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February 22, 2010

Gay Marriage Leads D.C. Archbishop to End Foster Care Program

Catholic Charities has given its caseload of 43 children, 35 foster families, and 7 staff members to a Maryland-based family-care agency so as not to disrupt client care.

Julia Duin

The other shoe has dropped here in Washington, D.C., in a long conflict between the local Catholic diocese and the District of Columbia.

After warning for months that the District's pending same-sex marriage law — slated to go into effect March 2 — put its 80-year-old foster care program in jeopardy, the Archdiocese of Washington formally ended its program February 1.

It is the third Catholic diocese in the country to do so. The archdioceses of San Francisco and Boston stopped their adoption programs in 2006 after their respective states legalized gay marriage (California has since repealed its law) and made it clear that local Catholic Charities affiliates would have to work with homosexual couples.

The District's law would obligate all outside contractors working with the city to recognize gay couples by giving spousal benefits to such couples and allowing them to adopt available children. The Archdiocese of Washington refused to do this. Its Catholic Charities affiliate has turned over its caseload of 43 children with 35 foster families — along with 7 staff members — to Bethesda, Maryland-based National Center for Children and Families so as not to disrupt client care.

The foster care and adoption programs were among the 63 social service programs that the District paid Catholic Charities about $22.5 million to run. Of that amount, $2 million went to the foster care program. Because of the large amounts of money involved, it is highly unlikely that Catholic parishioners could raise enough funds to make up the difference.

When Donald Wuerl became the archbishop of Washington in 2006, many of us thought his main battle would be dealing with pro-choice Catholic politicians. Instead, his Rubicon has proved to be the D.C. marriage issue, a battle I am guessing he did not anticipate. He is now caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea. The Vatican is adamant against allowing gay couples to adopt. As for the District, one of the most liberal areas in the country, it is not surprising that, with a Democrat in the White House, local gay activists began pushing for the right to legally marry.

When the D.C. city council passed a bill allowing gay marriage in fall 2009, the archdiocese served notice that the bill did not contain a meaningful religious exemption for contractors who believe marriage is solely between a man and a woman. A storm of invective ensued, mostly from politicians and activists who blamed Catholics for manipulating the political process. Two hundred local clergy, including the local Episcopal bishop, banned together to denounce the archdiocese. Most of the local media trashed Archbishop Wuerl for his stand.

Wuerl and his bishops fought back, insisting they were not abandoning the city's poor nor its children by threatening to pull out of its social service programs. They pointed out the city had changed the rules on the ground, making them ineligible for contracts, grants, and licenses for programs ranging from immigration services to foster care.

The outlook for religious organizations involved in charity work is not good. The Salvation Army lost $3.5 million in social service contracts with the city of San Francisco because it would not provide health benefits to gay employees' partners. The Boy Scouts are not allowed to meet in government-owned buildings because of its stance on gay Scout leaders. A spokesman for a D.C. Catholic Charities affiliate told me that coupled gays are employed among its 850-member work force, so that it's a matter of time — after March 2 — before someone threatens a lawsuit unless his or her gay partner gets health insurance. The juggernaut is here.

There is much strong sentiment on this issue. When I wrote a front-page piece on the issue last week, I got 57 comments off the bat, the majority of which criticized Catholics. An anonymous local Catholic blogger set out the issue quite clearly by saying that the question is not if, but when the archdiocese is going to end up in court over this.

Catholic dioceses around the country undoubtedly are watching what happens in Washington. The city council has rammed through the legislation — which it refused to put to popular vote — even though they knew this would tie up the more conservative religious groups. Meanwhile, most observers in D.C. agree that Archbishop Wuerl was left with no morally acceptable choice but to withdraw the foster care and adoption programs, which are on the front lines of this debate. Expect him to eventually pull out of the other $20.5 million worth of contracts as well.

Comments

Just another example of what can happen when government goes against common sense and the will of the people. The Catholic Church is acting on principle. Finally, someone is drawing a line and saying enough is enough. Of course, they will be excoriated by the press and other liberal institutions who really aren't interested in being fair to the Catholic Church.

