoral letter, quoting Pope Benedict XVI.
"Where does that come from?" asked William H. Slavick of Portland, a retired college professor. "It's my duty to follow my informed conscience" and respecting "pluralistic considerations in the United States."
Slavick, a long-time coordinator of the Pax Christi Maine chapter, favors keeping the civil marriage law, saying that the church is wrong to try to impose a Catholic view of marriage on society.
Sharing those sentiments is attorney Anne Underwood of Topsham, Maine, co-founder of a new grass-roots organization. "Our organization —Catholics for Marriage Equality — agrees 100 percent with the [bishop and the] church's theological teaching on marriage as a sacrament," she told NCR.
But Underwood takes strong exception to Malone's "political opinion" on civil marriage. "We urge Catholics to vote no on question one," she said. After all, "God is love."
Catholics for Marriage Equality is speaking out publicly to raise awareness and is asking Catholics to increase their visibility in opposing the referendum. The group provides bumper stickers and buttons to those who want them. Underwood urges Catholics to wear something red to Mass, as a sartorial sign of support for the cause.
Jack Dougherty wears his Catholics for Marriage Equality button each Sunday. "I am a person who thinks the law is correct and the bishop is wrong," he said. Dougherty of Eliot, 72, is a parishioner at St. Raphael Parish.
"I think there's a clear distinction between the Catholic church's requirements for marriage and the state and its requirements," said Bob McAteer of Ellsworth who believes the current law should stand.
Church funds going to the referendum campaign has angered "No on 1" Catholics.
"I am apoplectic," said Karen Saum of Belfast, who identifies as a lesbian. "I am appalled at the bishop."
"I am furious that my church is spending money to oppose legislation," said David Meuse of Portland, a widower and father of two. "I cannot believe it -- it's infuriating that our money is being spent that way," he said. That money should be used to"feed a family or clothe somebody."
Only a few more days are left for the battle over same-sex marriage. It will be played out in television ads, door-to-door canvassing, yard signs, buttons, and bumper stickers. Money and volunteers on both sides of the question continue to pour into the state.
The group "No on 1," or Protect Maine Equality, said in its campaign finance report to the state, filed at the end of last week, that it has raised $4 million, according to the Associated Press. That figure overshadows the $2.5 million raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, which forced the referendum through a petition drive.
In addition, the Princeton, N.J.-based National Organization for Marriage has donated $1.5 million to repealing the same-sex marriage law, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Public opinion polling indicates a tight race. The most recent public opinion poll, released Oct. 26, showed marriage equality backers with a slight lead: 53 percent of those survey support same-sex marriage and 42 percent oppose it. For this poll, the Pan Atlantic SMS Group of Portland interviewed 400 Maine residents between Oct. 20 and Oct. 22. It has a margin of error of 5 percent.
A poll released last week by Public Policy Polling of North Carolina showed a 48 percent to 48 percent tie on the same-sex marriage bill. That survey polled 1,130 likely voters.
It is safe to say this one is too close to call.
Perhaps it is now clearer why several hundred Catholics have taken their bishop to task in such a public manner. As the signatories have so eloquently stated, "The current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity."
Such clarity -- the voice of these faithful, resounding a profoundly simple yet painfully embarrassing Catholic truth.
[A frequent contributor to NCR, Chuck Colbert freelance journalist from Cambridge, Mass.]
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A Letter to Bishop Malone
P.O. Box 637
North Berwick, ME 03906
October 26, 2009
Bishop Richard Malone
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Maine
510 Ocean Avenue
P.O. Box 11559
Portland, ME 04104
Dear Bishop Malone,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you. Be assured that I have put this to prayer over these last several weeks. I am now writing to you about the diocese’s and your position on Maine Question 1.
Three weeks ago at Mass, I was most disturbed to have the sacred liturgy interrupted by your political infomercial. I have always believed that it is our sacred liturgy that binds our faith community together. However, three weeks ago I saw our faith community torn apart by your “homily”. Many in the assembly left the church during your infomercial, only to return after it was over. Most were appalled at the half-truths promulgated in your speech; and some, even though they may have agreed with you, were upset because it caused many uncomfortable questions from their children who were attending Mass with their parents as a family - - the true “domestic church”.
