States Belatedly Take On Catholic Church

While there is plenty of blame to go around within the Catholic Church hierarchy for allowing the rampant, world wide rape of children and youths to go on for decades, if not centuries, civil authorities share much blame as well.  For many, many decades the Catholic Church and other denominations have been afforded undeserved deference due in part to the myth that churches do charitable works.  Secondly, rather than upset reactionary constituents, police officials and politicians turned a blind eye toward misdeeds within churches.  If any good comes out of the Pennsylvania grand jury report containing damning details on predators and their enablers within the hierarchy, it will because some state attorney generals are finally willing to take on the Church rather than turning a blind eye and pretending all church actions are for the good. I suspect that a detailed review of Catholic parishes - and other denomination operations as well - would show meager pennies on the dollar going to charitable works while the remainder goes to maintaining parasitic priests/pastors and spreading religious propaganda.  A piece in the New York Times looks at this welcome development.  Here are excerpts (note how some Republicans remain reluctant to investigae and potentially alienate right wing "Christian" voters):

Attorneys general across the United States are taking a newly aggressive stance in investigating sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, opening investigations into malfeasance and issuing subpoenas for documents.

On Thursday alone, the New York State attorney general issued subpoenas to all eight Catholic dioceses in the state as part of a sweeping civil investigation into whether institutions covered up allegations of sexual abuse of children, officials said. The attorney general in New Jersey announced a criminal investigation.

The new inquiries come several weeks after an explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed the abuse of more than 1,000 children by hundreds of priests over decades. With Catholics clamoring for more transparency from their church, demanding that bishops release the names of accused priests, civil authorities are beginning to step up to force disclosure.

In the three weeks since the release of the Pennsylvania report, the attorneys general of Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and New Mexico have also said they will investigate sex abuse by Catholic priests in their states and have asked local dioceses for records. Most bishops have been saying they will cooperate. 

Attorneys general in some states said in statements Thursday that they were inspired to take action by the scathing Pennsylvania report, and said they were seeking to bring similar transparency to constituents in their states.

“The Pennsylvania grand jury report shined a light on incredibly disturbing and depraved acts by Catholic clergy, assisted by a culture of secrecy and cover-ups in the dioceses,” the attorney general of New York, Barbara Underwood, said. “Victims in New York deserve to be heard as well — and we are going to do everything in our power to bring them the justice they deserve.”

New Jersey’s attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal, announced Thursday that he had appointed Robert D. Laurino, the former acting prosecutor of Essex County, to lead a task force that will investigate clergy sex abuse and any effort to cover up claims of assault. The task force will have subpoena power through a grand jury in order to compel testimony and demand the production of documents.

“I was deeply troubled to read the allegations contained in last month’s Pennsylvania grand jury report,” Mr. Grewal said in a statement. “We owe it to the people of New Jersey to find out whether the same thing happened here. If it did, we will take action against those responsible.”

But the probes announced in various states were not equally independent or combative. In Missouri, [Republican] Attorney General Joshua D. Hawley said last month that he will conduct an “independent review” of files that the archbishop of St. Louis, Robert J. Carlson, had just volunteered to make available to review. The two men each released letters about the arrangement on the same day, after survivors of sexual abuse by priests had organized protests calling for an investigation.

Mr. Hawley, a Republican running for the United States Senate, said in a telephone news conference that his power is limited because under Missouri law, he cannot convene a grand jury or issue subpoenas for documents.  But a lawyer for abuse victims called his claim a “half truth.” . . . . “He’s allowing the perpetrator to run the investigation,” Ms. Gorovsky said in an interview. “It’s exactly backwards.”

The potential scope of the investigations is huge. In the Archdiocese of New York alone, 315 victims of sex abuse by clergy have recently received compensation through an independent program sponsored by the church. In the Diocese of Brooklyn, some 250 victims have filed claims through a similar program. These programs did not offer compensation to victims abused by priests working for religious orders, so many more victims may reach out to report abuse through the hotline.

The Diocese of Buffalo has been swamped with abuse revelations in recent months. In February, a retired priest admitted to The Buffalo News that he had molested probably dozens of boys at multiple parishes from the late 1960s until the 1980s. Since then, abuse by other priests has also come to light, raising questions of why it was kept secret for so long.

“Little is known about clergy abuse of children in New York, because of the state’s antiquated and predator-friendly statute of limitations, and because the church has kept the evidence secret all these years,” Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, said Thursday in a statement.
“Finally we will learn the truth in New York.”

New Sex Abuse Scandals as US Catholic Bishops Back Federal Anti-Gay Law

Despite the crocodile tears of Pope Francis and other high Catholic hierarchs - some of whom looked the other way to protect predators - the Catholic Church leadership remains a moral cesspool.   Sex abuse of children and youths continue literally across the globe and far too many bishops and cardinals put "protecting the Church" and predators above the rights and lives of abuse victims.  Among the stories about sexual abuse by priests today, two stand out.  One involves police raiding Bishop Joseph Cistone's residence, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan offices and St. Mary's Cathedral in Saginaw.  Why?  Because authorities grew frustrated with Bishop Cistone and the diocese's failure to cooperate in investigations of sexual abuse allegations.  Here are highlights from ABC News 12:

A contingent of law enforcement officials from multiple agencies raided Bishop Joseph Cistone's residence, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw offices and St. Mary's Cathedral in Saginaw.

Police obtained the three search warrants that were being executed as part of the investigation that started Feb. 25 with the arrest of the Rev. Robert DeLand.

Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Gaertner said Cistone and the diocese have not lived up to promises to support investigators looking into sexual abuse allegations against DeLand and other church officials.

