Catholic Church and LGBTQ People: Clues, Hearsay, Spectacularly Failed Pastoral Leadership in Face of Oppression and Suffering

Jamie L. Manson, "For LGBTQ Catholics, there is little hope in hearsay":

Reading the Signs of the Times: Five Interconnected Stories from Today's News (Mummers, Maine Governor, Arizona Bishop, Wheaton, Mr. Trump and Mr. Clinton's Penis)

These seemingly disconnected stories have several things in common. What do you think? What common thread(s) do you spot here?

Arkansas, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Pennsylvania? and NOM's Very Bad Day: Where Marriage Equality Stands in the U.S., 20 May 2014

Recommended: Miranda Blue's Series at Right-Wing Watch on Globalizing Homophobia and Role of U.S. Religious Right

Matthew 28:19-20, The Great Commission

We have known for some time now that the fingerprints of the American religious right are all over the increasing hostility, the outright violence, toward gay citizens of various African nations. When the astroturfed demonstrations against marriage equality in France got underway, and when they also elicited outright violence against gay folks in France, I noted that the fingerprints of the American anti-gay group National Organization for Marriage (NOM) were all over those astroturfed demonstrations, and I predicted more of same, more exporting of American-style faith-based homophobia to more parts of the world, as marriage equality is enacted in more and more states in the U.S.

Maine Supreme Court: National Organization for Marriage Must Disclose Donors, and Fred Karger's Commentary

At The New Civil Rights Movement, Fred Karger comments on the recent ruling by the Maine Supreme Court that the anti-gay group National Organization for Marriage must disclose the names of donors who gave megabucks in 2009 to strip gay citizens of Maine of the right to civil marriage. Inquiring minds (including mine) have long wanted to know who's funding NOM, and why NOM fights so desperately to keep the identity of its top donors hidden, even flouting state campaign-finance laws to achieve that goal.

Turning Corner with Marriage Equality (and Catholic Contributions)

And, of course, one of the biggest news stories of this election cycle, which still has not received as much attention as it deserves in the national media, is the story of the unprecedented victory of marriage equality in not one but four states.  As Ashley Fetters notes in The Atlantic, the election marks the first time in American history that marriage equality was passed by a popular vote, breaking the streak of unbroken ballot-box defeats on which the religious right, with its attendant Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus and the National Organization for Marriage, has long counted to establish precedents for denying rights to LGBT citizens.  

Knights of Columbus Back in News: $15.8 Million Spent Since 2005 to Strip Gays of Civil Rights

Earlier in the week, I excerpted observations from Joanna Brooks's The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith (NY: Free Press, 2012) in which Brooks notes (p. 174) that the fight to snatch the civil right of marriage from gay citizens of California cost $82 million.  Brooks points out that this is the largest amount of money spent to date on a culture-war issue in the U.S.

Catholic v. Catholic: Marriage Equality Debate (and Battles) Continue

And on the more ignorance, less bliss front (I'm piggybacking here on what I just posted about Krugman's latest): readers will be shocked to learn (not!) that His Holiness has once again attacked same-sex marriage--in this case, yesterday in remarks he made in an address to Catholic bishops from Minnesota and the Dakotas.  He specifically addressed the situation in the U.S., where momentum for the recognition of civil marriage for same-sex couples continues to grow.

Lori in the Limelight: What about Those "Large Anonymous Gifts" Used to Fight Disclosure of Sex-Abuse Files?

And speaking of the USCCB religious freedom guru, Bishop William Lori and the increasingly high-profile role he's playing in American politics and the public square (I have been speaking of these matters lately, haven't I?):

Does it strike anyone other than me, I wonder, as . . . more than coincidental . . . that Lori's precipitous rise to power within the structures of the USCCB was preceded by his announcement in 2009 that his Bridgeport diocese had been given "large anonymous gifts" to enable it to fight against opening its files about priests sexually abusing minors to public inspection?

Spin Continues: NY Catholic Official Attributes Marriage Equality Victory to Money

As I noted in a series of postings following the vote for marriage equality in New York--a series about how the Catholic church has turned itself into anything but a welcoming place for its LGBT brothers and sisters at this point in history--no sooner had the vote for marriage equality in New York taken place than leading luminaries of the American Catholic intellectual center began to whisper about how the vote had been bought by rich gays.

Another Conversion Experience among Anti-Gay Activists: Marc Mutty of Catholic Diocese of Maine Reveals Troubled Conscience

Something is happening these days.  First, a leading propagandist for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), Louis Marinelli, has what amounts to a conversion experience and begins to see the real human faces of the gay people he and NOM have attacked over the years.  Whose lives they've deliberately sought to make miserable, in the name of God.

Commentary on U.S. Catholic Bishops' Collusion in Attacking Gay Citizens of Maine: A Collection of Opinion Pieces

Some helpful comments are now appearing at various websites, re: the use of Catholic money by bishops around the country to remove the right of marriage from their gay brothers and sisters in Maine recently.