I never in my life thought that I would live to see the day when a member of the Catholic episcopacy would actually encourage Catholics to vote for discrimination against a minority. As a junior in college in the spring of 1965, at the age of 18, I spent a month in Selma, Alabama. I have always taken the Church’s attitudes about peace and social justice seriously. I have been a proud and faithful Catholic for my entire life, now over 62 years, and I am appalled at your stance about civil marriage equality. I am sure that in the past, there were bishops who spoke out for slavery, against civil rights, and against women’s suffrage, but I thought that we, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had moved beyond such misguided ideas as “God’s will”. I have attended Catholic schools throughout most of my life and have completed post graduate work in Catholic theology. And, as a result, I must vote my conscience on all matters: peace, social justice and rights for minorities and the oppressed.
As for your claim, as stated in your “homily”, that it is all about “protecting the children”, I find that a little hard to accept. If children are raised in a loving home with parents who love and care for them, regardless of the parents’ sexuality, they will have all they need to succeed in life and grow up to be loving, caring individuals. After all, the members of the Catholic episcopacy have very little high moral ground on which to stand about protecting children, given recent events.
I firmly believe that one’s sexuality is not a choice, it is the way we, each one of us, were created; and God, She doesn’t make mistakes. I, personally, did not wake up one morning in my teens, and choose to be heterosexual, any more than any gay or lesbian person made the choice about their own sexuality.
God is Love, Lover and Beloved. Since all love is God, what difference does the form of that love make? I do believe that all love should be celebrated and blessed.
I remain a proud Catholic for marriage equality and encourage my Catholic sisters and brothers to support equal rights for all of us, no matter what their created sexuality.
With peace and love I remain
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Murphy Ewers
North Berwick, ME 03906
October 26, 2009
Bishop Richard Malone
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Maine
510 Ocean Avenue
P.O. Box 11559
Portland, ME 04104
Dear Bishop Malone,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you. Be assured that I have put this to prayer over these last several weeks. I am now writing to you about the diocese’s and your position on Maine Question 1.
Three weeks ago at Mass, I was most disturbed to have the sacred liturgy interrupted by your political infomercial. I have always believed that it is our sacred liturgy that binds our faith community together. However, three weeks ago I saw our faith community torn apart by your “homily”. Many in the assembly left the church during your infomercial, only to return after it was over. Most were appalled at the half-truths promulgated in your speech; and some, even though they may have agreed with you, were upset because it caused many uncomfortable questions from their children who were attending Mass with their parents as a family - - the true “domestic church”.
I never in my life thought that I would live to see the day when a member of the Catholic episcopacy would actually encourage Catholics to vote for discrimination against a minority. As a junior in college in the spring of 1965, at the age of 18, I spent a month in Selma, Alabama. I have always taken the Church’s attitudes about peace and social justice seriously. I have been a proud and faithful Catholic for my entire life, now over 62 years, and I am appalled at your stance about civil marriage equality. I am sure that in the past, there were bishops who spoke out for slavery, against civil rights, and against women’s suffrage, but I thought that we, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had moved beyond such misguided ideas as “God’s will”. I have attended Catholic schools throughout most of my life and have completed post graduate work in Catholic theology. And, as a result, I must vote my conscience on all matters: peace, social justice and rights for minorities and the oppressed.
As for your claim, as stated in your “homily”, that it is all about “protecting the children”, I find that a little hard to accept. If children are raised in a loving home with parents who love and care for them, regardless of the parents’ sexuality, they will have all they need to succeed in life and grow up to be loving, caring individuals. After all, the members of the Catholic episcopacy have very little high moral ground on which to stand about protecting children, given recent events.
I firmly believe that one’s sexuality is not a choice, it is the way we, each one of us, were created; and God, She doesn’t make mistakes. I, personally, did not wake up one morning in my teens, and choose to be heterosexual, any more than any gay or lesbian person made the choice about their own sexuality.
God is Love, Lover and Beloved. Since all love is God, what difference does the form of that love make? I do believe that all love should be celebrated and blessed.
I remain a proud Catholic for marriage equality and encourage my Catholic sisters and brothers to support equal rights for all of us, no matter what their created sexuality.
