"A Catholic Case for Same-sex Marriage": Gramick, DeBernardo

This month in Maryland and the state of Washington, an extraordinary dynamic is playing itself out:  Two Catholic governors are prodding legislators to pass bills legalizing same-gender marriage. Like Govs. Andrew Cuomo in New York and Pat Quinn in Illinois — whose states recently legalized same-sex civil unions — Govs. Martin O’Malley and Christine Gregoire are acting against the strongly expressed opposition of their church’s bishops.

As Catholics who are involved in lesbian and gay ministry and outreach, we are aware that many people, some of them Catholics, believe that Catholics cannot faithfully disobey the public policies of the church’s hierarchy. But this is not the case.

The Catholic Church is not a democracy, but neither is it a dictatorship. Ideally, our bishops should strive to proclaim the sensus fidelium , the faith as it is understood by the whole church. At the moment, however, the bishops and the majority of the church are at odds. A survey published in September by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 52 percent of Catholics support marriage equality and 69 percent support civil unions.

Those numbers shouldn’t surprise people who are familiar with the Catholic theological tradition. For example, Catholic thinking dictates that we should use the evidence we find in the natural world to help us reach our conclusions. Many Catholics have reflected on the scientific evidence that homosexuality is a natural variant in human sexuality, and understand that lesbian and gay love is as natural as heterosexual love.

 -full reflection at  The Washington Post.

Related articles

• New Ways Ministry: "Bondings" (queeringthechurch.com)
• Marriage Equality and History of Marriage: Some Catholic Resources (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
• Religion and Gay Marriage: Reactions to Prop 8 Ruling. (queeringthechurch.com)
• Catholics Speak Out for Marriage Equality in Maryland (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)

Edit Post ‹ Queering the Church — WordPress

In an unseemly echo of last year's story from Boulder, Colorado, where a Catholic school refused to educate the children of two lesbian mothers, a school in Broken Hill, Australia, likewise attempted to refuse admission to the kindergarten class to a child with two moms. The local bishop intervened, instructing the school to reverse its decision - but too late. The damage has been done, and the parents have now refused to enrol the child at a school wish demonstrated homophobia in the first place.

This is how the saga began:

The girl's parents, one of whom was reportedly baptised Catholic, enrolled her into kindergarten at Sacred Heart Primary School in Broken Hill for next year, but their application was rejected.

One of the mothers told the ABC the principal had phoned her and said the women's relationship and living situation was the reason the application had been turned down.

Trevor Rynne, principal of the Sacred Heart school, yesterday confirmed the girl had been rejected because of her parents' relationship but declined to comment further.

The Australian

Mr Rynne no doubt believed, in common with so many others who use their Catholic or other Christian allegiance as a cloak for their prejudice, that he was protecting the Catholic faith, but Bishop Kevin Manning put him smartly in his place, pointing out that he was misunderstanding the Catholic position.

Bishop Emertitus of Parramatta, Kevin Manning, who has responsibility for the Wilcannia-Forbes district covering Broken Hill, told The Australian this morning there was "no way in the world that we can persecute a child because of what their parents did".

"I've instructed (the school) to offer her the position," Bishop Manning said.

Bishop Manning said he was "absolutely appalled" by the girl's case, and that he had not been aware of it before it was reported in the media yesterday.

He said blaming a child for her parents' "sins" was not the attitude of the Catholic Church.

He described the girl's case as "most unusual" and said he would be raising the matter within the Catholic hierarchy.

"I will be taking this to the Australian bishops and asking them to make some pretty clear statements," he said.

He said the move by the school was out of step with Catholic teaching, and that something between the school's principal and priest must have got "twisted up or misinterpreted" for them to reach such a decision.

The Australian

However, the latest reports are that the parents have turned down the offer of enrolment:

A SAME-SEX couple whose daughter was refused a place at a Catholic school because of their sexuality has turned down a subsequent offer of enrolment after a senior bishop intervened on their behalf.

Related articles

• Australian Bishop Overturns School’s Exclusion Decision (New Ways Ministry)
• Good On You Kevin (andrewdoohan.wordpress.com)
• The Hill ain't broken, but the Catholics are cracked (thepunch.com.au)
• NSW school ordered to offer girl place (news.smh.com.au)

Catholic Bishops, Gay Marriage: "the Outer Fringes of Crazy Town"

Catholic mothers, like all others, delight in their offsprings' weddings - and those of other family members. They are not alone. Weddings are the occasions of major family gatherings, where we gather to celebrate with them, cement the family bonds and interrelationships that have been set up by earlier weddings when we catch up with news from those members we only see at weddings and funerals, and lubricate the family bonding with suitable refreshments, music and dance.

Such celebrations apply to all couples, opposite-sex or same-sex. A few months ago, a colleague told me that his son was preparing for a civil partnership with his then boyfriend - and my friend gave me a regular running commentary of the hoops his wife and son were making him jump through in the wedding preparations, from early visits to (gay) wedding shows and expos, to choosing the outfits, to planning the "wedding" reception. When my niece married her wife on a Cape Town beach a few years ago, my staunchly Catholic mother and the rest of the family gathered from across the country to celebrate with her, just as they regularly do for all family weddings.

All this is to do far, far more than simply "congratulate" the new spouses. Yet in New York, a report at Unicorn Booty claims that Archbishop Timothy Dolan has "forbidden" Catholics from even congratulating gay or lesbian newly-weds:

But then the decree takes a sharp right turn and steers right off a cliff into Even Crazier Town, the affluent suburb to the north of Crazy Town proper’s city limits.

Dolan, on behalf of the Catholic Church, forbids Catholics from even being happy for their newly married gay friends or offering congratulations. Failure to comply with this perversion of law from their all-knowing, all-loving god that hates some of the things he lovingly created in his own image will result in canonical sanctions – a fancy way of saying priest court.

Oh, and stay the F away from Catholic churches, homos.

- Unicorn Booty

Now, the writer of this has himself veered off into Crazy Town - there is not a word in the decree to prevent Catholics from congratulating or celebrating with lesbian or gay newly weds, just a ban on doing it on Church property, or by Church personnel. One of the tragic features of (some) bishops' crazed, irrational overreaction to gay marriage, has been the crazed, irrational overreaction to the Catholic Church from (some) secular gay activists.

There is, however, good reason nevertheless to conclude that Catholic bishops' reactions to gay marriage, in the US and in Scotland, have taken them to the outer fringes of crazy town - but not for the reasons  given by Kevin Farrell at Unicorn Booty.