The Catholic position is just pathetic. The base their condescendingly slanderous position on "homosexuals" is conjured up from their archaic "Natural Law," which dates back to Aristotle. Slavery is "natural," but Gay people aren't. Give me a break. Real "Natural Law" really boils down to: If it's not forbidden by the laws of physics, it's mandatory. The morality you bring to that determines the morality you extract from it. And the morality you should bring to that is the Golden Rule.

If the church takes funds from a government that does not discriminate against gay citizens, then the church cannot discriminate against gay citizens. If the church wishes to continue to discriminate against gay citizens, then the church cannot take government funds. Seems rather straightforward.

I'm so glad a non-discriminating organization has chosen to take care of these children. At least we can have better role models for children than the close-minded Church leaders who've shown a pattern of ignoring their past mistakes (abuse and discrimination, anyone??)

I see the anti religionists are out in force on this thread.

Why should the Catholic Church be force to adopt to gays or even employ them. They are a private group and the gay lobby should start their own group if that is what they want.

Of course that is not the agenda, it is militant pro homosexual advocacy that is what they want. They want people to accept that their perversion as normal even though the majority of Americans have voted numerous times they think it is not normal.

Decent Americans know that the sexual perversion so prevalent in American society today is one of the leading causes of the downfall, the degradation of our society, of our country. Why then do we continue to tolerate the immersion of our young people in it? Why do we continue to tolerate it in our society and among our elected? Why do we continue to be silent as the homosexual agenda of forced acceptance of unhealthy sexual perversion is shoved down our throats?

This story is interesting because the Catholic Church has said discrimination against gay people in the workplace, concerning health benefits and credit is unjust and even sinful - going back to the Bishops statements in the mid- 1970s. How does that square with not giving a gay employee's partner health benefits?

And oddly enough some of the most pro-gay areas of the country are heavily Catholic. In fact, a recent poll showed Catholic support in the U.S. for gay marriage was around 54% - Protestant support was only 44%.

i find it honestly pathetic that catholic churches have decided to close their foster programs because of gay marriage. the idea of throwing away the lives of children becuase you don't agree with homsexuality is not just ignorant but hurtful. not for gay people but the children, they deserve more than to be tossed away becasue a church is unable to deal with it. god shall judge them i promise you that

Actually I'm pretty sure their views are based on the Bible. Which predates Aristole. I'm not Catholic but I'll bet they have done much more for children than anyone spewing hatred on this blog. The Bible is very plain on the fact that homosexuality is a sexual sin, even more so because it is a perversion of a sexual sin. The Bible tells us to treat everyone with love and respect. That is why Christians must tell the truth, which is we cannot allow our desires to rule over us.

Actually what is ignorant is sticking your head in the sand and saying that gay couples lifestyles choices are compatible with bringing up children. Adam and Steve do not take the place of a nurturing mother/father and visa versa.

Homosexuals have a decreased life expectancy and are ten times more likely to contract a disease than heterosexuals.Homosexual practitioners were proportionately more apt to sexually abuse foster or adoptive children according to recent study of Illinois Child Services(1997-2002).
Traditional child-placement policies were therefore based on assumptions that children fostered by those who engaged in homosexuality would be more apt to be sexually molested, socially isolated, and engage in homosexuality themselves (Bigner & Bozett, 1989; Golombok & Tasker, 1996).
It seems that their research was correct and giving homosexuals our children in foster homes and adoptions should be re-examined.

I really don't see what the problem is supposed to be: The city says contractors cannot discriminate against gay people; the Catholic church says it believes it has to, and so passes on its contract work to someone willing to do it under the new rules. Everybody wins!

@ sonlil80: Aristotle was born in 384 B.C., as in BEFORE CHRIST. So how does the Bible pre-date Aristotle when Jesus wasn't even born yet?

It makes you wonder the value of a "Christian education".

Jesus Christ in Christianity is God. God through his prophets wrote the Old Testament. The Old Testament (part of the Bible) predates Aristotle.

It makes you wonder about the value of secular education.

Yo razorfin, genius.....when do ya think the ancient oral traditions started that resulted in the OLD TESTAMENT? Hint: well BEFORE Aritotle. Where did you get YOUR education?

These comments just prove what most fair-minded, thinking people realize: write something that's even mildly critical of gay marriage or gay adoption and you'll get an avalanche of hateful blowback. Even on a Christian website. Having a civil, intelligent conversation thus becomes impossible.