With peace and love I remain
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Murphy Ewers
Catholics for Marriage Equality Announces Support for Same-Sex Marriage Declaration
Contact: Anne Underwood, Catholics for Marriage Equality, (207) 650-1588
Portland, October 28- Catholics for Marriage Equality announced today that more than 500 Maine Catholics from Madawaska to Kittery have signed its declaration of support for same-sex marriage. According to Catholics for Marriage Equality co-founder, Anne Underwood, the signatures were obtained solely by word-of-mouth.
The statement reads in part:
“As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none.”
“The bishop has exercised his religious freedom and constitutional right to prohibit any communication from or about our group on church property or in church publications," said Underwood. "This has severely limited our ability to fully inform Catholics who want get the facts and to learn more about voting NO on 1."
Catholics for Marriage Equality [C4ME] is comprised of practicing Catholics who support civil marriage for same-sex couples as affirmation of the scriptural and social justice teaching of their church.
“The declaration is our way to assure other Catholics and our gay and lesbian family members and friends that many Catholics believe the God of Love calls them to support families of same-sex couples by permitting civil marriage,” Underwood added.
Catholics supporting No on 1 may sign the declaration at www.religiouscoalition.org
The full text of the declaration:
As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none. Making the equality of citizens not only an ideal but a living truth, we affirm the May 6, 2009 act of the Maine Legislature to end marriage discrimination by granting civil marriage for same-sex couples. Our declaration of conscience is based on the following:
The American principle of the separation of Church and State was enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that no particular religious perspective would be imposed on our pluralistic society.
Catholic teaching on social justice has been central to the building of a just society, creating awareness of diversity in the human family, calling us to lives of respect for one another, and not only tolerance.
We remember that Roman Catholics were once denied civil rights, treated with suspicion, ridiculed because of our sacred rituals, and questioned as to our allegiance to “foreign authorities.” Memory challenges us to remain vigilant whenever bigotry and injustice enters into public discourse.
Same-sex civil marriage does not in any way coerce any religious faith or tradition to change its beliefs or doctrine or alter its traditional marriage practices.
We know that God is a most gracious and wonderful Creator. Many of us have gay and lesbian relatives and friends. We value the love and commitment we witness in their relationships; their devotion to each other and their children. Civil marriage bestows the dignity and equality called for in our nation’s highest ideals, “the inherent natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As Roman Catholics, we differentiate between sacramental marriage and civil marriage. Therefore, we perceive that same-sex civil marriage poses no threat to our Church. While we respect the authority and integrity of the Church in matters of faith, our prayers and discernment have brought us to a new openness on this issue. We do not ask the Church to perform same-sex marriages. We do implore the Church to honor the State’s prerogative to authorize civil marriages for our gay and lesbian family and friends.
Grateful for the gift of our faith and the ways that we have been nourished by faith throughout our lives, and also grateful for our citizenship in America and in this State, we sign this statement as Roman Catholic citizens of Maine.
Portland, October 28- Catholics for Marriage Equality announced today that more than 500 Maine Catholics from Madawaska to Kittery have signed its declaration of support for same-sex marriage. According to Catholics for Marriage Equality co-founder, Anne Underwood, the signatures were obtained solely by word-of-mouth.
The statement reads in part:
“As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none.”
“The bishop has exercised his religious freedom and constitutional right to prohibit any communication from or about our group on church property or in church publications," said Underwood. "This has severely limited our ability to fully inform Catholics who want get the facts and to learn more about voting NO on 1."
Catholics for Marriage Equality [C4ME] is comprised of practicing Catholics who support civil marriage for same-sex couples as affirmation of the scriptural and social justice teaching of their church.
“The declaration is our way to assure other Catholics and our gay and lesbian family members and friends that many Catholics believe the God of Love calls them to support families of same-sex couples by permitting civil marriage,” Underwood added.
Catholics supporting No on 1 may sign the declaration at www.religiouscoalition.org
The full text of the declaration:
As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none. Making the equality of citizens not only an ideal but a living truth, we affirm the May 6, 2009 act of the Maine Legislature to end marriage discrimination by granting civil marriage for same-sex couples. Our declaration of conscience is based on the following:
The American principle of the separation of Church and State was enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that no particular religious perspective would be imposed on our pluralistic society.
Catholic teaching on social justice has been central to the building of a just society, creating awareness of diversity in the human family, calling us to lives of respect for one another, and not only tolerance.
