Posted on 12/25/2009 8:36:44 AM PST by markomalley
It has been an interesting time around the Washington, D.C., area these last few weeks.
The District of Columbia City Council passed a law restricting the ability of Catholic Charities to continue its same level of social services to the city’s poor and homeless.
The Baltimore City Council passed a bill subjecting crisis pregnancy centers to a $150-a-day fine for not posting signs stating what services they do not offer.
Suburban Montgomery County Council is considering legislation to impose a $750-a-day fine (it is, after all, one of the richest areas in the United States) on pro-life pregnancy centers for not stating they do not provide medical advice or establish a doctor-patient relationship.
So far there’s no indication that Home Depot stores will be required to post signs that they do not perform brain surgery or that Pizza Hut franchises will be mandated to advise patrons they do not offer home loans.
Mandating that organizations must say what they do not do is ludicrous (if not unconstitutional).
The situation within the District of Columbia casts a far darker shadow over the freedom of religion.
The district council made it clear for some time that it would pass the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 to legalize same-sex marriage. Religious organizations would be required to recognize and promote same-sex marriage in employment, adoption and foster care polices, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said in an Op-Ed published in The Washington Post.
“The new requirements by the city for religious organizations to recognize same-sex marriages in their policies could restrict our ability to provide the same level of services as we do now,” Archbishop Wuerl wrote.
“Since Catholic Charities cannot comply with city mandates to recognize and promote same-sex marriages, the city would withhold contracts and licenses,” the archbishop said.
Catholic Charities is the largest nongovernmental provider of social services in Washington.
Misstatements about the archdiocese’s position intentional and otherwise began with headlines such as “D.C. Archdiocese Threatens to Axe Social Service Programs Over Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Law.”
“The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to stop providing social services, including management of city homeless shelters, unless lawmakers change a proposal to legalize same-sex marriages,” began another article.
If services are reduced, it is because of the city’s requirements. The archdiocese is perfectly willing to continue all services at the existing level, but it cannot do so when it is required to abandon its basic principles.
A pattern seems to be developing. Pro-life pregnancy centers are threatened by needless and harassing fines with no other apparent purpose than to disrupt their life-saving work. City council members would rather deny the needy vital social services than to work for a compromise that could balance religious principles and anti-discrimination legislation.
Meanwhile, the American Humanist Association held a news conference to introduce plans to place 270 ads on Washington-area trains and buses with the tag line “No God? No Problem” under a photo of four wholesome young people bedecked in Santa hats.
“We’re not trying to put down people’s religious faith,” said Roy Speckhardt, the association’s executive director. “We just don’t see the evidence.”
The evidence is there, seen in the 68,000 people served annually by Washington’s Catholic Charities and in the thousands counseled and assisted by crisis pregnancy centers.
That evidence of faith is just not appreciated by the atheists, the secularists and the humanists.
Logical ... for a governmental entity.
Charities out of the sector then taxes can be raised so government can be the only benefactor for those in need.
Isn’t it a fact that in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities was compelled to terminate adoption services, because they were not allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples? And this happened because Massachusetts legalized homosexual marriage?
Isn’t it a fact that in Mass. schools now include homosexuality in sex education/family life type classes?
We can debate about the effects of new laws such as same-sex marriage. I wish the proponents of these changes would be intellectually honest that they want to normalize behaviors such as homosexuality and trans-whatever sexuality. And that as it is “normalized”, it will then be illegal to “discriminate” against such people. The left should be open and honest about these things if they are so proud of homosexuality and “alternative” lifestyles.
“So far there’s no indication that Home Depot stores will be required to post signs that they do not perform brain surgery or that Pizza Hut franchises will be mandated to advise patrons they do not offer home loans.”
This is the best line in the whole article! It shows the ultimate absurdity of the gub’mint’s position!
One of the big attempts of the Kulturkampf was to cut Catholicism "down to size" by usurping all the Church's independent institutions, especially its charitable and educational works.
Bismarck instituted the first state-run health insurance program around 125 years ago, imposed civil marriage in a manner repugnant to Catholic understanding of marriage (and demanded that they recognize it), and attempted to control Catholic schools, seminaries, publishing houses, and even episcopal appointments.
Some members of the Obama administration (I don't remember who they were: Rahm Emanuel?) touted Bismarck's program as evidence that a govt. absorption of social services was progressive, and in fact long overdue.
They don't see the Kulturkampf the way Christian historians see it: as the deliberate incremental abolition of the institutional Church.
Or maybe they do.
With the hard Left, it is always thus.
Cathoic Charities should refuse every dime of city money and revamp its ministry purely as a donation-drive enterprise.
OK, THAT misstatement was intentional.
hmmmm that would be a really long sign...
we do not perform:
haircuts
tooth extraction
tarrot readings
nail extensions
etc
etc
abortions
GOOD, I'm all for outlawing the catholic Charities, bunch of illegals pushing and promoting and protecting scum. They need to lose the tax exemption and start paying their fair share of taxes as well.
Amen. Christ lives, and His body, animated by the Holy Spirit, carries out His will.
Rousseau: “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains.”
The Democratic Party: “That’s progress.”
All very true.....
(from MassResistance.org)
Catholic Charities decided to abandon handling adoptions rather submit to regulations requiring them to allow homosexuals to adopt the children in their care....
At my own children's high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex “marriage” in early December, 2003......
In September, 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, MA, told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the floodgates for teaching homosexuality. “In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.' If somebody wants to challenge me, I'll say, `Give me a break. It's legal now,'” she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires....
Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.....
In 2006, the parents of a third-grader were forced to take their child out of school because a man undergoing a sex-change operation and cross-dressing was being brought into class to teach the children that there are now “different kinds of families.” School officials told the mother that her complaints to the principal were considered “inappropriate behavior.”.....
It’s become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to prominently display photos of their same-sex “spouses” and occasionally bring them to school functions. Both high schools in my own town now have principals who are “married” to their same-sex partners, whom they bring to school and introduce to the students.
“Gay days” in schools are considered necessary to fight “intolerance” which may exist against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender appreciation days”. They “celebrate” homosexual marriage and move forward to other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality. In my own town, a school committee member recently announced that combating “homophobia” is now a top priority.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/marriage/effects_of_ssm.html
I have an opportunity to study at MIT, but the crazy stories I hear about MA concern me.
I will state for the record:
I don’t rent pigs.
You are 100% right.
Mass. Legislature kills marriage amendment. Eleven “pro-family” reps and senators switch their votes at last minute to support “gay marriage”.
Demonstrations involving hundreds of people outside State House on Thursday, leading up to Constitutional Convention at 1pm. Threats and arm-twisting paid off as enough legislators sell out, and amendment fails to get the necessary 50 votes. Then, pandemonium at State House as homosexual activists gloat and celebrate.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/events07/concon_0614/index.html
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/events07/concon_0614/rollcall.html
All you have to know about this state is the lunatics here kept re-electing people like Bawney Fwank,Ted Kennedy,and John Kerry.
The late Romans, medieval Arabs, and between the World Wars English societies are the ones described.
We can now add the early 21st century US to the worst of the bunch. The previous societies just accepted faggotry where we not only accept it, but promote it our elementary schools and demand that the perverts be allowed to marry.
We are a very sick society.
... fleeing Otto Von Bismarck’s “Kulturekampf” ...
My German side of the family did about the same thing. Family legend: Great great grandfather looked at his baby son in the cradle and announced, “You shall not serve the Kaiser.”
Interesting! And the beat goes on! Today my sister-in-law and I were discussing how resistance to Obamism is something we owe our children. “You shall not serve the Kaiser.”
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