Catholic Church Threatens DC Council Over Marriage Equality

The Catholic Church issued an ultimatum to the District of Columbia City Council over that body's intention to end the ban on civil marriage for same-sex couples in the federal district: Allow Us To Discriminate Against Gays Or We Won't Feed Or Shelter The Homeless.

The Washington Post reports:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

[...]

Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.

Adam Bink of OpenLeft.com responds

1. The city has anti-discrimination laws on the books. Their claim- that they might be forced to place kids with same-sex parents, for example- is already true under existing law. Catholic Charities, the social services arm of the Church, has lived under those laws for years and received millions from city coffers, and is trying to erode them using scare tactics.
   
2. This has nothing to do with the marriage equality legislation. It is a red herring. The legislation provides for exemptions for religious organizations to, for example, not allow same-sex couples to use their religious building for a wedding. The amendment that did not pass on Tuesday relates to individuals' rights, and as Chairman Mendelson said in the WaPo piece, the problem with individual exemption is that anybody can use their religious beliefs to discriminate- back in the 50s and 60s, people said the separation of the races was ordained by God.
   
3. Catholic Charities receives DC taxpayer money to fund its services. If they aren't interested in abiding under already-existing DC public laws using our public money, then don't take it. City leaders themselves have pointed out that Catholic Charities is not an indispensible component of city services. I'm no expert on the non-profit world, but I can't imagine there aren't other groups who can use the money to take their place. And I'm not really down with my money going to religious organizations anyway.
   
4. In Boston, Catholic Charities shut down its adoption services over the same issue. But before they did so, they had been placing kids in same-sex households to comply with the law until the Boston Globe exposed it and the hierarchy told them to stop. It is plainly nauseating to me that the need to discriminate so overrides the Church's commitment to feed the hungry and clothe the naked that they would take this stand.

Other bloggers like Digby and others have also responded.