We remember that Roman Catholics were once denied civil rights, treated with suspicion, ridiculed because of our sacred rituals, and questioned as to our allegiance to “foreign authorities.” Memory challenges us to remain vigilant whenever bigotry and injustice enters into public discourse.
Same-sex civil marriage does not in any way coerce any religious faith or tradition to change its beliefs or doctrine or alter its traditional marriage practices.
We know that God is a most gracious and wonderful Creator. Many of us have gay and lesbian relatives and friends. We value the love and commitment we witness in their relationships; their devotion to each other and their children. Civil marriage bestows the dignity and equality called for in our nation’s highest ideals, “the inherent natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As Roman Catholics, we differentiate between sacramental marriage and civil marriage. Therefore, we perceive that same-sex civil marriage poses no threat to our Church. While we respect the authority and integrity of the Church in matters of faith, our prayers and discernment have brought us to a new openness on this issue. We do not ask the Church to perform same-sex marriages. We do implore the Church to honor the State’s prerogative to authorize civil marriages for our gay and lesbian family and friends.
Grateful for the gift of our faith and the ways that we have been nourished by faith throughout our lives, and also grateful for our citizenship in America and in this State, we sign this statement as Roman Catholic citizens of Maine.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!
Bishop John Shelby Spong
Retired Episcopalian Bishop Spong of Newark, NJ has been an articulate and outspoken voice for many years. His writings are featured on the CORPUS blog, Mirabile Dictu. A long but powerful statement. –Ed.
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.
I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.
I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.
I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.
I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.
The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.
I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.
Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.
This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
Retired Episcopalian Bishop Spong of Newark, NJ has been an articulate and outspoken voice for many years. His writings are featured on the CORPUS blog, Mirabile Dictu. A long but powerful statement. –Ed.
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.
I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.
I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.
I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.
I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.
The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.
I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.
Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.
This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Marc Mutty's Hysteria and Myopia
In an op ed in the Maine Sunday Telegram October 25th, "Question 1 protects marriage, people's rights," Marc Mutty, spokesman for Bishop Richard Malone and chair of the Stand for Marriage Maine Committee, revealed anew the campaign's inability to make a case against the Maine Marriage Equality Act.
Mutty promises "factual evidence of the negative consequences sure to follow this so-called experiment where 'any two will do' when it comes to marriage." Apart from this insulting characterization of same-sex couples who would make commitments to one another, Mutty offers no factual evidence for what are dubiously negative consequences.
His next paragraph contradicts that one by insisting that Question 1 "is not about allowing same-sex couples to marry in equal measure to the way and man and woman marry" when opposing legalizing same-sex marriages is the central thrust of the Stand for Marriage campaign.
Then Mutty argues that if LD 1020 takes effect, "the institution of marriage as it has been known for centuries will be completely obliterated. . . ." Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect but Mutty's reflects, instead, hysteria. No one else so far has expressed fear that existing heterosexual marriages will be threatened or undone or fear that any heterosexual couples will cease to be married and raise families. And, of course, there is the evidence of Massachusetts where "traditional marriage" appears hale and hearty despite more than a year of same-sex marriages there.
Mutty argues with LD 1020's changed definition of marriage so that it does not refer exclusively to heterosexual couples and their progeny and ceases to "promote the unique institution of traditional monogamous marriage. . . .". But the state continues to exercise the same responsibility regarding a couple's legal relationship and responsibility for their children--born or adopted. Promoting marriage has always--and properly--been far more the responsibility of churches, synagogues, and communities than the state's.
Mutty then turns to the supposed negative consequences.
First is a series of conjectures about resulting legal conflicts. But the examples cited in the series of Sunday bulletin inserts report the conflicts only in part to appear to appear to support opposition to same-sex marriage. The cases where courts have come down on the side of same-sex couples are where public accommodations and licensed services are concerned, for example, a park or event facility available for rent to anyone. Here the Maine public accommodation law supported by Bishop Malone applies: public accommodations may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Malone and Mutty would now allow public accommodation and services discrimination where homosexual couples are concerned.
Then Mutty turns to the campaign's primary bugaboo: homosexuality will be taught in the schools. But the law makes no such provision and Maine school law reserves curriculum decisions to local boards. Mutty's "factual evidence" is identification of the Gay Straight Alliance, Gay Lesbian School Education Network, and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Questioning Youth Commission as "advancing gay issues in the schools."