This post really distorts what is going on here. The citizens of DC, through their elected representatives, voted to legalize gay marriage. It wasn't "rammed through." It was voted on in the normal course after extensive and vigorous debate. The DC election board twice held that, under DC's home charter (like a state's constitution) a referendum could not be used to address a civil rights issue. Opponents of the bill filed suit to block approval of the bill but the DC Superior Court upheld the election board's decision. This is how a constitutional democracy works. A long time ago the Christian Right objected to the so-called "tyranny of unelected judges." Then, once elected judges did something they disliked, they objected to the elected judges. Then, when the legislators do something they don't like, they become enraged that they "refused to put [it] to a popoular vote" as if "popular vote" was actually how our constitutional republic works. Sorry, but we elect representatives who pass legislation. We don't operate by public referenda except in very limited circumstances.

The bill contains safeguards so that the Catholic church and other opponents are not required to perform or recognize those gay marriages. DC, like any other state or locality, has the right to decide how its money is spent. If the elected representatives of DC decide that they don't want to give their tax dollars to an institution that discriminates in the provision of benefits and services to a part of its citizenry, by what legal principle should they be denied that right?

Catholic Charities is NOT using its own money to provide adoption and foster care services. It is TAKING DC's money to provide services for DC residents. The same is true for the Salvation Army whose predicament the post decries. And, something similar is essentially true for the Boy Scouts. Each of these groups continues to have the right to preach/teach what it wants, to refuse to sanctify relationships to which it objects, and to refuse to hire or give benefits to whoever it wants. What they CAN'T do, is expect elected governments to give them money, contracts, or meeting space.

I want to commend the Catholic Church and it's leaders for standing on Biblical morality. By the way, Old Testament prohibitions of homosexuality go back to Moses (about 1400 BC), therefore their stand should be supported by all Christians and Jews. Shame on the religious leaders who criticized rather than supporting them on this issue. This issue is a concern of all conservative Christian groups trying to provide adoption and/or foster care. Even if a group does not take any government money, they are still required to work within the laws governing such services, so even not taking any government monies will not guarantee freedom to follow religious beliefs in the long run. We who believe God's Word need to stand together with one another on these moral issues, even if we disagree on theological and doctrinal interpretations. The true losers were not the Catholic Church, the true losers were the children.

About the "golden rule"--remember that Christ said:

Mat 22:37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'

Mat 22:38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.

Mat 22:39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'

The first and foremost is to love God--not to love your neighbor as yourself. If by loving your neighbor as yourself you are acting against loving God then you are breaking the most important commandment. Loving God comes first.

This is how we are to love God...

Jhn 14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Since Jesus is God and therefore wrote the scripture through the Apostles and the prophets all scripture that calls homosexuality a sin thereby calls all those who practice that sin disobedient to Christ. Those who are disobedient to Christ therefore are not acting in love. They are breaking the first, most important commandment.

Those who refuse to acknowledge any other scripture except the words of Christ should realize that Christ Himself never penned one word of His ministry. It was left to secondary and even tertiary sources to do that. By accepting the words of Christ in the Bible one must also accept that truth can and did come from those designated by God to speak the truth for Him. In so doing, it must then be acknowledged that this is also possible with the rest of scripture for Old and New Testaments.

For those who call quoting scripture idolizing the Bible--Christ Himself often quoted scripture--by such reasoning He idolized scripture as well and by his actions taught is disciples to act likewise.

Being "Gay" is a lifestyle choice.(Never been proven otherwise) We just hide it under the guise of "Freedom". We want to be PC as not to offend anyone. Choices with no consequences seems to be the order of the day. Why not legalize it and free our conscience of any guilt, while we are at it....... let's punish those who do go work on behalf of those who have made a mistake... and let's call them names to and tell them how insensitive they are. You folks can't have it both ways.
In the end you lose.

Christian Lawyer wrote: "The citizens of DC, through their elected representatives, voted to legalize gay marriage." That's absolute hogwash. Whenever marriage redefinition has been put to a popular vote (and it NEVER has in DC), even in the most liberal of states, it has been DEFEATED. Christian Lawyer is doubling down on the distortions she accuses other of.