"Contrary to the statements from the diocese and the bishop that they would fully cooperate with law enforcement, they did not," Gaertner said. "Therefore, it was necessary for law enforcement to utilize other investigative tools, including search warrants."

The second story focuses on the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo under pressure disclosing the names of 42 priests facing allegations of sex abuse, including 27 priests whose names had not previously been linked in public to molestation complaints.  The Buffalo News has details:  

Bishops for the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo refused to acknowledge anything about priests who were accused of molesting minors.

Bishop Richard J. Malone altered course Tuesday morning by disclosing the names of 42 priests facing allegations of sex abuse, including 27 priests whose names had not previously been linked in public to molestation complaints. The diocese joined about 30 other dioceses in the country that have disclosed the names of clergy accused of sexual misconduct.

Most of the priests on the list were never prosecuted on criminal charges or sued in civil courts. Some of the priests were quietly removed from ministry under the guise of early retirements or medical leaves. The diocese on Tuesday did not provide any information about the specific allegations against each priest, or disclose where the living priests are residing.

Meanwhile, the Buffalo News has this: 

Malone was in the state Capitol lobbying with other Catholic bishops from across the state against a provision in the proposed Child Victims Act that would allow victims of child sexual abuse to sue dioceses decades after the alleged abuse occurred.

These two stories are just part of the dozen plus stories from around the world that my Google search agent delivers to me each and every day.

But what are the Conference of Catholic Bishops focused on?  Not cleaning their own ranks of enablers and abetters of sexual predators or cleansing the priesthood of predators or justly compensating victims of abuse.  No, their focus is on backing a proposed federal law that would legalize discrimination against law abiding LGBT citizens under the ruse of "protecting religious liberty."   It's enough to make one want to vomit and certainly explains why the younger generations are walking away from Catholicism (and organized Christianity in general).  Here are highlights from blogger friend Joe Jervis' blog:

Via press release:  Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee for Religious Liberty, and Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, gave their strong support for the First Amendment Defense Act, which was recently introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in the U.S. Senate:

“We welcome and applaud the recent reintroduction of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA). The USCCB has been vocal in support of the legislation since its inception. FADA is a modest and important measure that protects the rights of faith-based organizations and people of all faiths and of no faith who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

“The Church will also continue to stand for the ability of all to exercise their religious beliefs and moral convictions in public life without fear of government discrimination. We are pleased to support the First Amendment Defense Act, and we urge Congress to pass this important legislation.”

 What of the civil rights and religious freedoms of those with differing beliefs?  To the bitter old men in dresses, they simply do not matter.  Only the beliefs of modern day Pharisees deserve protection. The hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy is staggering.

Why Conservative Christians Would Have Hated Jesus

This blog often notes the reality that while professing support for Christian values, today's conservative Christians - and certainly those within the Republican Party - are pursuing agendas totally at odds with the Gospel social message.  It's as if the worship a reverse version of the Sermon on the Mount and believe that Mitt Romney's vulture capitalism is the highest form of walking in the shoes of Christ.  Other than seeking to police everyone bedrooms to impose a puritan form of sexual conduct, they truly despise the message of Christ.  A piece in Salon looks at why the "godly folk" would hate Christ if he returned today.  Here are excerpts:

Jesus never could have been the pastor of a contemporary evangelical church nor a conservative Roman Catholic bishop. Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics thrive on drawing distinctions between their “truth” and other people’s failings. Jesus by contrast, set off an empathy time bomb that obliterates difference.

Jesus’ empathy bomb explodes every time a former evangelical puts love ahead of what the “Bible says.” It goes off every time Pope Francis puts inclusion ahead of dogma. It goes off every time a gay couple are welcomed into a church. Jesus’ time bomb explodes whenever atheists follow Jesus better than most Christians.

Put it this way: Godless non-church-going Denmark mandates four weeks of maternity leave before childbirth and fourteen weeks afterward for mothers. Parents of newborn children are assisted with well-baby nurse-practitioner visits in their homes.

In the “pro-life” and allegedly “family friendly” American Bible belt, conservative political leaders slash programs designed to help women and children while creating a justifying mythology about handouts versus empowerment.

In “God-fearing America” the poor are now the “takers,” no longer the “least of these,” and many conservative evangelicals side with today’s Pharisees, attacking the poor in the name of following the Bible.

So who is following Jesus?

Confronted by the Bible cult called evangelicalism we have a choice: follow Jesus or follow a book cult. If Jesus is God as evangelicals and Roman Catholics claim he is, then the choice is clear. We have to read the book–including the New Testament–as he did, and Jesus didn’t like the “Bible” of his day.

Confronted by bishops protecting dogma and tradition against Pope Francis’ embrace of empathy for the “other” we have a choice: follow Jesus or protect the institution.

Every time Jesus mentioned the equivalent of a church tradition, the Torah, he qualified it with something like this: “The scriptures say thus and so, but I say…” Jesus undermined the scriptures and religious tradition in favor of empathy. Every time Jesus undermined the scriptures (Jewish “church tradition”) it was to err on the side of co-suffering love.
Every time conservative Roman Catholics try to stop the Pope from bringing change to the Church they are on the side to those who killed Jesus.

In evangelical and Roman Catholic fundamentalist terms, Jesus was a rule-breaking humanist who wasn’t “saved.” A conservative bishop would have refused Jesus the sacraments. Christianity Today magazine would have editorialized against him, called for his firing, banning and branded him a traitor to the cause of Christianity.

The message of Jesus’ life is an intervention in and an acceleration of the evolution of empathy.

Jesus responded by attacking the preeminence of religion, tradition, dogma and group identity, offering an entirely new way of looking at spirituality by emphasizing basic human dignity above nation, state, gender or religion: . . 