But whether the law passes or not, these groups will continue pursuing their objectives. Their objectives are not, as Mutty implies, to promote homosexuality but to win understanding for those who are homosexual and the respect for them due all human beings--as Rome explicitly directs regarding homosexuals.
Mutty's primary fear, of course, is that teaching respect for homosexuals will occasion respect for same-sex relationships which the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty abhor and judge morally evil. Here is the crux of Bishop Malone's and Marc Mutty's campaign against legalizing same-sex relationships:
they oppose the state licensing something they judge morally evil.
Since millions upon millions of Americans do not find committed same-sex relationships morally evil, that makes their effort a campaign to impose Vatican-Malone-Mutty moral norms on all Maine citizens. This is directly counter to the Second Vatican Council's teaching, long promoted by Rev. John Courtney Murray, SJ, of pluralist respect for the rights of others who do not share one's beliefs. As a consequence of a pluralist maturity that was lacking when I was a boy in Tennessee, consumption of alcohol, gambling, Sunday sports, and fornication are not now prohibited by law, as Southern Baptists and their allies then dictated.
The striking of laws prohibiting homosexual conduct, here and in other countries, should be a signal to the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty that theirs is a sectarian view not to be imposed by law. But the Catholic patriarchy, which as Chicago Loyola University psychologist Eugene Kennedy has observed, "has never gotten sex right," persists in efforts to legislate sexual morality, as church efforts to outlaw contraception, even where the danger of AIDS is great, and divorce illustrate.
So, despite the Catholic patriachy’s lack of appreciation of homosexual orientation as a given and substitution of a moral characterization--objectively disordered--for the knowledge and understanding the Vatican lacks or rejects--and despite the charity it denies homosexuals in stigmatizing their love, the patriarchy would have the state endorse its sectarian view.
Mutty ends with a reminder that "traditional marriage" has "served us well over the centuries." That is a rosy view given the high percentage of divorces, extramarital relationships, and instances of spousal abuse. But the fact he not only avoids mentioning but denies in claiming that the institution of traditional marriage will be "completely obliterated" is that "traditional marriage" will continue, unaffected, by the Maine Marriage Equality Act. And, Mutty's hysteria notwithstanding, we all know it.
--Bill Slavick, a long-time contributor to Church World and other Catholic publications.
Mutty promises "factual evidence of the negative consequences sure to follow this so-called experiment where 'any two will do' when it comes to marriage." Apart from this insulting characterization of same-sex couples who would make commitments to one another, Mutty offers no factual evidence for what are dubiously negative consequences.
His next paragraph contradicts that one by insisting that Question 1 "is not about allowing same-sex couples to marry in equal measure to the way and man and woman marry" when opposing legalizing same-sex marriages is the central thrust of the Stand for Marriage campaign.
Then Mutty argues that if LD 1020 takes effect, "the institution of marriage as it has been known for centuries will be completely obliterated. . . ." Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect but Mutty's reflects, instead, hysteria. No one else so far has expressed fear that existing heterosexual marriages will be threatened or undone or fear that any heterosexual couples will cease to be married and raise families. And, of course, there is the evidence of Massachusetts where "traditional marriage" appears hale and hearty despite more than a year of same-sex marriages there.
Mutty argues with LD 1020's changed definition of marriage so that it does not refer exclusively to heterosexual couples and their progeny and ceases to "promote the unique institution of traditional monogamous marriage. . . .". But the state continues to exercise the same responsibility regarding a couple's legal relationship and responsibility for their children--born or adopted. Promoting marriage has always--and properly--been far more the responsibility of churches, synagogues, and communities than the state's.
Mutty then turns to the supposed negative consequences.
First is a series of conjectures about resulting legal conflicts. But the examples cited in the series of Sunday bulletin inserts report the conflicts only in part to appear to appear to support opposition to same-sex marriage. The cases where courts have come down on the side of same-sex couples are where public accommodations and licensed services are concerned, for example, a park or event facility available for rent to anyone. Here the Maine public accommodation law supported by Bishop Malone applies: public accommodations may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Malone and Mutty would now allow public accommodation and services discrimination where homosexual couples are concerned.
Then Mutty turns to the campaign's primary bugaboo: homosexuality will be taught in the schools. But the law makes no such provision and Maine school law reserves curriculum decisions to local boards. Mutty's "factual evidence" is identification of the Gay Straight Alliance, Gay Lesbian School Education Network, and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Questioning Youth Commission as "advancing gay issues in the schools."