Peter Isely at The Survivors Network of Abuse by Priests (SNAP) issued a press statement about this yesterday. He notes that when challenged to help survivors of sexual abuse by priests deal with their trauma and disrupted lives, bishops routinely say that they are each “independent.” One diocese cannot help another in such cases. Each diocese is expected to deal with the financial pressures caused by the abuse crisis independently of the other.

So it’s fascinating to note that, when the challenge is to find funding to beat up on gay folks, the bishops are suddenly able to collaborate. They seem unable to pool their resources and help victims of clerical sexual abuse. But they are eminently capable of gathering funds from brother bishops to attack their gay brothers and sisters.

Something is wrong with this picture, from a gospel standpoint.

Peter Isely’s statement links to an article of Jen Colletta at Philadelphia Gay News, noting that the archdiocese of Philadelphia sent the diocese of Portland, Maine, $50,000 a month and a half after the Philadelphia archdiocese closed two Cath0olic high schools, indicating that it could no longer afford to keep them open.

The latest issue of the monthly newsletter of the Catholic lay group Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), In the Vineyard, carries an opinion piece by Daniel B. Sullivan commenting on the political use of money donated by Catholics for non-political uses, for support of the church and its charitable causes. To read Sullivan’s commentary, click on the link I just provided, scroll down to “Opinion Piece,” and after you finish reading that portion of Sullivan’s article, click on this link and read the rest.

Sullivan focuses as well on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, noting that its $50,000 contribution came on the heels of a statement by Philadelphia Bishop Joseph McFadden, as the two schools were closed, “Right now, we’re making ends meet.”

Sullivan notes, as I’ve done on Bilgrimage, that there are serious issues re: accountability and transparency in how bishops put money to political use, when it is donated by the faithful for upkeep of churches and to further charitable causes. Many Catholics do not know that their money is being used for overtly political ends. Many do not agree with the political causes bishops are funding with money donated for other purposes.

And as Sullivan points out, because churches enjoy tax-exempt status, the diversion of church donations to political causes can circumvent tax regulations and the public scrutiny that goes along with those regulations, as church funds are placed in the coffers of outright political organizations. Sullivan wonders if this is an orchestrated strategy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Sullivan urges Catholics to think twice before writing their next check to their parish or the bishop’s appeal fund.

Sullivan’s statement is followed by a reflection by theologian Anthony Padovano, who looks at Catholic bishops’ use of lay Catholic donations to attack their gay brothers and sisters from a theological standpoint. Padovano raises two critical questions about this practice:

1. Do lay Catholics donate to the church in the expectation that their money will be used to fight same-sex marriage (or to fund legal battles related to clerical sexual abuse)?

2. Is it productive for the church to pursue moral goals by attempting to coerce secular society and to strongarm the political process? If its moral goals are admirable and church teaching is correct about issues like homosexuality, then shouldn’t we allow the goals and teaching to speak for themselves and convince others of their correctness without trying to bully people into submission?

Finally, Michael Bayly’s Wild Reed blog carries a summary today of commentary about the attempt of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to use Catholic Charities (and the thousands of indigent people it serves) as political bargaining chips in a battle to undermine the non-discrimination laws of D.C. Michael’s conclusion:

Humanity has progressed too far with regards to basic fairness, equality, and compassion to be held back by the likes of those stunted individuals calling the shots and making the threats in such crudely self-serving places as the chancery of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

The bishops think they are on a roll, after their “victory” over their gay brothers and sisters in Maine and their last-minute interjection of the Stupak amendment into the health-care reform bill. It’s clear that the Catholic bishops of the U.S. worked hard—and probably as a body—to remove the right of marriage from gay citizens of Maine, because that provides them and their right-wing allies with a talking point they desperately want: the claim that same-sex marriage is not supported even in a liberal, secularized New England state like Maine.

What the bishops do not want to have acknowledged or discussed, however, is the lavish outlay of funds required to lure a bare majority of the citizens of that state to remove rights from gay citizens. While 53% of Maine’s citizens voted to remove the right of marriage from gay citizens, 47% voted against that action. And that 53% was bought at a very high price, indeed.

It was bought at price of hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by Catholics to their dioceses to keep church doors open, to fund Catholic schools, to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and heal the sick. The bishops won a temporary political “victory” in Maine while losing a significant long-term moral battle. When an ostensibly moral cause requires such lavish outlay of money donated for far more morally defensible reasons, accompanied by the use of lies and trickery, to carry the day, one has to wonder about the “morality” driving the cause.

Morally speaking, the U.S. Catholic bishops are already on shaky ground, indeed, due to their handling of the sexual abuse crisis. Even though the diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has continued to fight tooth and nail to prevent the opening of its files about clerical abuse cases, and though the forthcoming report on abuse in the diocese of Dublin has been sent back to court for further fine-tuning, these and other revelations about what the bishops have known and done in the abuse crisis will eventually see the light of day.