Evangelicals struggle to conform Jesus to a book, not the other way around. And the conservative bishops have aligned themselves with the American neoconservative wing of their church against not just the Pope Francis but against the emancipating logic of Jesus’ empathy time bomb. If Jesus isn’t the “lens” evangelicals and Roman Catholics read the Bible and their traditions through then whatever they say to the contrary they do not really believe Jesus is the son of God.

Well said.  The reality of just how unChristian the godly folk have become goes a long way toward explaining why 30% of the younger generations have simply walked away from Christianity.  The "godly folk" have made it something truly ugly.  Hatred of others has become conservative Christianity defining characteristic, along with conduct that would have embarrassed the biblical Pharisees.

Catholic Diocese of Providence Ignored 800 Allegations of Sexual Abuse

News reports out of Providence, Rhode Island consist of what has now become the norm: Roman Catholic Church officials closing their eyes to sexual abuse and allowing sexual predators to continue to prey on children and youths.  And sadly, no one has been punished or removed from office.  As noted before in past posts, until Pope Francis acts to clean up the cesspool within the Church hierarchy, any hopes that change may be in the wind will be largely imaginary and solely in the minds of those who refuse to recognize the truth about the institutional Church.  The Providence Journal has coverage.  As the coverage notes, boys and males were not the only victims.  Here are excerpts:

Victims of sexual abuse gathered for a news conference on Wednesday to condemn the Catholic Diocese of Providence for allegedly failing to properly investigate more than 800 allegations of sexual abuse over the past 20 years.

Among those presenting in a downtown hotel conference room stories of abuse by local parish priests were Ann Hagan-Webb, a representative from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP; and Jeffrey Thomas, of Massachusetts, and Helen McGonigle, a lawyer from Connecticut.

Thomas and McGonigle said they were raped as children by the Rev. Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest who was at Our Lady of Mercy Church in East Greenwich from 1965 to 1968. Smyth returned to Ireland and pleaded guilty to 141 counts of sexual abuse there. He died in prison in Ireland in 1997.  Thomas and McGonigle had made similar allegations about Smyth at a news conference in December 2009.

The victims said Wednesday they want the office of Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin and U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha to launch an in-depth investigation into what they said were 831 complaints of pedophilia and sexual abuse filed with the diocese. They also said many of the abusive priests continue to serve in parishes in Rhode Island and elsewhere.

“This has to change if we are going to protect the children of Rhode Island,” Hagan-Webb said.

McGonigle, who said she was raped beginning at age 6 and continuing through age 9, referred to Smyth as “an international serial pedophile.” She said that, in June 2006, she met for about an hour with diocesan officials about Smyth and has since filed a lawsuit against the church. She also told them that her late sister, Kathleen, had been a victim of Smyth. She died of an a drug overdose in 2005, McGonigle said.

While alleging that the diocese had not investigated hundreds of abuse claims, the victims, along with Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of bishopaccountability.org, of Waltham, Mass., provided reporters Wednesday with an inch-thick set of files they said that McCarthy had turned over to the state police. They all contained redacted information about priests allegedly molesting boys and men, girls and women from August 2003 through last February.

Barrett Doyle estimated that at least 500 of the more than 800 allegations of abuse involved victims under the age of 18. She also said that the abusers were priests and some lay employees of the church. Some of the abuse, she pointed out, was inflicted on adults.

Yes, you read it correctly - instances of abuse that occurred through last February.  Nothing has really changed and it will not change unless and until bishops and cardinals are sacked for their malfeasance.  The Church has proven it deserves no deference whatsoever.   Yet politicians prostitute themselves to the Church's whining about gays and contraception.  They ought to be hanging up their phones and not even meeting with Church officials.

Gay Marriage Doesn’t Affect Opposite-Sex Marriage Rates

One of the most ludicrous and disingenuous talking points of the anti-gay marriage crowd (they are really anti-gay and not just anti-gay marriage) is that somehow gay marriage will harm heterosexual marriage and damage the "institution of marriage."  A new study confirms that such claims are - like just about everything else that comes out of the mouths of the Christofascists, Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic hierarchy - lies.  Thus, the only real motivation for opposing gay marriage is to keep same sex couples inferior under the law so that the "godly Christians" can feel superior and point to anti-gay laws as a justification for their own hate and bigotry.  Here are highlights on the study findings via Think Progress:

States that have passed marriage equality legislation have seen no impact on their rates of opposite-sex marriage, according to a new study published Tuesday. 

The study, authored by Alexis Dinno and Chelsea Whitney of Portland State University’s School of Community Health, was published in the online research journal PLOS ONE. Dinno and Whitney compared rates in the 13 states which had legalized marriage equality or strong civil unions before 2009 to those in other states, finding that opposite-sex marriage rates did not differ in those states to a statistically significant degree:

“We found that state rates of opposite sex marriage in the U.S. from 1989–2009 do not significantly differ when same sex marriage and union laws are in force compared to when they are not in force, contrary both to concerns raised by opponents of same sex marriage and same sex civil unions,” the authors wrote.

The idea of marriage equality as an “attack on traditional marriage” is a favored talking point of opponents. In April, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said legalizing same-sex marriage would discourage marriage among heterosexual couples because the traditional understanding of marriage as a means of reproduction would erode. The Family Research Council has argued that “traditional” marriage keeps men from cheating on their wives once the women are no longer fertile. Two anti-marriage equality advocates from the Heritage Foundation said it would lead to the erosion of marital norms, even though opposite-sex couples already cheat, divorce, and decline to have children (or are unable to), even in states that still restrict marriage.

While there is no harm to opposite-sex couples, studies have shown that ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage are actually psychologically harmful to the gay community.

