The Catholic Church Hates Gays… Posted by DAN SAVAGE 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.
The decision by Boston's Catholic Charities to give up all adoption services because of being required by the Vatican to break state law and refuse any and all gay adopters is one of the saddest things I've heard about in a long time. A reader comments from a particular perspective:
"I was raised Catholic, but, incidentally, I'm also adopted from South Korea through none other than Catholic Charities. I would have grown up in an orphanage in Korea, as that used to be the solution to children like me who were born out of wedlock, except that my biological mother decided to put me up for adoption. Her one specific request, and I feel it's an important and notable one, given the circumstances, was that I was to be raised Catholic. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd like to think it was because of how they treated her and their reputation, both of which are sterling in terms of adoption.
My Mom's Irish and my Dad's Italian-Lithuanian and a career military doctor, so I would have to say that I feel as American as anyone else and, for all the trouble I've had with my faith, especially in recent times with all of the Church's misguided decisions, pronouncements, and corruption, I still long to actually and truly believe. But, to hear this, even though I have not grown up in a homosexual family, tells me that clearly the Church's priorities are so skewed, if not outright bankrupt, that I almost feel inclined to pursue a different branch of Christianity. It seems inconceivable that this is their excuse to dismantle such an important part of Catholic Charities, and, for a student currently studying abroad like me, it is just another push in the long chain of events that give me great misgivings about the Church, especially in America, and about our treatment of homosexuals."
…I've said it before, but I'll say it again: one day the Church will apologize to gay people for the wounds it has inflicted on their souls and psyches. Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But one day. And now, they're punishing children to maintain their doctrinal purity. May God forgive them.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Posted by DAN SAVAGE 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.
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/archives/2006/03/05-11.php#a004755
And so is Andrew Sullivan:
The decision by Boston's Catholic Charities to give up all adoption services because of being required by the Vatican to break state law and refuse any and all gay adopters is one of the saddest things I've heard about in a long time. A reader comments from a particular perspective:
"I was raised Catholic, but, incidentally, I'm also adopted from South Korea through none other than Catholic Charities. I would have grown up in an orphanage in Korea, as that used to be the solution to children like me who were born out of wedlock, except that my biological mother decided to put me up for adoption. Her one specific request, and I feel it's an important and notable one, given the circumstances, was that I was to be raised Catholic. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd like to think it was because of how they treated her and their reputation, both of which are sterling in terms of adoption.
My Mom's Irish and my Dad's Italian-Lithuanian and a career military doctor, so I would have to say that I feel as American as anyone else and, for all the trouble I've had with my faith, especially in recent times with all of the Church's misguided decisions, pronouncements, and corruption, I still long to actually and truly believe. But, to hear this, even though I have not grown up in a homosexual family, tells me that clearly the Church's priorities are so skewed, if not outright bankrupt, that I almost feel inclined to pursue a different branch of Christianity. It seems inconceivable that this is their excuse to dismantle such an important part of Catholic Charities, and, for a student currently studying abroad like me, it is just another push in the long chain of events that give me great misgivings about the Church, especially in America, and about our treatment of homosexuals."
…I've said it before, but I'll say it again: one day the Church will apologize to gay people for the wounds it has inflicted on their souls and psyches. Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But one day. And now, they're punishing children to maintain their doctrinal purity. May God forgive them.
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/