Catholic Church Would Rather Spend Money to End Marriage Equality than Save Churches

A reader sent me the link to this story about the misplaced priorities of the Roman Catholic Church and some of its water carriers like the increasing Pharisee like Knights of Columbus. With parishes closing in many dioceses and money in short supply due to huge pay outs to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, one would think that the Church would be focused on other things than denying equality under the CIVIL laws to other Americans. But no - instead significant amounts that would be better spent keeping parishes open or feeding the hungry and clothing the poor is being injected into efforts to deny LGBT citizens marriage equality under the CIVIL laws. When I was growing up, the Church basically deemed civil marriage ceremonies conducted before justices of the peace as invalid, why does the Church care so much about civil marriages for gays? Some conjecture that it's a way to distract the sheeple from the still ongoing sex abuse scandal and monetary hemorrhaging of the Church. Whatever the case, it speaks volumes about how screwed up the Catholic Church and other anti-gay denominations have become - here are some highlights:

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In the wake of Maine's same-sex marriage laws, a handful of anti-LGBT activists have launched a campaign to kill marriage equality, and the state's Catholic Church has taken the lead in these efforts. The Catholic Diocese of Maine, in fact, gave $100,000 toward efforts to defeat marriage equality, and the Diocese's main communications guy, Marc Mutty, is a leading spokesperson for the anti-LGBT movement in Maine.

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Here's an interesting fact, though: While the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maine gave $100,000 to bash the rights of gays and lesbians, they also had to close two parishes in Lewiston, Maine, as well as fire employees at Trinity Catholic School. The reason for the parish closings and the firing of Catholic school employees? Declining revenue.

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Maybe, just maybe, the Catholic Diocese of Portland should stop spending money on anti-LGBT campaigns, and instead spend a little money taking care of their own. Instead, they're hemmorhaging money toward an effort to beat back civil rights, while churches are forced to close and Catholic school employees get fired. Talk about misplaced priorities.

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The Catholic Church isn't the only one guilty of this, either. Focus on the Family, which has already had to lay off more than 20 percent of its staff, has found a way to funnel more than $30,000 into Maine to blast marriage equality.

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Despite the fact that the Catholic Church, Focus on the Family, and other national organizations have raised more than $300,000 for their discriminatory campaign, only $400 has been raised from actual Maine citizens to defeat marriage equality. So it sure seems that while national groups throw money into Maine, the state's actual citizens aren't backing them up with resources from their own pocketbook. Might that be a sign that these national organizations and the Catholic Church are out of step with Maine's population on the issue of marriage equality?