Yes, there is documented harm to same sex couples and that's the goal of opponents to gay marriage.  They actively seek to harm same sex couples and punish us for failing to adhere to their sick, ignorance, fear and hate based religious beliefs.   Yes, it's an ugly truth, but that is the face of conservative Christianity in 2013. And leading the charge are hate groups like FRC and NOM - and, of course Catholic bishops across the world.

U.S. Catholic Bishops Step Up Anti-Gay Efforts

While we continue to see sex abuse scandals exploding around the world - e.g., Australia and now Africa -  involving sexual predator priests and a Vatican orchestrated conspiracy to cover up crimes and protect child rapists what do the U. S. Catholic bishops focus their efforts on?  Stopping gay marriage and placing anti-gay propaganda in parish bulletins across the country.  One can only assume that the self-loathing closet cases in the bishopric across America are desperate to keep the sheeple in the pews distracted from the ongoing exposure of the moral cesspool that is the Church hierarchy.  A piece in The Bilerico Project looks at this latest effort to denigrate gays and send a message that gay marriage harms children.  Here are highlights:

With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to rule on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 in June, and two new states enacting same-sex marriage legislation in the first few months of 2013 (with another potentially on the way), marriage equality in the United States is on the move.

While this is welcome news to equality-minded folks across the country, it's decidedly bad news for America's Catholic bishops, who are leading the crusade to exclude same-sex couples from legal civil marriage. It's a battle they're clearly losing, but as the bishops' struggle against the tide of history becomes ever more exhausting, they're taking a cue from their Anglican counterparts: their opposition is becoming increasingly hysterical. 

In their latest anti-equality attack, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has prepared an insert that Catholic parishes across the country will place in their bulletins in May and June. They warn that a pro-fairness Supreme Court ruling (a broad negative ruling," as they call it) could "redefine marriage in the law throughout the entire country, becoming the 'Roe v. Wade' of marriage." [emphasis theirs]

Also in the insert, the bishops predictably claim that allowing loving and committed same-sex couples to marry somehow harms children:

There are many ways to protect the basic human rights of all, but redefining marriage serves no one's rights, least of all those of children.

And:

Every child has a basic, natural right to come from and be raised in the loving marital union of his or her own father and mother.

As we know, there is literally no scientific basis for the claims the bishops are making, but why let science get in the way, right? Finally, Jeremy Hooper at Good As You discovered another USCCB document today called "One Man, One Woman, for Life: Lead Messages on Marriage Redefinition." It contains a whole host of anti-equality talking points for clergy, leaders, and lay Catholics, including these gems about so-called "same-sex attraction:"



If you're not familiar with Courage, it's a Catholic "ministry" which uses a 12-step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous to encourage Catholics struggling with "same-sex attractions" to suppress their sexuality and live totally celibate lives. It's essentially a Catholic version of the widely-discredited "ex-gay" programs, just wrapped in a more subtly-colored bow.

In my view, by embracing in their fight against marriage equality the myth that sexual orientation can be changed or suppressed, the U.S. Catholic bishops are tipping their hand. The endgame here isn't just the exclusion of loving same-sex couples from legal civil marriage. No, the bishops' goal is to ensure that LGBT Americans are relegated to second-class status in every aspect of society.

Faith Groups Behind Minnesota Marriage Victory

While it is not yet a done deal, as noted in a post yesterday it appears that gay marriage may be enacted into law sometime net week - perhaps as early as Monday.  One of the interesting phenomenon in the movement towards full marriage equality is that increasingly some faith groups - the good Christians, if you will - are joining the movement for equality.  Particularity sweet from my perspective is that a growing majority of the Catholic laity is supporting gay marriage in defiance of the the edicts of the child rapist enablers in the Church hierarchy.  Nowadays, if one wants to see genuine morality, the last place to look for it is among the "princes of the Church" who bring a new meaning to the term "moral cesspool."  A piece in Queering of the Church looks at those who have rejected the ignorance and bigotry that so long defined too many Christians - and which still defines the Christofascists.  Note too the role the ELCA has been  playing.  Here are some excerpts:

It’s not a done deal yet, but with comfortable passage through the Minnesota House tonight, approval by the Senate seems assured, and Governor Dayton has already promised to sign. It’s only a matter of time – and Catholics, once again, have been prominent in the campaign for equality.

This is not new: Catholics have been prominent in marriage victories elsewhere, as have other faith groups. (Mark D Jordan reminds us in “Blessing Same – Sex Unions” of something most of us have forgotten – that some same – sex couples were marrying or having their unions blessed in churches and temples for years, before legal recognition was even thought possible). But it is true that for a long time, it appeared that church groups were overwhelmingly opposed, and only fairly recently has faith – based support become reasonably widespread. Minnesota, I suspect, is one example where the religious support has been particularly telling.

Of the many Catholic activists and politicians who have contributed to this big win for authentic Catholic family values, is fellow blogger Michael Bayly, whose The Wild Reed was the inspiration and example that got me started myself. As I’ve followed his work over the past five years or so, I’ve noted how the case for marriage has increased steadily in prominence at The Wild Reed – and later at the dedicated site “Sensus Fidelium” (presenting news from Catholics for Marriage Equality MN).
I’m not going to even attempt to offer a run-down of all the people and groups who have contributed, or how. But for some indication of just how much there has been, cross to yesterday’s post at The Wild Reed, “Drawing the Circle Wide”, written in anticipation of today’s success and giving an extensive list of some of those people, with pictures, whose hard work has now paid off. Then cross to today’s post at Sensus Fidelium, “It’ll be legal by August 1st”, where you can read more about the legwork done by Catholics for Marriage Equality MN,  . . . .