And when they do, and as we ask how the bishops could imagine they might have he moral high road with their attack on their gay brothers and sisters, we’ll be told by bishops and their defenders that our interest in these revelations stems from anti-Catholicism and a desire to bash bishops. What’s astonishing in many bishops’ behavior is their apparent lack of self-awareness—on the part of bishops, who profess to be moral teachers, after all—that people whose moral house is not in order push themselves into the limelight as moral exemplars at a certain risk.

When people claim to be moral teachers, those whom they teach will naturally look to the lives of the teacher to see how his life exemplifies the values he’s teaching. If there’s a wide and easily discerned gap between the teaching and the life that is lived, people will wonder. And they’ll talk. And in the case of the U.S. Catholic bishops, that talk isn’t anti-Catholic or bishop-bashing.

It’s constructive, necessary talk by people of good will about how Catholics deserve better moral leaders, more authentic (and more gospel-oriented) shepherds. It’s talk about how we find it very difficult to hear the message when the one proclaiming it belies the message in gross ways.

Sometimes it’s better for authority figures to stop and listen, rather than rev up the belligerence, when their claims to authority are on shaky ground. It’s not at all wise to brandish a big stick and issue threats as the ground quickly slides away underneath you all the while you’re waving your stick.

Exclusionary Politics or Care for the Poor?: Reflections on the Eroding Moral Authority of the U.S. Catholic Bishops

I appreciate the discussion that followed my posting two days ago about the latest Catholic hall of shame—the list of Catholic dioceses across the U.S. (and in the Caribbean) that sent donations to the diocese of Portland, Maine, to attack gay human beings in Maine recently. Some readers have noted that if you look carefully at the list of donors to the Portland diocese which the diocese provided the Maine Ethics Commission on 23 October, you’ll see more bishops than those I listed contributing to this attack.

That’s correct, and I’m glad to have it pointed out. I’ve revised the list to try to include the names of any bishops I missed with my initial compilation.

Another issue that has surfaced in the discussion is the question of whether these dioceses took up special collections to support the Maine initiative. I don’t have any way of knowing for certain, but I suspect that the vast majority of the dioceses, if not all of them, contributing to the assault on their gay brothers and sisters in Maine used funds donated by parishioners in ordinary Sunday collections each week.

That’s to say that I suspect that most Catholics from all over the country whose donations to the church were used in this mean-spirited political initiative had no idea at all that when they were dropping their dollars into church collection baskets, they were funding a political attack on their gay sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. I suspect that most Catholics around the country imagined that these dollars were going to be used to support schools and church buildings, clothe and shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, tend to the sick, and so forth.

Faithful Catholics need to be critically aware that bishops have used and will continue to use money they donate to the church for purposes other than those for which they believe they’re giving. One of the ongoing revelations of the crisis of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic church is that bishops have used—and continue to use—millions on millions of dollars donated by good Catholics who believe they are giving for all the reasons outlined in the previous paragraph but who find, instead, that their donations have been used to beat up survivors of clerical abuse who seek a hearing from the church, to hire aggressive lawyers to threaten survivors with hardball court battles, to pay off families and buy their silence, and to influence the media and criminal justice system to back off from investigation of the abuse crisis and its cover-up.

As many Catholics have become aware that their donations are being used for such purposes, they have been rightly outraged. As they ought to be. And they ought to be equally outraged, it seems to me, to discover that they are now contributing to a national Catholic political cause many of them do not support—to put gay folks in our place as second-class citizens and defective human beings, to show gay people that we do not count and ought never to expect to count, and to remove rights from us.

The American Catholic church needs to have a national conversation about its bishops’ continued use of church funds to pursue ends of which lay Catholics, the funding base of the church, do not approve. And about which they do not even know, since no laws require that the church provide comprehensive, accurate accounting of the monies it takes in and how it expends those monies.

Meanwhile, as the Catholic bishops find money to fund attacks on a vulnerable group of brothers and sisters, they continue to close churches and curb charitable programs in many of the dioceses that sent money to Maine in recent months. As Timothy Kincaid notes at Box Turtle Bulletin yesterday, on 16 July, the archdiocese of St. Louis ponied up $10,000 for the attack on gay citizens in Maine.

But on 22 June, less than a month before, the St. Louis archdiocese eliminated four positions at Catholic Charities, Missouri’s largest provider of social services. As it did so, the archdiocese announced that it had to cut jobs to downsize.

As Timothy Kincaid notes, “Choosing exclusionary politics over care for the poor does not yield itself to many PR successes.” Indeed. Nor should it, because it’s a lamentable betrayal of gospel values, one that radically undermines the attempt of the church to proclaim God’s love to the world. This kind of behavior makes the church’s proclamation of the gospel message sound exceedingly hollow.