But whether the law passes or not, these groups will continue pursuing their objectives. Their objectives are not, as Mutty implies, to promote homosexuality but to win understanding for those who are homosexual and the respect for them due all human beings--as Rome explicitly directs regarding homosexuals.
Mutty's primary fear, of course, is that teaching respect for homosexuals will occasion respect for same-sex relationships which the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty abhor and judge morally evil. Here is the crux of Bishop Malone's and Marc Mutty's campaign against legalizing same-sex relationships:
they oppose the state licensing something they judge morally evil.
Since millions upon millions of Americans do not find committed same-sex relationships morally evil, that makes their effort a campaign to impose Vatican-Malone-Mutty moral norms on all Maine citizens. This is directly counter to the Second Vatican Council's teaching, long promoted by Rev. John Courtney Murray, SJ, of pluralist respect for the rights of others who do not share one's beliefs. As a consequence of a pluralist maturity that was lacking when I was a boy in Tennessee, consumption of alcohol, gambling, Sunday sports, and fornication are not now prohibited by law, as Southern Baptists and their allies then dictated.
The striking of laws prohibiting homosexual conduct, here and in other countries, should be a signal to the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty that theirs is a sectarian view not to be imposed by law. But the Catholic patriarchy, which as Chicago Loyola University psychologist Eugene Kennedy has observed, "has never gotten sex right," persists in efforts to legislate sexual morality, as church efforts to outlaw contraception, even where the danger of AIDS is great, and divorce illustrate.
So, despite the Catholic patriachy’s lack of appreciation of homosexual orientation as a given and substitution of a moral characterization--objectively disordered--for the knowledge and understanding the Vatican lacks or rejects--and despite the charity it denies homosexuals in stigmatizing their love, the patriarchy would have the state endorse its sectarian view.
Mutty ends with a reminder that "traditional marriage" has "served us well over the centuries." That is a rosy view given the high percentage of divorces, extramarital relationships, and instances of spousal abuse. But the fact he not only avoids mentioning but denies in claiming that the institution of traditional marriage will be "completely obliterated" is that "traditional marriage" will continue, unaffected, by the Maine Marriage Equality Act. And, Mutty's hysteria notwithstanding, we all know it.
--Bill Slavick, a long-time contributor to Church World and other Catholic publications.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Statement of Conscience by Maine Catholics
Statement of Conscience by Maine Catholics
Regarding Marriage Equality
Published in Maine Sunday Telegram, October 18, 2009
We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine’s civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state.
The Maine Legislature has determined that the societal sanctions of marriage should be available to two adult humans regardless of their sex. This reflects the sincere and justified belief that two people of the same sex can and do fall in love, feel deeply the natural human impulse toward lifelong commitment, and yearn for the societal recognition of their commitment that is marriage. This belief is not dishonor of marriage; it is reverence for it.
Maine’s new marriage equality law was carefully and intentionally drafted to protect the Church’s right to set its own requirements for the sacrament of matrimony. No one can suggest that the Church’s independence is at risk in this regard. Rather, the repeal effort appears to be more about denying secular, civil marriage and the civil rights that accompany marriage. As we debate this, the real issue, we must keep in mind the Second Vatican Council’s call for respect for the rights of others.
We are also concerned that Diocesan leaders may have allowed the Church to appear to join with others who engage in the kind of misleading media attacks used in California when it appeared that those4 opposed to same-sex marriage could prevail otherwise. There is, for example, no valid legal basis for the TV ad that the law will require teaching “homosexual marriage” in school. Nor is there any credible evidence that same sex couples are lesser parents than heterosexual couples. Weeks after these statements have been exposed as baseless, no corrections have been forthcoming. Because the Diocese’s position has become associated with these misstatements, some Catholics may not feel free to challenge them.
We believe that the Church has the right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its members and others. But we also believe that the Church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated, to follow their informed consciences on such issues. In this regard, we find disturbing any suggestion that formal Church teaching obligates all Catholics to oppose marriage equality.
While churches are closing and it is ever harder for the Church to meet human needs, we see Church funds, including parishioners’ contributions solicited during Mass, fueling a consultant-driven campaign that is conducted in a manner inconsistent with our shared Catholic views.