From The Wild Reed, an extract:

On the eve of tomorrow’s historic Minnesota House vote to grant the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage to same-sex couples, hundreds of people of faith gathered earlier this evening at Christ on Capitol Hill Lutheran Church to “pray a new reality into being” – the reality of marriage equality for all, regardless of sexual orientation. The gathering was organized by the Faith Organizing Roundtable.

Four years ago MN State Sen. John Marty addressed the 2009 annual community meeting of theCatholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities and told those in attendance that “we can make it happen.” He was referring to marriage equality for all Minnesotan citizens, regardless of sexual orientation.

One of the definite highlights of the rally for me was when we unfurled the Catholics for Marriage Equality MN banner from one of the top balconies of the rotunda. I heard a thunderous wave of applause rise up from below, and thought to myself that the first of the rally’s speakers must have stepped up to the podium. Looking down I made the wonderful discovery that it wasn’t the appearance of a speaker that the crowd was so enthusiastically responding to, but rather the appearance of our banner!

The Church hierarchy is losing the war and by its continued anti-gay jihad it is accelerating its own irrelevance and  driving more and more younger voters who were raised Catholic - my own three children - away from the Church, probably forever.  I find it ironic and most sweet that the bitter old men in dresses in Rome can't see that it is they and their Christofascist allies, not modernity, who are killing the Christian brand.

Catholic Bishops Seek to Torpedo Immigration Protections for Bi-National Couples

Even as more filth within the Catholic Church hierarchy has been exposed by the ongoing release of documents from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Roman Catholic bishops have stepped up their anti-gay jihad and are pressuring politicians to strip provisions from immigration reform bills that would give legally married bi-national same sex couples the same immigration rights afforded to heterosexual couples.  It's part and parcel of the bishops' continued speaking out of both sides of their mouths while they disingenuously state that gays should be treated with dignity even as they do all in their power to strip away LGBT rights and dignity.  One has to wonder (i) do the bishops think these tactics will distract the laity from the horrors the bishops, cardinals and Popes allowed and perpetuated, and (ii) why does any politician listen to these bitter old men, many of whom ought to be behind bars for their roles in the sexual abuse of children?  The Associated Press is reporting on the bishop's anti-gay efforts. Here are highlights:

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops are in a difficult position as the debate over immigration reform gets underway: The immigrant-built American church, known for advocating a broad welcome for migrants and refugees, could end up opposing reform because it would recognize same-sex partners.

Proposals by President Barack Obama and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus include the same-sex partners of Americans among those who would be eligible for visas. The Human Rights Campaign and other gay advocates welcomed the recognition, arguing current laws unfairly treat people in gay or lesbian relationships "as strangers." The idea has the backing of the National Council de la Raza and other liberal Latino groups.

But Catholic bishops, with the support of evangelicals and other theological conservatives, have sent a letter to Obama protesting his proposal. In a sign of the sensitivity of the issue, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops would not provide a copy of the statement, saying the signatories agreed not to make the letter public. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops, would say only that recognition of gay couples in the president's reform proposals "jeopardizes passage of the bill."

Many other major religious groups lobbying for reform, such as The Episcopal Church, either support gay marriage or don't make homosexuality a focus. In a conference call this week with reporters, White House Domestic Policy Council director Cecilia Munoz was asked whether Obama would support a bill that didn't acknowledge same-sex partners. Her only response: "The president's position on that is very clear."

It seems unlikely the bishops would accept any provision for same-sex partners— even for an issue as important to the church as immigration.

Ultimately, the controversy could split Catholics, in much the same way that Catholics divided over health care. Despite enormous pressure from the bishops, the Catholic Health Association, a trade group that represents hospitals, provided critical backing for the president's health care legislation. Surveys have found that large majorities of lay Catholics back same-sex marriage or civil unions.  Given the importance of Latinos to the U.S. church, political observers wonder how bishops could explain their opposition to Hispanic parishioners.

Frankly, what's needed is more criminal investigations of - and criminal prosecutions of bishops and cardinals for their roles in the worldwide criminal conspiracy to protect predators and obstruct justice.  Perhaps then these foul men wouldn't have time to work to deprive others of their civil legal rights - they'd be too busy trying to save their own sorry asses.

Obama Caves on Contraception Manadate

In a move that he hopes will placate the child rapist protectors in the Roman Catholic Church and  anti-women right wing religious denominations, Barack Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services have released new regulations that would allow Catholic institutions and similar religious controlled colleges and hospitals to avoid having to directly provide birth control coverage to female employees.  Candidly, I doubt it will make these religious extremists happy and predict that they will continue to fraudulently claim that the Obama administration is trampling on their "religious liberty."  It is they, not the Obama administration, that want to trample on religious liberty for all but themselves.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this new measure by Obama:

On Friday, the Obama administration put forth its proposed compromise for cleaning up the mandated birth control pile of poo it blundered into early last year.

Now, the administration is back with a tinker to its original compromise that holds considerable promise for placating (almost) everyone: in cases where religious employers object to birth control, the insurance companies that handle their health benefits will automatically arrange for separate, free, contraception-only policies, the costs of which will be offset by giving the insurers a break on the fees they are charged to participate in the insurance exchanges being set up under the ACA. (That is, of course, the boiled-down explanation of how it works. There is much fine-tuning yet to come.)

Women get access to birth control. Religious groups don’t have to pay for it, or even directly arrange for it. Insurers get a cost offset. Everybody wins! More or less.

That is not to suggest that everyone will be happy. (Are they ever?) And the 44 lawsuits already filed in protest of this particular mandate—then put on hold until the administration clarified its position—will likely start rolling again. Already, the conservative Susan B. Anthony List PAC is grousing about the White House’s assault on “religious and moral freedom.”

