Well, not yet. But it looks pretty likely. Washington, D.C., the city that should be the protector of liberty is now bent on reducing liberty. Specifically, the city is bent on reducing religious liberty. And they are doing it in the same fashion as Massachusetts did a few years ago.
Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post report today (Nov. 12, 2009, front page) that
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 la, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness, and ehalth care.
Under the bill, headed for a D. C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay mean 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.
If you are unfamiliar with the happenings in Massachusetts a few years ago, the Catholic Church was forced to withdraw from participation in the foster care and adoption system of the state because of moral objections to having to place children into homosexual households. The state could have accommodated the church and modified their procedures, but they chose to do otherwise, thus removing the church from equal rights to participate in civic matters on account of religious beliefs.
The Post article goes further:
If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city’s long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.
And of course there is the expected accusation from the homosexual community:
Peter Rosenstein of the Campaign for Alll D.C. Families accused the church of trying to “blackmail the city.”
“The issue here is that they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable,” Rosenstein said.
And
“If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer cake city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes,” Catina said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.
Terry Lynch, head of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, said he did not know of any other group in the city that was making such a threat.
“Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?” Cheh asked. “I hope, in the silver light of day, when this passes, because it will pass, they will not really act on this threat.”
Now, is anyone outraged? Well, the homosexual advocates are. But are we? Can we promote liberty while they, under their special-rights processes, seek to secularize society and turn the church into a servant of the secular state. This is statism at its worst. Discrimination against religious beliefs and related liberty, under law. But what has changed, really? The homosexual thugs will not stop at restricting religious liberty to enforce their agenda. They will go further if they are allowed to win more of these battles. They want control of your belief system and find the church to be their greatest opponent.
Your tax dollars at work.
November 12th, 2009 | 9:25 pm | #1
I guess that we all have a right to agree to disagree and Vengeance is mine saith The Lord.
But who is playing “The Lord” nowadays?
Go Figure! :)
November 13th, 2009 | 12:44 am | #2
Collin: “The homosexual thugs will not stop at restricting religious liberty to enforce their agenda.”
Thanks Collin for saying what needs to be said.
Although in many circles it won’t go over well because *how* you said it.
November 13th, 2009 | 1:36 am | #3
You might want to check out the Progressive Revival blog dealing with this as well. You can imagine their take on it. I left a comment there, and could use some help staving off the usual attacks, or what did Jesus say about homosexuality quip. What happens to Catholics will eventually happen to Evangelicals. Once such a sin is declared an unquestionable public right, the persecution of Christians is not far behind.
November 13th, 2009 | 8:14 am | #4
Collin wrote this:
I think this is the standard response we make as a sociological group to this sort of statist behavior, so in some respects I get what he’s saying here.
The problem is that he’s framing the argument in statist terms. “equal rights in civic matters”? That’s the cloak that the political liberals throw over this thing’s less-honorable parts in order to give them more honor.
The problem, I think, is not “equal rights in civic matters”: it is what it has always been, and that’s mistaking Caesar for God and God for Caesar. We don’t pay taxes to the government because it is a god: we pay taxes to the government because it’s their money. If we’re going to use their money, we should pay their taxes. Who’s picture is on that dollar bill again?
But then the reverse has to be true, doesn’t it? The reason that we have marriage is not because it is legal but because it is ordained by God. So in that respect, Government is not protecting or supplying a right but instead recognizing what is established prior to its authority.
So when the Government says that the Church must “X” when in fact it is the Church’s prerogative to speak for God on this matter, it is not about “equal rights in civic matters”. It is about Caesar and God – about who has given what jurisdiction (and look at that word – “juris” [the law] “diction” [how it is spoken]) to whom.
I think it is of the utmost importance to see this discussion in those terms form, or we have simply conceded the argument with our choice of words.
November 13th, 2009 | 9:35 am | #5
Just to head off a few misunderstandings, when I said this:
You should not read that as me saying that tax money is inherently the Government’s money: I am saying that the coin of the realm belongs to the realm; Caesar puts his face on his money, and when we use the money with his face on it, we are using his authority to transfer value from our labor to an economic vehicle in order to purchase goods. That is “equal rights in civic matters”.
Marriage and parenthood are not.
November 13th, 2009 | 7:14 pm | #6
This is the KEY statement:
“The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it RUNS FOR THE DISTRICT”
It’s a government program, not a Catholic program, so governmental law and regulations must be held firm. The Church does not need to work on behalf of the government to offer charity to the poor and needy, so to claim some great harm has befallen the Church is a lie. The truth is the Church should not be working on the behalf of Caesar but God. Thus to free itself spiritually it must remove itself from government.
Hold allegiance to God and no one else, but be brother to all.
November 14th, 2009 | 7:30 am | #7
R,
It is a question of how they may participate, and that question presents a real threat. It affects the expression of a Christian belief system in the public arena. As stated in yesterday’s Washington Post:
Yes, the Romans are playing hard ball. I might, too, if my liberty were being threatened.
November 14th, 2009 | 7:59 pm | #8
“they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians”
That’s as it should be. The government is pluralist by design. I would be just as upset if a Muslim charity were allowed to discriminate against women if it were running a program on behalf of the government.
Furthermore, Christians are not prevented from providing charity and simultaneously discriminating against gays if they do so privately — the Catholic School System is a perfect example.
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