Opus Dei, Its Wealth, Power, and Widespread Hidden Influence: A Primer of Informative Resources

I'd like to propose the following — an intuition of mine, rather than a proven conclusion:

Who Really Set Up Papal Meeting with Kim Davis? Enlightening Comments at Catholic Blog Site

Yesterday at the National Catholic Reporter site, Tom Gallagher posted an article focusing on something about which I spoke briefly in a posting here on the same day: namely, that in the wake of the Kim Davis-Pope Francis debacle, the mainstream media are finally saying out loud what many of us have known and been saying for some time now — that the outfit giving legal advice to Ms. Davis, Liberty Counsel, is an anti-gay hate group. I find the comments in response to Tom Gallagher's article especially enlightening.

NOM Finally Responds to Catholic Ireland's Vote for LGBT Equality: "Millions of Irish Citizens Stood to Vote to Uphold the Truth of Marriage"

Because I asked yesterday where the National Organization for Marriage's response to the vote of Catholic Ireland for equality for LGBT citizens was, out of fairness to NOM, I should report that Brian Brown of NOM issued a statement yesterday afternoon. Since the statement was issued after the election results had been announced, it's baffling to read Brown decrying the "apparent passage" of the equality referendum. Nothing apparent about it, to my way of reading reality.

A Week Out from Irish Marriage Equality Referendum, NOM's Behind-the-Scenes Work to Assure a No Vote Receives Increasing Scrutiny

In his weekly recap this week of global LGBT-and-religion news at Religion Dispatches, Peter Montgomery points to a BuzzFeed article by Lester Feder in which Feder says that marriage equality advocates in Ireland are increasingly nervous about high polling numbers (78%) indicating that the Irish people will vote to alter the Irish constitution to permit same-sex marriage. Feder notes that polls also suggested that proposition 8 in California, which yanked away gay citizens' right to civil marriage, would be defeated, but on election day, the polls were proven wrong.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: As Pope Francis Informs French Ambassadorial Appointment He's Unacceptable, Papal Nuncio Slated to Speak at NOM Anti-Gay Hate Rally

Here's a two-fer for you — a two-fer of very stinky Catholic birdcage droppings:

A Reader Writes: I Don't Take "Inevitable" Progress for Granted

In response to my posting yesterday about NOM's (purported?) economic collapse, mgardener writes:

NOM's Economic Collapse: Mark Joseph Stern on Whys and Wherefores

At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern offers three possible explanations for why the donor base of "the viciously anti-gay National Organization for Marriage" (his words) may have collapsed. NOM just released its 2103 tax filings, two days late (in direct violation of federal law). They show the organization in the red by some $2.5 million.

What Do You Do When Everyone Else Throws a Human Rights Party, but Your Church Leaders Pitch a Fit Instead?

What do you do when you belong — when you chose to belong — to a church which preaches that every human being deserves human rights, including the right to work, to adequate medical care, to shelter, to freedom from discrimination in the workplace, housing, and in healthcare, but which waffles on all of those rights when the discussion of human rights turns to you? Which, when the discussion turns to you, waffles simply because you're gay.

Tweets About NOM's "March for (Some People's) Marriage"

Some of the best tweets so far from #March4Marriage hashtag feed and elsewhere on Twitter, about the National Organization for Marriage's "March for (Some People's) Marriage" today:

New "Secret, Shadowy Version of NOM" Formed: Continuing Thick Ties of National Organization for Marriage to Secret, Shadowy, Rich and Powerful Catholic Group Opus Dei

Interesting news about the National Organization for Marriage, which is staging the "March for (Some People's) Marriage" in Washington, DC, today: Jeremy Hooper of the Good as You blog site has obtained a copy of an invitation to a meeting of what Hooper calls "some sort of secret, shadowy version of NOM (Super NOM?)" called the Princeton Group hosted on June 13 by NOM dignitaries. These include NOM president Brian Brown, co-founder Maggie Gallagher, board chair emeritus Robert George, founding board member Luis Tellez and, oh — surprise! — none other than the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, whose determination to attend NOM's "March for (Some People's) Marriage" today has proven so controversial.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage 2.0: What Do Fortnights, Marriage Marches, and Vials of Papal Blood Have in Common?

More birdcage droppings for you today (these are definitely the stinky kind):

Mid-Week News Snippets: Teresa Forcades on Gay Love, Cordileone and NOM, Religious Right and GOP, and Catholics and Gays

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At Gay Mystic, Jayden Cameron uses the occasion of the publication of Sister Teresa Forcades's new book És a les nostres mans to remind his readers of the interview she did earlier this year with Pikara magazine (English translation at Iglesia Descalza), in which she says, 

Mark Joseph Stern on NOM's Collapse — "Nothing Left but a Record of Morally Repulsive Smear Campaigns and a Trail of Legal Misconduct"

At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern takes a look at how the National Organization for Marriage, which was once so cocky about its ability to emit an "unremitting stream of noxious nonsense" to get Americans to turn against a minority group NOM depicted as "promiscuous, predatory, diseased, and disordered" has so spectacularly failed. And so quickly. 

Mid-Week News Items: Marriage Equality and Religious Groups

More mid-week news tidbits, these focusing on religion and gay issues (the Cincinnati story discussed below does focus on gay issues, since it's about the attempt of Catholic institutions to weed out and control employees who show any support at all for gay people or gay rights):

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

Maggie Gallagher Admits Defeat (But Not Really)

Isn't it fascinating that Maggie Gallagher can't quite seem to grasp — still, at this late date, after she admits that her nasty anti-gay politics have failed to sway the mind of America — that the culture's moral mind has shifted about the place of gay folks in the scheme of things? And not that she and other anti-gay activists who have spent years trying to make the lives of gay folks miserable have been shouted down and shut up, as she claims?

A Concluding Look at John Corvino's What's Wrong with Homosexuality?: The Fork in the Road to Social Transformation

I promised you all a final overview statement about John Corvino's outstanding book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013) after I'd finished offering excerpts from it. And here it is--not a review per se, but something closer to a reaction, and a reaction to a very specific aspect of the book at that.

John Corvino, What's Wrong with Homosexuality?: "Man on Man, Man on Dog, or Whatever the Case May Be"

I was reminded of John Corvino's book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? (NY: Oxford UP, 2013) as I read Erik Eckholm's report this past weekend in the New York Times about the ongoing efforts of the religious right to depict tolerance of gay folks as the first step onto a slippery slope that will lead God knows where. Corvino takes the cue for his chapter discussing this slippery-slope argument from Rick Santorum's infamous statements to an AP reporter in 2003 that tolerance for homosexual people will lead everywhere--everywhere bad--in any society that extends such tolerance to gays. Corvino entitles the chapter "Man on Man, Man on Dog, or Whatever the Case May Be."

Parsing Cardinal Dolan: Catholic Hierarchy Losing Marriage Equality Battle Because It's about Morality, Not Money

The outgoing leader of the U.S. Catholic bishops, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, has just observed that the Catholic bishops (who aren't anti-gay at all) have been "out-marketed" by the gays and their allies in the marriage equality battle. For those who don't follow the bishops closely as they talk about these issues, a bit of parsing may be in order:

Religion, Politics, Politics, Religion from Russia and Germany to Minnesota, Ohio, and Over to Rome

Rachel: "It may be the dying gasps of a group that calls itself 'national': that's the N- in NomNomNom. But lately, they have to go to Russia to try get any of their ideas put into law."