Some defensive Catholics leading the charge in these aggressive political battles are trying to raise the tired old ghost of anti-Catholicism (see here, here, and here), with claims that the secular media and progressive organizations are piling on as the bishops make their voice heard in the public square—in a way that the media and progressive groups would never do if any religious group other than Catholics were under consideration. What’s baffling about that charge—beside its tiredness, and the expectation that it will find legs even now, as new revelations of the bishops’ complicity in covering up sexual abuse of children by priests continue to roll forth—is how oblivious it is to the primary reason that many Americans, including large numbers of Catholics, are disgusted with the behavior of the U.S. Catholic bishops, and unwilling to listen to them as moral teachers.

The bishops have, on their own and with no help from anyone else, done a very effective job of stirring up critical scrutiny of their activities and resistance to their role as moral standard-bearers. And it seems very unlikely to me that the willingness many bishops have just exhibited in the Maine case to place exclusionary politics over care of the poor is going to help their case.

It need not be anti-Catholic to note this. In fact, Catholics concerned about the future of their church ought to be intently concerned about the huge gap that has opened between what the church wants to teach, and how many of its leaders are now behaving—particularly in the political arena and with their handling of the abuse crisis, and particularly re: their gay brothers and sisters. It is very difficult to talk about respect for human rights and concern for a culture of respect for life, when those spouting such rhetoric target hurting people, to make their lives even more miserable.

It is exceedingly difficult to talk about love, salvation, being a sacramental sign of God in the world, and communion when everything one does in the case of a group of vulnerable human beings belies the core meaning of each of those terms. The bishops are doing a splendid job of undermining their authority as moral teachers. They need not turn to the old canard of the anti-Catholic media in an anti-Catholic culture to explain why they find their role as moral authorities questioned and contested.

And what the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., announced yesterday is not going to help the bishops regain the moral high road one little bit. The Catholic archdiocese of D.C. announced yesterday that if D.C. does not suspend its non-discrimination laws as it entertains a same-sex marriage bill, the archdiocese will be forced to shut down Catholic Charities.

Though the bill states that religious groups will not be required to perform or provide space for same-sex weddings, the archdiocese is concerned that it will be expected to offer same-sex partner benefits to Catholic employees if the bill passes. The Catholic archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is demanding that it have the right to discriminate, and it’s willing to play hardball politics with the lives of tens of thousands of D.C. citizens living on the economic edge to obtain that right.

Not a pretty picture. But one consistent with the bishops’ behavior in the case of Maine recently, and throughout the health care debate, in which the bishops have used abortion as a make-or-break issue to hold health care reform hostage, regardless of what a majority of Americans think or want in this matter.

It seems that the more the bishops erode their authority as moral teachers, the more intent they are about using vulnerable groups as political pawns in ugly games designed to bolster their faltering authority. And to issue threats and to try coercive tricks rather than to engage in respectful dialogue with those whom they seek to convince that Catholic principles deserve a hearing.

There is little wisdom and a shocking dearth of charity in this behavior. And the only way I can see it changing anytime soon is if ordinary Catholics everywhere demand better of church leaders by withholding donations and other support from the church until the bishops begin to act like something approaching good and faithful shepherds for a change.

Update, 11:35 A.M.: Interesting to read now what Andrew Sullivan posted on his Daily Dish blog around the time I was posting my piece above:

The hierarchy's growing fusion with fundamentalist Republican politics is becoming harder and harder to ignore. They can turn a blind eye to state-sanctioned torture, and to the suffering of those without healthcare, but when it comes to ensuring that gay couples are kept stigmatized or that non-Catholic women can't have access to abortion in a secular society, they come alive.

Andrew Sullivan notes that he's struck by the emphases of the American hierarchy in recent months. In the discussion of health care reform, there seems to be far more preoccupation with preventing those who obtain health coverage through a government plan from getting an abortion, even if they pay for it themselves, than on the core principles of Catholic teaching about health care as a human right.

Andrew's correct, I think. And in the process, the bishops are eroding their authority as moral teachers even more decisively than they've already eroded it, through their handling of the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

The Hall of Shame: Catholic Dioceses Across U.S. Support Maine Diocese's Attack on Gay Brothers and Sisters

In the posting I just uploaded, about shutting down the GayTM, I noted that the Catholic church in the U.S. has mounted a nationwide attack on LGBT human beings.

As I noted this, I offered a link to a 23 October financial statement that the Portland Catholic diocese provided, listing donors to its attack on gay citizens of Maine and their human rights. This link points to a report of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices listing contributors to the Portland diocese's attack on gay persons and our human rights.

This report makes clear where that mysterious money came from that the Portland diocese kept finding to carry on its attack on gay people in the recent Yes on 1 initiative. It came, in fact, from all over the United States--from Catholic dioceses across the nation.

While it has been closing Catholic churches and schools, the Catholic diocese of Portland has been passing the hat around among bishops all over the place to collect money to attack a vulnerable minority. And bishops all over the place (many of whom are facing financial constraints similar to those of the Portland diocese, and many of whom are also closing churches) willingly put money into the hat for this cause.