But this proposal makes clear that the White House learned its lesson and is trying to show respect for the concerns of religious conservatives. This, in turn, may help separate hard-core opponents of contraceptive coverage from those who simply disliked the my-way-or-the-highway bossiness of the administration’s original mandate. At the very least, the compromise will defang charges from ranters like Rush that Obama is some high-handed, amoral elitist determined to ram his views down the throats of decent God-fearing Americans. In this political climate, that may be the best the president can hope for.

I suspect that the author is right and Obama will simply never be able to please those who see women as evil temptresses and sluts (e.g., the Catholic hierarchy) or those who want to keep women barefoot, pregnant and preferably uneducated (e.g., the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelical Christian denominations).  A column in the Chicago Tribune last year summed up what's really going quite well:

[W]hat I don't understand is the bishops' obsession with sex. Yes, the Church is (wrongly) against contraception. But the Church is also against the death penalty. Why don't the bishops raise a stink about that? And the Church was opposed to the Iraq war. Why didn't they condemn George W. Bush for bombing a country that did not attack us first? Why do they only get their episcopal panties in a twist when it comes to sex?

No, this is not a case of President Obama trying to interfere with religious freedom. This is a case of Catholic bishops trying to force their narrow views about sex on everybody else.

 Unless, of course, the sex is between priest and children and youths - then the good bishops have amnesia and are blind as to what is happening under their watch.  The hypocrisy is stunning.

Catholic Bishops To SCOTUS: Gays Not Entitled to Marriage Since Being Gay Is Just ‘Conduct’

Proving once again that they have the same level of contempt for scientific knowledge as they did centuries ago when they condemned Galileo, the Catholic Bishops have filed briefs in the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases now before the U.S. Supreme Court which among other things state that since being gays is merely conduct (and sinful conduct at that although protecting child rapists is apparently OK), gays are not entitled to civil law marriage rights.  Oh, and let's not forget that the pillars of moral authority at the Vatican and at U.S. bishoprics once held that slavery was acceptable.  For a group that has been so consistently wrong so many times over the course of history, one would think these bitter old men would have learned to keep their mouths shut.  But nothing gets the bitter old closeted queens more upset that the prospect of normal gays having loving, fulfilling relationships recognized by society while they themselves have to be content with wearing dresses and feigning piety.  Think Progress looks at the Catholic Bishops' briefs.  Here are highlights:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has filed amicus briefs in the two marriage equality cases before the Supreme Court, encouraging the Justices to rule in favor of discrimination. At the foundation of the Conference’s argument is the claim that gays don’t deserve any legal protections because the only thing that defines them is their “voluntary actions,” just like polygamists:

In contrast to the classes for which this Court has applied heightened scrutiny, what lower courts have understood to be a homosexual “orientation” is not a trait attributable from conception or birth. Rather, particularly as framed by Respondents here, it involves a species of conduct. Indeed, with this distinction in mind, this Court has recognized that a finding of a suspect or quasi-suspect class for equal protection purposes is  simply  inappropriate when the distinguishing characteristic is  a product of “voluntary action.”

The example of polygamists—a class that is defined in part by conduct—illustrates the point.  One can substitute “polygamists” for “homosexuals” as that term is used in the  Windsor opinion and arrive at the same conclusion for the former as the Second Circuit did with respect to  the latter. Our point, of course, is not that the two are morally equivalent, but simply that the Second Circuit’s logic leads to absurd results, and  that the absurdity originates with the decision to  ignore this Court’s “voluntary action” limitation on “distinguishing traits” that may trigger heightened scrutiny.

Unsurprisingly, the word “gay” is not to be found in the brief except when citing case law. It’s telling that the brief even uses scare-quotes around the term “orientation,” implying that the concept of a sexual orientation doesn’t even exist. Indeed, British Archbishop Vincent Nichols admitted earlier this month that the Catholic Church refuses to identify anybody by their sexual orientation. All the Church sees is sex — no identities.

The goal of completely erasing the lives of gays and lesbians is obviously apparent. Despite claims of protecting children’s well-being, the Church refuses to acknowledge that the many children raised by same-sex couples would benefit if their parents could marry. In the brief, the Bishops admit these families exist, but nothing more. Instead, they cite the problematic Mark Regnerus study and irrelevant “fatherless” studies to suggest that same-sex parents are inferior, when none of the data actually indicate that. In the name of protecting children, families, and society, they are doing the exact opposite.

Would that more prosecutors would have the balls  to go after these horrible old men who have participated in a world wide criminal conspiracy to aid and abet child rapists and to cover up their crimes.  The deserve no deference or respect whatsoever.  If any Supreme Court justice even reads their briefs they demonstrate their own moral lacking.

2012 Election: A Major Defeat for the Christian Right

Another group besides the GOP suffered a major defeat on election day last Tuesday: the Christian Right, or as I prefer to call them, the Christofascists who seek to impose their sick - and in my view psychologically disturbed  - religious world view on all Americans. I have long held that this group of extremists represent a clear and present danger to constitutional government in this nation.  Thus, it is an encouraging sign that their agenda which has become totally intertwined with the GOP platform went down to defeat.  A piece in the New York Times looks at this defeat and how dumbfounded many of the Christofascists are over the fact that Americans do not want the poison that they are peddling.  Here are article highlights:

Christian conservatives, for more than two decades a pivotal force in American politics, are grappling with Election Day results that repudiated their influence and suggested that the cultural tide — especially on gay issues — has shifted against them. 

They are reeling not only from the loss of the presidency, but from what many of them see as a rejection of their agenda. They lost fights against same-sex marriage in all four states where it was on the ballot, and saw anti-abortion-rights Senate candidates defeated and two states vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use. 