We fear the inclusion of explicit politics into the Sunday Mass and urge the Church to promote the presentation of good faith debat3e and dialogue in appropriate settings.
We must speak out now because the day cannot come soon enough for our leaders to give life to the belief that truth, charity, and freedom are the birthright of all of humankind.
Kurt W. Adams, Esq.
Rosemary and Robert Babcock
Jane Skelton, Edq. & Edmond Bearor, Esq.
Bethany K. Beausang, Esq.
Jane Begert
Severin Beliveau, Esq.
Michael R. Bosse, Esq.
Claire & Joseph Brannigan
Michael Brennan
Paul Bulger, Esq.
George F. Burns, Esq.
Jouleyanne Capbell
Beth and David Caputi
Linda & Peter Caradonna
Michael Carey
Jonathan A. Cashman
Mary & Arthur Cerullo, Esq.
Irene Coady
Gerard Conley, Esq.
Walter Corey, Esq.
Ann M. Courtney, Esq.
Pat Cross
Margaret Cruikshank
Bill Curran
Frank D’Allensandro, Esq.
Frank DeSerro
Mary Beth DiMarco
Joseph G. Donahue Esq.
Sandra Donovan
Rose & Jack Dougherty
Julie & Rene Dumont
Asha Echeverria, Esq.
Sue Ewing
Julie Finn, Esq.
Rep. Sean Flaherty
Elizabeth & Jeffrey Fortin
Joseph Francis, P.A., C.
Donna Galluzzo
Lori Garon
Michael J. Gentile, Esq.
Louise Haggett
Evan M. Hansen Esq.
Rosie Harris
Ann & Erik Johnson
Patricia & Robert Kiley
Georgia Kosciusko
Ann & Arthur LaSelva
Gloria Leach
Ann Marie Memire, M.D.
Susan E. LoGuidice, Esq.
Virginia Smith & Ed Macomber
Cynthia L. Marsden
Katherine M. McCarthy, Esq.
Michelle McDonough
Nancy & Karl Miller, D.O.
Frances & Edward Minderlein
James Morse, Ph.D.
Winifred Murray-Higgins, R.N.C.
Mary O‘Brien & Stephen Naculich
Linda Nelson
Cathy Newell
Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Frank O’Hara
Peg Olson, P.T.
Carmela M. Palanda
Dawn Pelletier, Esq.
Daniel Perry, Esq.
Claudia Picone, M.D.
Jonathan S. Piper, Esq.
Patricia Plante, F.N.P., C.
Patricia Porter-Rood
Joan Fortin, Esq. & Chet Randall, Esq.
Mary Redstone
Patricia R. Regan
Dawn Rider, M.D.
Jina, Rick, Sadie, Gabe, Zoe & Rosa Romano
Alexander Saksen, Esq.
Maria Padian & Conrad Schneider
Lorrie Ferrari & Tony Scucci
Rene & Victor Serio
Bryan J. Shumway
Donald J. Sipe, Esq.
Peter Sirois
Ursula & William Slavick
Harriet Conlin Smith
Mary & Christopher Stevens
Mary McCann, Ph.D. & Sidney St. F. Thaxter, Esq.
Kathy Tosney
Anne Underwood, Esq.
Margaret Zillioux & Robert Vilas
Lisa Wahlstrom
David Webbert, Esq.
Donna Yellen, M.S.W.
Regarding Marriage Equality
Published in Maine Sunday Telegram, October 18, 2009
We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine’s civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state.
The Maine Legislature has determined that the societal sanctions of marriage should be available to two adult humans regardless of their sex. This reflects the sincere and justified belief that two people of the same sex can and do fall in love, feel deeply the natural human impulse toward lifelong commitment, and yearn for the societal recognition of their commitment that is marriage. This belief is not dishonor of marriage; it is reverence for it.
Maine’s new marriage equality law was carefully and intentionally drafted to protect the Church’s right to set its own requirements for the sacrament of matrimony. No one can suggest that the Church’s independence is at risk in this regard. Rather, the repeal effort appears to be more about denying secular, civil marriage and the civil rights that accompany marriage. As we debate this, the real issue, we must keep in mind the Second Vatican Council’s call for respect for the rights of others.