Money given by Catholics in their dioceses to support schools, churches, programs to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Money Catholics around the nation have not given to attack their gay children, brothers and sisters. Tax-free money given as donations to churches, without any political intent other than healing the wounds of the world in the mind of many Catholic layfolks donating that money.

Make no mistake about it: the Catholic bishops in the United States, many of them, are involved in a full-scale, take-no-prisoners attack on gay lives, gay human beings, gay brothers and sisters. This is a cynical, cruel, calculated attack.

And it will not end until Catholics who put money into the collection plates of Catholic churches across the nation stop supporting this attack on their LGBT brothers and sisters by refusing to donate.

You can read the list of dioceses donating to the Portland diocese's attack on gay citizens of Maine at the Maine Ethics Commission website. But just so that the names receive as much attention and distribution as possible, here's the Hall of Shame of dioceses that gave financial support to the Portland diocese's anti-gay initiative:

Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown
Diocese of Arlington
Diocese of Atlanta
Catholic Foundation Archdiocese of Baltimore
Diocese of Baton Rouge
Diocese of Biloxi
Bishop Lori of Bridgeport
Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn
Diocese of Cincinnati
Diocese of Colorado Springs
Diocese of Columbus
Diocese of Crookston
Diocese of Erie
Bishop of Fall River
Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Diocese of Fort Worth
Diocese of Gary
Diocese of Grand Island
Diocese of Green Bay
Diocese of Hartford
Diocesan Center for Family Life Jacksonville
Diocese of Jefferson City
Diocese of Joliet
Catholic Foundation of Northeast Kansas, Kansas City
Diocese of LaCrosse
Diocese of Las Cruces
Bishop Kurtz of Louisville
Diocese of Metuchen
Diocese of Mobile
Diocese of Newark
Diocese of New Orleans
Bishop LeVoir of New Ulm
Diocese of Parma
Diocese of Philadelphia
Diocese of Phoenix
Diocese of Pittsburgh
Diocese of Portland, Oregon
Diocesan Assistance Fund of Providence
Diocese of Rockford
Diocese of Rockville Center
Diocese of St. Louis
Diocese of St. Thomas Virgin Islands
Bishop Brevard of St. Thomas
Diocese of San Angelo
Bishop Gomez of San Antonio
Diocese of Savannah
Diocese of Scranton
Bishop D'Arcy of South Bend
Bishop of Springfield
Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
Diocese of Wilmington
Diocese of Winona
Diocese of Yakima
Diocese of Youngstown

Know any of these places? Know Catholics in any of these places? If you do, do you suspect that many Catholics who put money into their churches' collection baskets in these places in the past year had no idea they were donating to a political cause? That their money would be used to mount a mean-spirited attack on their gay brothers and sisters?

There will come a day when historians will take note of this list for what it really is: a hall of shame of American Catholic dioceses which, in the first decade of the 21st century, chose to use the resources of their faith community to make the lives of a targeted minority harder than they already are.

It's Time: Shutting Down the GayTM

I noted this on my Facebook page yesterday, but should also make a note of it on Bilgrimage.

I'm fully in support of the boycott of the Democratic National Committee announced yesterday by John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay at Americablog. This boycott is being supported by big-name bloggers (unlike me) including Pam Spaulding, Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff at Towle Road, Paul Sousa of Founder of Equal Rep in Boston, Robin Tyler of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning at Bilerico Project, and others.

These bloggers are asking LGBT Americans and those who stand in solidarity with us to consider shutting down donations to the DNC--to shut down the GayTM. Those who support this political action can take a pledge here.

Jane Hamsher is also suggesting that those who have joined Organizing for America (OFA) unsubscribe from that group. The link I just provided to her posting at Firedoglake has a link you can click to unsubscribe from OFA, if you think this is a good means of political protest. The form you'll be given to permit you to unsubscribe allows you to tell OFA why you're taking that step.

It's time. I've had it up to here with the duplicity and moral waffling of key Democratic leaders. It's time for me to make my voice heard about this in any way I can do so. I urge readers of this blog to consider taking these steps as well. I joined the boycott yesterday and have just sent in my unsubscribe message to OFA.

Not that I've ever been able to contribute a great deal financially to the DNC--though I did give as I was able during the last election. I remain unemployed and without health care coverage, and as I've noted on this blog, homophobia enshrined in law is one of the key reasons that I'm in this situation. I don't have abundant resources to give financially, but I supported Mr. Obama in every other way I could support him in the last election, including through postings on this blog.

I'm deeply disappointed in his leadership and in the leadership provided by key Democratic figures nationally. As I've noted on this blog, I'm appalled at the lack of leadership provided by most of the Democrats my state has sent to Congress.

I'm tired of being betrayed by a party I've supported throughout my adult life, from the time I began to vote in 1968 up to the present. I'm tired of having no voice at all in a party my family has supported faithfully through thick and thin for several generations. I was brought up in a household in which being Democratic was synonymous with being politically engaged.