It is not as though they did not put up a fight; they went all out as never before: The Rev. Billy Graham dropped any pretense of nonpartisanship and all but endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Roman Catholic bishops denounced President Obama’s policies as a threat to life, religious liberty and the traditional nuclear family. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition distributed more voter guides in churches and contacted more homes by mail and phone than ever before.

“Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out. “It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.” 

Americans who have no religious affiliation — pollsters call them the “nones” — are now about one-fifth of the population over all, according to a study released last month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 

The younger generation is even less religious: about one-third of Americans ages 18 to 22 say they are either atheists, agnostics or nothing in particular. Americans who are secular are far more likely to vote for liberal candidates and for same-sex marriage. Seventy percent of those who said they had no religion voted for Mr. Obama, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. 

“This election signaled the last where a white Christian strategy is workable,” said Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization based in Washington. 

In interviews, conservative Christian leaders  .  .  .  .  acknowledge that they are losing ground. The evangelical share of the population is both declining and graying, studies show. Large churches like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God, which have provided an organizing base for the Christian right, are losing members. 

“In the long run, this means that the Republican constituency is going to be shrinking on the religious end as well as the ethnic end,” said James L. Guth, a professor of political science at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. 

Meanwhile, religious liberals are gradually becoming more visible. Liberal clergy members spoke out in support of same-sex marriage, and one group ran ads praising Mr. Obama’s health care plan for insuring the poor and the sick.

The election outcome was also sobering news for Catholic bishops, who this year spoke out on politics more forcefully and more explicitly than ever before, some experts said. The bishops and Catholic conservative groups helped lead the fight against same-sex marriage in the four states where that issue was on the ballot.  .  .  .  .  Despite this, Mr. Obama retained the Catholic vote, 50 to 48 percent, according to exit polls, although his support slipped from four years ago. Also, solid majorities of Catholics supported same-sex marriage, said Dr. Jones, the pollster. 

One can only hope that the demise of the strength of the Christofascists will accelerate as older bigots die off and are replaced by those disgusted by the message of hate and division which is the principal hallmark of conservative Christianity.

Marriage Equality Wins Across the Board

Candidly, I never believed that it would happen, but last night marriage equality prevailed in every state where it was on the ballot: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington State.  And it prevailed despite huge amounts of money thrown against LGBT rights by the National Organization for Marriage, the Catholic Church hierarchy, and the Knights of Columbus, and their active dissemination of utter lies and falsehoods denigrating LGBT citizens.  One can only suspect that this morning, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins and the morally bankrupt Catholic bishops are acting not only like someone peed in their Cheerios but defecated in them as well.  NOM can no longer crow that no popular vote has ever affirmed same sex marriage - yesterday it happened four times.  The message to the GOP if anyone who is still a Republican is sentiment is that the bad old days of win by gay bashing, race baiting and Bible thumping are ending.  Here are highlights from the Star Tribune on what was perhaps the biggest surprise of last night:

The proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution fell short of passage early Wednesday morning, according to the Associated Press.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment had the support of only 48 percent of voters. Support for the ballot measure trailed the combined "no" votes and blank ballots by more than 100,000 votes, an amount that seem insurmountable with so few votes left to be counted.

"You dug down and fought for love, with love," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told hundreds of amendment opponents gathered at the RiverCentre in St. Paul late Tuesday night. "You understood compassion. This wound up being one of the most inspirational things that's ever happened in Minnesota. Minnesota is going to be the state that's going to show the country exactly what Minnesota values are all about."

"We're for equality," Dayton said. "We understand the Constitution of the United States, we understand the founding premise where all men and women are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and those certainly include the right to marry the person you love."

As for Maryland, Virginia's neighbor just across the Potomac, the Baltimore Sun has coverage.  Here are highlights:

Marylanders made history Tuesday as they voted to make same-sex marriage legal — a question that had been defeated each of the 32 times it had been on the ballot in other states.

"To Maryland's children – please know that you and your families matter to the people of our state," Gov. Martin O'Malley, who pushed for the law, said early Wednesday in a statement declaring victory. "Whether your parents happen to be gay or straight, Democratic, Republican or Independent, your families are equal before the eyes of the law."

The Free State joins six others and the District of Columbia, which have allowed same-sex marriage. Local courts can begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in January.

One can only wonder whether the Republican Party of Virginia will get the message from these four states and Romney's defeat that either the GOP leaves its 11th Century thinking behind or it faces a slow but unalterable death.  Allowing The Family Foundation's Victoria Cobb to rule the Virginia GOP like some dominatrix is going to be more of  a losing proposition with each passing year.

Porcine Catholic Bishop: Vote for Obama and Go to Hell

It never ceases to amaze me how Catholic bishops who have participated in perhaps the largest worldwide conspiracy to enable and protect sexual predators and hide crimes against children and youth still have the audacity to lecture others on how to case their vote for politicians and political parties.  Equally amazing is how anyone listens to what these men who have obstructed justice have to say on anything.  A case in point is Bishop David Ricken of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay - who looks to have NEVER missed a meal and be living pretty high on the hog - who in a letter to Catholics in his diocese has stated that supporting politicians who support choice and same sex marriage is to support something "intrinsically evil."  I would venture a far bigger evil is men like Ricken himself.  Here are highlights from Northwestern.com on Rickens bullshit:

Bishop David Ricken, the leader of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, noted in a recent letter to parishioners that voting for candidates who support what he calls “intrinsically evil” positions, such as abortion and gay marriage, could “put your own soul in jeopardy.”

Ricken’s letter, dated Oct. 24, notes that the church has a responsibility to “speak out regarding moral issues, especially on those issues that impact the ‘common good.’” It goes on to note principles to keep in mind in the voting booth on Nov. 6, including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage.

“Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party’s or their personal political platform. To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally ‘complicit’ with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy.”

