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Friday, March 10, 2006

The Catholic Church Hates Gays…

Posted by on March 10 at 12:09 PM

…more than it loves babies. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Boston Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because of a state law allowing gays and lesbians to adopt…

The state’s four Catholic bishops said earlier this month that the law threatens the church’s religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.

Here’s the really telling part: Catholic Charities 42-member board voted unanimously in December to consider gay households for adoptions. So it wasn’t lay Catholics who had a problem with gay couples adopting children, but the bishops—all conservatives, all appointed by Rome, all out of touch.

And all hurting children.

When it comes to adoption, religious conservatives want us to believe that straight couples are clamoring to adopt children who are being adopted by gay couples. That’s a lie—there are more children waiting to be adopted than there are couples (or singles) willing to adopt them. Often gay couples are willing to adopt children that straight couples are not—older children, handicapped children, children with HIV, mixed-race children. So the choice isn’t between gay parents and straight parents, but between parents and no parents.

Or to put in terms the bishops can understand: if you don’t also allow gay couples to adopt children, you’re leaving a lot of kids in limbo.

And, finally, the ultimate irony: This is the Catholic Church in freaking Boston, epicenter of the sex-abuse scandal. The same bishops who refused to protect children from rampaging pedophile priests are now “protecting” children from qualified, screened, and thoroughly vetted adoptive parents who happen to be gay.


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This turns my blood into lava.

Can we get one of those Boston Catholic bishops to debate Ron Sims?

Dan --

You hit the nail with your head. Although the clergy is by no means alone in its being "out of touch." The federal government has decided to prevent use of an HPV vaccine on the grounds that it is more important to send a message against premarital than to cure cancer. See this week's NYer.

With this attitude, it's a good thing that they're out of the adoption business. From what I've read, they didn't handle that many adoptions in the first place---720 in the past two decades, according to Salon. Let them leave the field and, instead of wasting our breath calling after them, let's give our $$, time and energy to either supporting more equitable agencies, or setting one up.

The Catholic Church is dying a slow death in the United States, regardless if they're the "liberals" in the worldwide church. Their refusal to join the rest of us in the 21st century will only continue to alienate would-be churchgoers.

Jonathan,

Both the HPV and Herpes vaccines are not considered viable because they relate to women's health (the Herpes vaccine went back to the drawing board after they discovered that it works best in women). The FDA and drug companies have a long-standing abohance to treating women's health issues. Maybe that's why they hate abortion so much?

This whole thing is just further evidence that many conservatives have are criminally unwilling to address the needs of children once they're out of the uterus. As one who has seen the effects of long-term foster care on children, this is FUCKED UP!

Whether or not clean cut, well mannered homos are adopting kids is the last, THE LAST thing the church oughta be worried about.

it makes perfect sense. less people to adopt the babies, the more babies for the priests to *care for*.

Freedom of assosiation is a longstanding and huge part of the Constitution. Why should Catholic Charities be forced to do something they don't agree with?

As usual, Dan need to take a pill.

Except that Catholic Charities does agree with same-sex adoptions. Its board of directors voted unanimously to permit them. The Church hierarchy said no, showing once again that in matters involving pastoral care and the laity it is utterly tone-deaf.

DJ - It is spelled 'association,' not 'assosiation' and no, Dan doesn't need to take a pill.

Hate is, STILL, not a family value. But it is a mantra of the religious extremists.

dan,

i'm totally in love with you--have been for some time.

bryan

DJ,

Freedom of association is not the same as freedom from criticism. But what is really strange is that nowhere in this 6-paragraph blurb is it suggested that the Catholic Church is acting illegally; it is acting immorally and unethically. Agree or disagree, no honest reading of this text would elicit the response that you gave on this forum.

So why talk about freedom of association at all? Is it to paint those who morally oppose bigotry (and its ill effects on children) as against freedom of association such that:

Oppose Bigotry Practiced By Non-Public Entities (i.e.: the Catholic Church) = Oppose Freedom of Association?

What a load of crap.

It is a little strange to think of the Pope directly involved in all the new rancid homophobia that Stone Cold Catholics are spouting.

But he is. Fixated. Dangerous to gay people. The loss of communists and the evil forces in society have pushed the Roman Chuch to find a new enemy.

In Spain - it backfired. After the Pope personally intervened in opposing gay marriage, the support for it improved a lot in polling.

Guess Spaniards finally figured the New Inquisition was out of touch in the 2006 era.

The one redeeming grace is the Pope's stand against the death penalty.

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