It's time to let our leaders know that we will no longer offer support when they betray us and the core principles of their political party.

I also recommend for readers' consideration the new Facebook site organizing a civil rights march in Maine next May, Meet in the Middle 4 Equality.

It's time. It's time to make our voices heard and push back hard. It's time to stop allowing ourselves and our contributions to be taken for granted by those who have no intent of respecting us as human beings.

(And, as I make that observation, it goes without saying that I encourage any readers of this blog who continue actively to support the Catholic church in any way--financially and/or through other contributions that enable it to carry on business that includes a nationwide attack on gay and lesbian human beings--to reconsider that support. Businesses listen for the most part only to money, and the business of American Catholicism will listen to the faithful only when Catholics far and wide withhold money from collection baskets.)

To the best of my knowledge, Pam Spaulding coined the GayTM phrase. The graphic for this posting is Pam's as well.

News from the Week: Maine Anti-Gay Initiative's Shenanigans, More on Rome's Invitation to Anglicans

It’s apparently not just this site that has gotten plastered with ads from the Yes on 1 folks—the group trying to remove the right of marriage from gay citizens of Maine. John Aravosis reported yesterday at Americablog Gay that the ads had shown up on his blog, too. John says, “Folks, just an FYI, the anti-gay bigots in the Catholic Church and the religious right in Maine are buying Google Ads on all the gay sites.” The ad that showed up on his site appears to be the same one that I found on this blog—one that tries to stir up fears that gays are out to recruit children.

I’m trying to understand the rationale of this move. Since people visiting Americablog Gay or Bilgrimage will likely not be inclined to donate money to Yes on 1 or support its goals, why plaster sites like this with No on 1 ads?

Well, at least we must have attracted these folks’ attention, and that’s probably not bad. They know they’re being watched as they wheel and deal—and watched in some cases by people of faith, as they claim that they wheel and deal in the name of the Lord.

Thankfully, around 100 religious leaders representing a wide range of communities of faith gathered in Washington, D.C., yesterday to provide another perspective about the role of faith in debates about gay rights today. They represent a coalition of some 200 ministers in D.C. who have formed D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality. The group spoke in support of a bill before the D.C. city council, which would permit same-sex marriage.

As Benedict continues to re-brand the Catholic church as the international shelter par excellence for Christian homophobes and misogynists, many faith communities will continue to move in the opposite direction: they will continue the march to justice alongside their gay brothers and sisters, regardless of Rome’ s warnings and the shrill cries of other right-wing religious groups that are trying to build 21st-century Christianity around misogyny and homophobia today.

They’ll continue their march because it’s the right thing to do, the gospel-oriented thing to do. It is very difficult to preach a gospel centered on God’s salvific love for all, and, in particular, for the dispossessed and wounded, while targeting a vulnerable minority and seeking to make the lives of members of that minority group even more miserable. It’s difficult to do so and retain credibility as you proclaim the gospel, that is.

Particularly not when the men fulminating against intrinsically disordered gays are wearing pink dresses and fabulous designer shoes. As Andrew Sullivan notes, one of the open secrets of contemporary right-wing Catholicism, with its fixation on smells and bells and parsing theological rules to keep everyone in line, is that many of those in the driver’s seat of this movement are repressed gay men: “But there is as much an overlap of closeted gay priests and bishops with liturgical and theological orthodoxy as there is of closeted gay politicians finding ways to oppress other gays who are out and open.”

For a humorous take on the recent Roman invitation to dissident Anglicans which touches on that open secret about which we’re not supposed to talk, have a look at Stephen Colbert’s recent send-up of the Roman invitation. Colbert, who’s Catholic, is in his zone with this bit of comedy, and I’m glad that Cathleen Kaveny has chosen to blog about it at Commonweal.

As she notes, the clip is on YouTube, which means that it becomes a message—a theological one, one worth theological attention—for a whole generation of young folks. To ignore the theological conversations that are taking place at this popular level, in the name of a theological elitism that disdains all popularizing of theological discourse, is to miss a significant opportunity to comment on theological reflection at the level at which it reaches the widest audience possible.

I like Randall Balmer’s persistent statement, in the Colbert clip, of what’s really at the heart of this discussion: the Jesus about whom we read in the gospels never turns his back on those who are in need. He reaches out. He includes. He brings in and does not shove away.

As Balmer notes, organizations built around a message that appears to be about only the negative, around a message of exclusion, are likely to falter. And a church built around such a message is failing to be a sacramental sign of Christ in the world.

Keeping Democracy Alive: Courts in Maine and Washington Rebuff Attempts to Circumvent Full-Disclosure Laws

As a follow-up to my posting yesterday about the National Organization of Marriage’s continued attempts to skirt Maine’s full-disclosure finance regulations for political groups active in the state’s campaigns: the Maine Supreme Court ruled yesterday against a request by NOM that the state suspend its campaign reporting requirements for ballot initiatives.