We are also concerned that Diocesan leaders may have allowed the Church to appear to join with others who engage in the kind of misleading media attacks used in California when it appeared that those4 opposed to same-sex marriage could prevail otherwise. There is, for example, no valid legal basis for the TV ad that the law will require teaching “homosexual marriage” in school. Nor is there any credible evidence that same sex couples are lesser parents than heterosexual couples. Weeks after these statements have been exposed as baseless, no corrections have been forthcoming. Because the Diocese’s position has become associated with these misstatements, some Catholics may not feel free to challenge them.
We believe that the Church has the right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its members and others. But we also believe that the Church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated, to follow their informed consciences on such issues. In this regard, we find disturbing any suggestion that formal Church teaching obligates all Catholics to oppose marriage equality.
While churches are closing and it is ever harder for the Church to meet human needs, we see Church funds, including parishioners’ contributions solicited during Mass, fueling a consultant-driven campaign that is conducted in a manner inconsistent with our shared Catholic views.
We fear the inclusion of explicit politics into the Sunday Mass and urge the Church to promote the presentation of good faith debat3e and dialogue in appropriate settings.
We must speak out now because the day cannot come soon enough for our leaders to give life to the belief that truth, charity, and freedom are the birthright of all of humankind.
Kurt W. Adams, Esq.
Rosemary and Robert Babcock
Jane Skelton, Edq. & Edmond Bearor, Esq.
Bethany K. Beausang, Esq.
Jane Begert
Severin Beliveau, Esq.
Michael R. Bosse, Esq.
Claire & Joseph Brannigan
Michael Brennan
Paul Bulger, Esq.
George F. Burns, Esq.
Jouleyanne Capbell
Beth and David Caputi
Linda & Peter Caradonna
Michael Carey
Jonathan A. Cashman
Mary & Arthur Cerullo, Esq.
Irene Coady
Gerard Conley, Esq.
Walter Corey, Esq.
Ann M. Courtney, Esq.
Pat Cross
Margaret Cruikshank
Bill Curran
Frank D’Allensandro, Esq.
Frank DeSerro
Mary Beth DiMarco
Joseph G. Donahue Esq.
Sandra Donovan
Rose & Jack Dougherty
Julie & Rene Dumont
Asha Echeverria, Esq.
Sue Ewing
Julie Finn, Esq.
Rep. Sean Flaherty
Elizabeth & Jeffrey Fortin
Joseph Francis, P.A., C.
Donna Galluzzo
Lori Garon
Michael J. Gentile, Esq.
Louise Haggett
Evan M. Hansen Esq.
Rosie Harris
Ann & Erik Johnson
Patricia & Robert Kiley
Georgia Kosciusko
Ann & Arthur LaSelva
Gloria Leach
Ann Marie Memire, M.D.
Susan E. LoGuidice, Esq.
Virginia Smith & Ed Macomber
Cynthia L. Marsden
Katherine M. McCarthy, Esq.
Michelle McDonough
Nancy & Karl Miller, D.O.
Frances & Edward Minderlein
James Morse, Ph.D.
Winifred Murray-Higgins, R.N.C.
Mary O‘Brien & Stephen Naculich
Linda Nelson
Cathy Newell
Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Frank O’Hara
Peg Olson, P.T.
Carmela M. Palanda
Dawn Pelletier, Esq.
Daniel Perry, Esq.
Claudia Picone, M.D.
Jonathan S. Piper, Esq.
Patricia Plante, F.N.P., C.
Patricia Porter-Rood
Joan Fortin, Esq. & Chet Randall, Esq.
Mary Redstone
Patricia R. Regan
Dawn Rider, M.D.
Jina, Rick, Sadie, Gabe, Zoe & Rosa Romano
Alexander Saksen, Esq.
Maria Padian & Conrad Schneider
Lorrie Ferrari & Tony Scucci
Rene & Victor Serio
Bryan J. Shumway
Donald J. Sipe, Esq.
Peter Sirois
Ursula & William Slavick
Harriet Conlin Smith
Mary & Christopher Stevens
Mary McCann, Ph.D. & Sidney St. F. Thaxter, Esq.
Kathy Tosney
Anne Underwood, Esq.
Margaret Zillioux & Robert Vilas
Lisa Wahlstrom
David Webbert, Esq.
Donna Yellen, M.S.W.
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