 Ricken’s guidance on these issues carry a lot of weight in this region — the diocese has 304,614 members in 16 counties. Across the state, Catholics make up more than 25 percent of the population, or 1.5 million people, according to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies’ 2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study.

This from a man who has sworn obedience and fealty to a Pope who is a former Hitler Youth and who has been documented to have protected sexual predators in the same manners as Monsignor Lynn of Philadelphia who is headed to prison.  It's Ricken and his cohorts who are "intrinsically evil."   I suspect that Ricken's own soul is in more jeopardy than those of most members of his diocese.

The Vatican And Church Hierarchy Refuse to Accept Responsibility for Collpase of Catholicism in Advanced World

Simple Google search agents yield multitudes of news articles that address the issue of the world wide Catholic Church  sex abuse scandal as well as countless stories of educated Catholics walking away for the Church's 12th century "natural law" theories that underlie much of the Church's "flat earth"  mindset and deliberate rejection of medical and scientific knowledge.   Yet a synod of Catholic cardinals meeting in Rome still refused to acknowledge their own culpability in the Church's collapse in the western world and now even in South America, a former bastion of Catholicism.  With no thorough house cleaning of the Hierarchy of those who enabled and protected sexual predators and no acceptance of modern knowledge, especially in respect to sexual orientation, it is reasonable to expect the collapse of the Church - a net positive in my view - to continue.  A piece by Rueters looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

The alarm was sounded in the final message of a synod of bishops from around the world who met at the Vatican on the theme of the "New Evagelisation", or the need to stop the hemorrhaging of the faithful, particularly in developed countries.

The Church is suffering desertions from its practicing flock in former strongholds in Europe, North America and Latin America due to sex abuse scandals, increasing secularism, rival faiths and open dissent against Church teachings on homosexuality and its ban on a female priesthood.

The message, a synthesis of the topics discussed in three weeks by more than 260 bishops, said that. . . . the Church needed to find new ways of putting it "into practice in today's circumstances".

During the synod, some bishops said it had become more difficult to ask lapsed and lukewarm Catholics to return to the Church after the sexual abuse scandals that hit the worldwide institution in the past decade.

What the synod totally failed to address, in my view, is the growing scientific evidence that shows that Adam and Eve never actually existed, that the story of "the "Fall" through Adam and Eve is untrue and that the whole story of the redemption through Christ the Messiah is unraveling.   I suspect that no matter what the Church does in the advanced nations of the world, it's membership will continue to hemorrhage.  In the context of gay rights, the irony is that in the longer term, the Church may be digging its own grave through its opposition to gay rights and gay marriage.  The hypocrisy of the Vatican and the rest of the Church hierarchy remains staggering.

 

Catholics Flee Romney As Catholic Bishop States a Vote for Obama Jeopardizes One's Soul

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Watching the seemingly faltering Romney/Ryan campaign and the Roman Catholic bishops' efforts to endorse Romney is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.    I'm sure Romney believed that by selecting Paul Ryan who was parroting the anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-contraception mantra of the Catholic bishops he would lock up the Catholic vote.  The latest polls show that the exact opposite is in fact happening.  So what do the Catholic bishops - or at least some of them - do?  They, in the person of Bishop Thomas John Paprocki (pictured below), issue a statement that a vote for Barack Obama may subject one's soul to eternal damnation.  First these thoughts from Andrew Sullivan on the flight of Catholics from the Romney/Ryan ticket:

 National Catholic Reporter finds something remarkable in a new poll from Pew:

On June 17, Obama held a slight edge over Mitt Romney among Catholics (49 percent to 47 percent), according to the Pew Research Center. Since then, Obama has surged ahead, and now leads 54 percent to 39 percent, according to a Pew poll conducted Sept. 16. Among all registered voters, Obama leads Romney 51 percent to 42 percent, according to Pew.

Obama's total Catholic vote against McCain was where he is now: 54 percent. But Romney has only 39 percent compared with McCain's 45.

A small word of thanks to Cardinal Dolan, Robert George and K-Lo for helping shift the Catholic vote massively toward Obama with their summer campaign for religious liberty. And special thanks to Paul Ryan. No actual Catholic could ever find anything but puerile cruelty in the works of Ayn Rand, or rally to the idea that home-care for the elderly should be sacrificed to reduce tax rates for the super-rich. Paul Ryan believes that the basic principles of Rand can be compatible with Catholicism. American Catholics are just not that dumb or confused about their faith.

The poll, though just released, was conducted on September 16. The polls have shifted slightly in his favor since. The 47 percent tape - about as anathema to Catholic social teaching as is possible to express in its contempt for the poor - cannot have helped.  

Catholics may not be as dumb as Romney and Ryan think they are, but the Catholic bishops continue to view their flock as complete cretins.   As noted above, faced with a flight of Catholics to Obama, the Catholic bishops apparently plan on scaring would be Obama voters by saying that they will be damned to Hell if the pull the Democrat lever.  Here are highlights from Raw Story on this insane batshitery:

A Catholic bishop from Springfield, Illinois is warning that the stakes for the 2012 election are even higher than most people think because voting for President Barack Obama could damn “you own soul” to hell.
In a column and video posted by the official newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and obtained by Right Wing Watch on Wednesday, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki called out the Democratic Party for temporarily removing God from their platform, supporting abortion and recognizing that “gay rights are human rights.” 

“There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils,” the bishop explained. “My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding ‘political’ and didn’t say anything about the morality of these issues. People of faith object to these platform positions that promote serious sins.”

“So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin,” Paprocki added. 

“Again, I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against,” he concluded, “but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”

I can only wonder how many sexual predator priests Paprocki has enabled or protected.  Where is the IRS?  The Catholic Church needs to lose its tax exempt status NOW.