As Andrew Sullivan notes, the court stresses that Maine voters need to know the source of financial support for those trying to influence the outcome of ballot initiatives. The court decision is available in a pdf file here. It notes:

Maine has a very strong interest in providing its voters with information about the source of the money that funds the campaign on either side of a ballot issue. . . . Maine has a strong and even compelling interest in helping the electorate assess the particular issue on its merits by providing voters with information about where the money supporting a measure has come from and therefore whose interest it serves.

A strong and compelling interest in helping the electorate assess an issue on its merits by providing information about where money comes from: the full-disclosure regulations NOM is attacking are about the right of voters to inform themselves as they weigh various viewpoints. These laws are about protecting the democratic process against the incursion of big-monied interest groups. If that incursion is going to take place—and it does so routinely in American political life—we who are voters have a right to know about it, about where money is coming from, how it is being used, and why particular players want to determine the outcome of ballot initiatives.

NOM’s lawsuit against the state of Maine is an attack on democracy itself. One of the most significant—and perhaps unanticipated—outcomes of the prop 8 victory in California is that the spotlight now shines on how some interest groups (in the case of gay issues, often religiously based ones) routinely use big bucks in unscrupulous ways to influence the political process. The spotlight now shining on their financial wheelings and dealings also shows us how these religiously based groups often circumvent local laws and violate fundamental ethical principles, as they try to hide the identity of their donors and how their funds are being used.

I don’t think those attacking gay marriage in California anticipated this outcome when they won in that state, but a significant outcome of their “victory” has been to make increasing numbers of Americans aware, across the nation, of precisely how groups attacking gay citizens—including churches—go about doing business. The gay community has long been aware that the way in which many faith-based groups and their political operatives do their homophobic business is ethically indefensible and dangerous to democracy.

After prop 8, more and more mainstream Americans are learning the same lesson. And that’s all to the good. It means that more and more people will put pressure for transparency and accountability on organizations like NOM (and the Catholic and Mormon churches) as these groups engage in anti-gay political activism in places like Maine and Washington state—pressure to disclose where money comes from and how it’s being used.

This is good for the democratic process. It’s essential to the proper functioning of the democratic process. And it’s a political dynamic that is not going to go away anytime soon, after what happened in California in the last election. The Maine Supreme Court’s decision illustrates that many states are no longer allowing themselves to be browbeaten by the religious right and its deep-pocket funders, when it comes to gay rights issues.

I noted last Friday that on the same day that NOM filed suit against the state of Maine to prevent disclosure of NOM’s funders, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, the Family PAC, filed suit in Washington state for the very same reason. There, too, groups fighting to thwart the extension of some rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples want to hide the names of their donors and political backers.

Yesterday, a Tacoma court took the same step that the Maine Supreme Court did: as Pam’s House Blend blog reports, federal judge Ronald B. Leighton denied Family PAC’s request “to gut Washington state's campaign finance laws a week before the election.”

These may seem like tiny victories, incremental steps towards fairness. They’re more than that, I think. Regardless of the outcome of the Maine and Washington elections (and I certainly hope for a good outcome), what we’re seeing happening now is a gradual but decisive shift of the judicial and legislative structures in many places in the U.S. towards fair play, against some highly funded and not ethically admirable players.

This shift occurred in the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s as well. Up to that period, courts were as likely to listen to bogus “biblically-based” arguments against racial justice as they have been until recently to listen to similar arguments against justice for gay citizens.

But as more and more people in more and more places became aware of the truly indefensible way that African-American citizens were treated in many states, public opinion began to shift, and along with it, judicial understanding of the issues. A similar dynamic is at work now in the gay rights movement, and it’s one we need to celebrate. And to assist, by keeping the spotlight shining on the real lives of gay Americans and on the activities of those throwing stones from the shadows.

Final Week of Maine Campaign: Continued Questions about NOM's Financial Involvement

The Beyond Chron website has a very good article today analyzing the financial record of the National Organization for Marriage in its battle to remove the right of marriage from Maine’s gay citizens. Paul Hogarth notes that there’s secrecy on both sides of NOM’s ledger in this Maine campaign. Not only has NOM shielded the identity of those providing the organization with funds to fight same-sex marriage in Maine, but big chunks of NOM’s pay-outs in the campaign have gone to a group whose identity is mysterious.

As Hogarth notes, NOM has financed 64% of the anti-gay marriage battle in Maine. Because it did not register as a political action committee with the Maine Ethics Commission, it hasn’t disclosed its funders in the Maine campaign. NOM has given $1.6 million to Yes on 1, the umbrella organization spearheading the attempt to overturn the right to same-sex marriage in the state.

And in this final week of the campaign, Hogarth reports, Yes on 1 is spending lavishly on new media ad buys—$550,738 in the past five days alone—though Yes on 1 is reporting at the same time that it has only $348,000 cash-on-hand funds and has incurred a campaign debt of $148,000. The sudden influx of money to buy expensive last-minute ads is raising questions about where Yes on 1 is getting these new funds.

Hogarth thinks it’s very likely NOM is the source of the money. And NOM continues to try to shield its donor base from public scrutiny, as I’ve noted on this blog, and has filed suit against the state to try to prevent any scrutiny of its records about its funders.

At the same time, NOM reports that 62% of its expenditures in the campaign—a total of $1.56 million—have gone to one organization, the San Francisco-based firm Criswell & Associates, which goes by the pseudonym Mar/Com Services Inc. (and which is not a registered corporation). NOM’s reports disguise the identity of Criswell & Associates by using the Mar/Com name, though the California Secretary of State’s office reports that no such corporation exists.

Up to mid-September, Criswell & Associates had a robust website, according to Hogarth. When bloggers began to note that Yes on 1 ads were being filmed in San Francisco—apparently by Criswell & Associates—the website went down and has been “under construction” ever since.

As Hogarth notes,

While it’s important to ask about the lack of transparency of the “Yes on 1” campaign’s funding source, it’s just as relevant to ask why they’re not being upfront about who is getting their money.

Indeed. Throughout this campaign, NOM has avoided transparency in every way possible—and that raises questions about why an organization that believes it’s fighting to preserve key ethical principles needs to do its work under cover of darkness. Morally upright groups don’t need to run into the shadows when people ask legitimate questions about who’s funding their causes.

Democracy thrives when transparency is the leitmotiv of political groups’ behavior. The behavior of NOM in the Maine campaign suggests that overturning democratic process is really what this crusade against same-sex marriage in Maine is all about.

Notice to Readers re: Ads on Bilgrimage Blog

I just logged in to see that an ad for Stand for Marriage Maine (the group seeking to remove the right of marriage from gay citizens of Maine) is running on the blog.

I've issued a statement before about Google-sponsored ads on this blog. I'd like to do so again.

I don't have any methods of controlling ads that appear on this site--not any methods about which I'm well-informed, I should say. I do seem to have the option to enter the url of a site to block its ads, when it appears on the site. At least, I think I have that option, and when I notice a particularly unsavory ad on the site, I do put the url of that group into the blocked ads lists.

I've just done so with this ad. I hope that this will trigger a response from Google, which hosts this blog, and that the ad will be removed. It's astonishing to me that an ad whose intent runs so directly counter to everything for which this site stands should end up on the site.

Meanwhile, I apologize to readers who have to put up with this trip on my blog. It perturbs me very much to find that ad on the site as the day ends.

No on 1, the group that has been working admirably well to defend the right to marriage in Maine, and which deserves our support and assistance, is here.

Churches Close, Bishop Lives in a Mansion: Backdrop to Maine Catholic Diocese's Attack on Gay Citizens

As Maine's voters and the Catholics of Portland diocese assess the $252,600 that the diocese has donated to remove the right of marriage from Maine's gay citizens, I wonder if they're remembering the persistent complaints that have come from many quarters about Portland Bishop Richard Malone's plush living quarters.

Those complaining about Bishop Malone's palatial residence have noted that the Catholics of Portland diocese are contributing large sums of money for the upkeep of the bishop's residence at the same time that the diocese announces its intent to close churches due to financial exigency. As the Ignatius Group blog noted this past August, Bishop Malone lives in a 7,000 square-foot, three-story brick residence in a posh section of Portland.

The mansion has 16 rooms, including 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It's assessed at $1.2 million. Catholics of the Portland diocese pay more than $18,000 in property taxes each year to maintain this lavish episcopal residence for Bishop Malone.

While expecting Maine's Catholics to support the residence, the bishop refuses to disclose the cost of heating it.

Bishop Malone lives in the house alone.

As the Voice from the Desert blog notes, in July 2007, as the diocese issued its annual financial report, Portland diocese financial director David Twomey stated,

Both parish offertory and the Bishop’s Appeal have increased but not at a pace to cover the inflationary increases in expenses. Fortunately, we have been able to hold the rate of growth in operating expense at about 1.8%. Unfortunately, this has caused some ministries to be constrained or reduced. The challenge we face as we move to a cluster structure is to make best use of our current resources…

Bishop Malone is asking Maine's Catholics to tighten their belts, to accept the closing of parishes and schools, to resign themselves to constraints in various ministries, while he himself continues to live in a lavish house that costs the faithful a great deal of money annually to maintain.

And yet as it closes parishes and schools and curtails ministries--and supports a 3-story, 16-room mansion for one person--the Portland diocese manages to find over $250,000 to remove rights from a targeted minority, money whose source the diocese can't quite remember. And that sum doesn't even take into account the $86,000 the diocese has taken in through special collections to remove the right of marriage from Maine's gay citizens.

Something seems awry with this picture, from a gospel standpoint.