It's uncontroversial outside of "conservative" religious circles that the "homosexual" clobber verses are about idolatrous practices, such as in fertility cults, and not about sexual orientations. They show the power of idolatry to warp one's sexuality and even one's love of one's child...such as sacrificing one's child to Moloch. Sexual orientations are not caused by idolatry, but idolatry can cause one to be untrue to one's self.

The religious right is biblio-idolatrously abusing the context of the Bible by carefully ignoring it, from carefully finding out what it even is. They're even using "homosexual" Bibles, for it's own greedy purposes. Never mind that an obsolete science theory hardly should be used in Bible translations.

If religious "conservatives" can justify discrimination with such disgusting tactics, they can quash competition for church leadership positions by GLBT people...they can create hostile environments to drive GLBT people out of one's neighborhoods in order to take snatch up businesses, business and properties etc. Keep GLBT people from running for public office. Make GLBT people vulnerable to blackmailing tactics...in other words, bring back the Jim Crow, "Massive Resistance" tactics of another era to abuse and control a different group of people today, for the same purposes. Shameless greed and scapegoating hardly demonstrate the Golden Rule.

Christ quoted the Torah, but did Christ abuse the Torah as religious conservatives do? I doubt it...so why should Christians condone the abuse of clobber verses ripped out from well known biblical contexts and repurposed for greed and unearned power? Why is the religious right distracting people from thinking about idolatry, from thinking about greed and discrimination, from thinking about justice for all instead of privilege for some? Because, that's what "white" conservative Evangelicals have usually done in the past, and from which they obviously haven't repented...just found a different group with which to abuse and scapegoat for their self righteous fun and their unearned profit.

Anyone interested in actual evidence on the issue of gay adoption may be interested to read this order in an adoption case out of Florida in late 2008. A gay foster parent petitioned to adopt the two boys he had been fostering for years. Florida's Dept. of Children and Families opposed the adoption. The trial court judge heard testimony from experts proffered by both sides over a four-day trial. In a lengthy, but non-legalese opinion, she granted the adpotion and found Florida's ban on gay adoption unconstitutional because the ban harmed the children it was meant to protect. The opinion sets out in great detail all of the expert testimony proffered by both sides, including extensive references to all the supporting studies on which the various experts relied. The appellate court heard oral argument on the matter last summer but has not ruled yet. Here's the trial court's order.

http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file16_37906.pdf

Government by referenda is essentially chaos. It fundamentally violates the system established by the Founding Fathers. Americans have fought and died for the principles of representative democracy. The vote by the citizen-elected DC City Council was 11-2. It wasn't even close. If the DC residents don't like how their duly elected representatives voted, they can vote them out the next time. That's how representative democracy works. The representatives speak for the people. One may not like how they speak, but their decisions do not become illegitimate merely because some people oppose them.

City law bans the use of referenda on any matter covered by DC's Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, RELIGION, and a bunch of other things, including sexual orientation. So, the law that was used to deny a public referendum on gay marriage is the same law that prohibits the use of a public referendum to deprive evangelicals of their rights. Conservative evangelicals, a microscopic minority in DC, might someday be thankful for that protection.

"We who believe God's Word need to stand together with one another on these moral issues, even if we disagree on theological and doctrinal interpretations. The true losers were not the Catholic Church, the true losers were the children."
---And those of us who believe God's word means something a bit different than you believe it does should take your side anyway? And as I said before, there *are* no losers in this. The Catholic Church lost nothing, really; it doesn't have to deal with the adoptions and whatever anymore. The children lose nothing; the program is still going, just under different management. The city loses nothing for the same reason.

"Since Jesus is God and therefore wrote the scripture through the Apostles and the prophets all scripture that calls homosexuality a sin thereby calls all those who practice that sin disobedient to Christ. Those who are disobedient to Christ therefore are not acting in love. They are breaking the first, most important commandment."
---I haven't been reading this particular site much, so please forgive me if this is wrong to bring up, but there are quite a lot of Christians who do not believe the Bible is inerrant. Among those who do, there are quite a few who disagree with the usual translations, interpretations, and applications of the very few passages that mention homosexuality at all.

