I will not render to Caesar what is God's

Vivificat - From Contemplation to Action ^ | 15 December 2009 | TDJ

[Teófilo]

Folks, this according to the Thomas More Law Center:

ANN ARBOR, MI – Tomorrow, December 16, 2009, at 10 AM PST, a panel of eleven judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San Francisco will hear oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s virulent resolution attacking the Catholic Church for its teachings against homosexual adoptions. The en banc panel will review the earlier opinion of a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit that upheld the resolution.

Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise will argue the case on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case, the Catholic League and two Catholic residents of San Francisco.

The Board’s resolution, sounding more like a Ku Klux Klan anti-Catholic diatribe, refers to the Vatican as a “foreign country” meddling in the affairs of the City and proclaims the Church’s moral teaching and beliefs on homosexuality “insulting to all San Franciscans, ” “hateful, ” “insulting and callous, ” “defamatory, ” “absolutely unacceptable, ” “insensitive and ignoran.” The Board’s resolution makes reference to the Inquisition; and it urges the Archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy Church directives. Click here to read the City’s resolution.

The anti-Catholic resolution, unanimously adopted by the Board on March 21, 2006, was challenged by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of the Catholic League and two Catholic residents of San Francisco on the grounds it expresses government hostility toward the Catholic Church and its moral teachings in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The lower federal court’s dismissal of the case based on the pleadings was later affirmed by the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. However, on November 5, 2009, a majority of the Ninth Circuit judges voted to grant the Law Center’s petition for an en banc rehearing. Read the Law Center’s petition here. Moreover, on December 11, 2009, the Court requested both parties to submit a letter brief addressing whether plaintiffs had standing to sue. Read the Law Center’s Letter Brief here.

According to Catholic doctrine, allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment not conducive to their full human development. Such policies are gravely immoral and Catholic organizations must not place children for adoption in homosexual households.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel for the Law Center, commented, “It seems the only bigotry and prejudice these so-called liberal politicians tolerate is anti-Catholicism. To them the only good Catholics are the bad Catholics who ignore the teachings of their Church. Our constitution plainly forbids government interference in, and hostility toward, religion, including the Catholic faith. And we are fully committed to fighting homosexual activists who seek to promote their personal political agenda at the expense of our constitutional freedoms.”

According to the Law Center, the “anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message to Plaintiffs and others who are faithful adherents to the Catholic faith that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, and favored members of the political community.”

Commentary. Evil, anti-Christian, and anti-Catholic people are no longer ashamed these days to show their faces and spew their hatred against the Lamb and his Church, not that they ever were. What is somewhat new in this country of ours is unabashed willingness of a large segment of the anti-Catholic public opinion to use the instruments of government power to compel Catholics and other Christians to act a certain away, to renounce their beliefs, and to say certain, more acceptable things, acceptable to the powers that be, that is.

I can't speak for all Catholics and all Christians, of course. But I can speak for myself and for whatever is worth to you and for whoever cares to read, I make mine these concluding words of the Manhattan Declaration, and in the in the first person singular I hereby state:

Because I honor justice and the common good, I will not comply with any edict that purports to compel Christian institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will I bend to any rule purporting to force me to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as I know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. I will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will I render to Caesar what is God’s.

And in the words of yet another document, so little read today and mostly forgotten, to this cause I pledge my life, my fortunes, and my sacred honor. I will not surrender, capitulate, comply, or submit to the unjust demands of Caesar nor will bend to the will of the anti-Christian populace eager to see the destruction of Christianity and the subversion of everything that is holy, true, and good. So help me God. Amen.

[Teófilo]

Blunders. Typos. Mine.

[americanophile]

...interesting case. I think the attached letter brief makes a solid argument.

[a fool in paradise]

I hear that the sodomite issue is about consenting adults in private. So when does a child consent to being brought into the adoptive home of an alternative sexuality couple?

[RobbyS]

How CAN a child consent! The Sodomites assert the Freudian doctrine that a child is a sexual animal. Beyond that they say that all forms of sexual practice are licit so long as no force is involved. But what amounts to force is a matter of interpretation. No act that causes pleasure can be thought of as forcible.