"Being "Gay" is a lifestyle choice.(Never been proven otherwise)"
---No, if you assert that it's a "lifestyle choice" then it's on you to prove your point. But what, exactly, do you mean by "lifestyle choice" anyway, and what do you thing it means to be gay? I'm not trying to pull anything here or make a joke; it's an entirely serious question. To me, "lifestyle choices" are things like partying and doing drugs, raising a family, being active in church (or not), being promiscuous, etc. And being gay means being sexually and/or emotionally attracted to the same sex in the way that most people are attracted to the opposite sex. That may well *affect* the lifestyle choices you make, but I don't see how, other than by severely misusing the language, it could *be* a lifestyle choice in and of itself. Take me, for example: I'm gay as can be. Attracted to guys since before I even knew it was possible, and never developed any interest of that kind in women at all. Not a lifestyle choice, as I understand the phrase to mean in plain, ordinary English. However: that has greatly contributed to the fact that I've never so much as been on a date, much less had sex. That would legitimately qualify as a lifestyle, but it hardly seems to be one anybody (other than myself) would have reason to complain of.

"Christian Lawyer wrote: "The citizens of DC, through their elected representatives, voted to legalize gay marriage." That's absolute hogwash. Whenever marriage redefinition has been put to a popular vote (and it NEVER has in DC), even in the most liberal of states, it has been DEFEATED. Christian Lawyer is doubling down on the distortions she accuses other of."
---We live in a republic, also known as a representative democracy. We do not live in a direct democracy. Under the normal course of events, the general public does not vote directly on issues; it votes for government officials, who then make decisions for us. Do you want *all* issues put directly to the people, all the time? If not, why, other than the fact you believe you'd win, do you set this one apart?

In the past when private agencies and schools discriminated against minorities they were not allowed to receive government money for their work. It's the same today.

The Church thinks that it's moral view should make it exempt from bans against discrimination. Under our laws that may be true. But at the same time our laws do not permit them to receive taxpayer money to engage in such discrimination. The Church is basically saying, we are entitled to discriminate, and we want taxpayers to help us do it.

Just like with the Boy Scouts, they may be entitled to do it, but we are not required to give our tax dollars to help them do it.

Dear Gregory Peterson, you silly silly man...using research and facts to coutner the evangelicals. Remember it was Mark Noll, a professor from Wheaton College, who said "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."

Christian Lawyer brings up a specific case that has unique circumstances. You cannot always generalize about the issue at large from such cases. There may indeed be instances when a child, considering the other options, would do better with a gay parent. Indeed, there are many cases where children have done well despite being in undesirable circumstances. Citing such cases doesn't really prove a whole lot.

As Christians I think we should strive for the highest ideals of our faith. The theme of the sanctity of the man-woman relationship is central to much of the the Old and New Testaments. Some things in the Bible are not totally clear, but the teaching about homosexuality is surely not one of them. All the spin (it's about "hospitality," etc.) is just mental gymnastics. Let's cut out this business of "your interpretation" vs "my interpretation." It's much more honest to simply say you disagree with Scripture. Having said that, using Scripture as an excuse for gay-bashing is unacceptable.

While government by referenda may not exactly be chaos I do agree it is not desirable. But the issue of marriage is central to our culture and our faith. That's one thing people SHOULD have the opportunity to vote on. Interestingly, many on the left side of the political spectrum argue vehemently against the electoral college, which is another way of avoiding direct referenda.

The question is not whether Catholic Charities of Washington has "religious freedom" to discriminate against Gay couples, but whether they are accepting public funds in the process! Gay people are taxpayers too, and I don't want my tax dollars going to organizations that discriminate against me, any more than a Catholic would want his tax dollars going toward an organization that discriminates against Catholics.

Catholic Charities of Boston went through this same situation years ago. I frankly couldn't care less if their adoption service discriminated against Gay couples or Muslim couples or whomever. Problem was, Catholic Charities of Boston were being funded by the State of Massachusetts to the tune of a million bucks per year! And they were given a choice: Either stop discriminating against Gay couples, or give up their public funding. They chose to give up the funding. Fine by me. You wanna feed at public trough, you'd better be prepared to play by the rules.

Idolatry according to the homosexual: