About The Browntable
2009
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EmailD.C. councilmember Mary Cheh had it about right last week when she told the Washington Post that the Catholic Church had been “somewhat childish” in threatening the city over its pending same-sex marriage bill. The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is throwing a tantrum--and who gives a crap? Not likely the D.C. City Council.
Here’s the flap: The church’s Catholic Charities is one of several nonprofits that the city contracts to provide social services, such as managing homeless shelters. But the church told the City Council Wednesday it may have to ditch its contracts if, as expected, lawmakers pass a bill next month allowing gay couples to marry. The bill would force the church to abide by non-discrimination laws, which would mean doing things like hiring gays and extending benefits to their spouses. The church wouldn’t have to provide marriages or even make space for them; it just wouldn’t be able to use taxpayer money to discriminate in the workplace. That, says the church, is too much to ask. So the city may have to find a new agency to manage about a third of its shelters, among other things.
Oh well. As gay, Republican councilmember David Catania put it, “If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes.” He’s stating what ought to be obvious. Frankly, if the church is so opposed to gay rights, it’s got no business working with the city on something like homelessness anyway. By the most conservative estimates available, 20 percent of all homeless teens in America are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. And a recurring national problem is that the existing shelter system is so hostile they prefer sleeping in the streets. (Go here to learn about a D.C. group actually helping with this problem.) If the church is so homophobic it can’t stomach anti-bias laws, then good riddance.
Which seems to be about where the council’s at on the church’s “childish” threat, too. Much as with Marion Barry’s wild, empty threats of a black revolution back in May, when the council voted to recognize out-of-state gay marriages, D.C.’s political leadership is just too resolved in its support of gay civil rights to be swayed by these outbursts. Chocolate City--with its black political culture and black political elite and large black gay community--boasts one of the country’s most progressive governments on gay civil rights, and has for a long, long time. Absent congressional interference, D.C.’s same-sex couples would have had domestic partnership back in 1992.
And that gives the lie to the toxic assumption that black communities will not support gay civil rights. You just have to do the long, hard work of building support for it--which, as Adam Serwer has spelled out over at the American Prospect, is exactly what D.C.’s politicos have done. The Catholic Church can thrash about all it wants. Maybe it should invite Barry in to give a sermon on the sanctity of marriage, even. What it won’t likely do is reverse the march toward justice in the District of Columbia.
Comments
When christians talk about the sanctity of marriage. Unless you're doing strait missionary and ONLY when trying to concieve a child, you're just as guilty as ANY gay couple. Oh, and "sodomy" doesn't just happen between two men, plenty of good married christians out there are just as guilty of this one, you know who you are....
Mr. Wright is correct that DC has one of the most progressive (i.e. liberal) city governments in the country, but I guarantee you that if this was put on the ballot as a referendum it would go down. Wards 5, 7, and 8 (all overwhelmingly black) would be strongly against it, which is no doubt why the city's government insisted that putting this to a vote by the people would violate the DC's equal right laws - they didn't want to see it go down to defeat. It is simply not true that the majority of black voters in DC support this bill.
...from the religious whack-jobs who do more harm than good to others and themselves in Your name.
Amen.
blaqbullet
The tone of your post indicates that you are the one that Christians need to pray about. Brothers in the Islamic faith would pray for you as well. There attitudes towards these unnatural acts of the flesh are just as strong, if not stronger that Christians.
You need to get your records straight. Black folks ain't used the bible to do anything, just like Black Gays ain't the ones making all the noise or controlling movements, political action groups and the likes.
Straight folks agenda may be to protect marriage. Christians agenda is simply to say "NO, that's not God's way!" But, no one should disagree with whatever the Gay/Lesbian agenda, just like a spoiled child. I'm going to have it my way and your are mean if I don't get what I want. Tough Love.
You can check any relationship between Straight/Christian/Gay in the real black community, we will tell you where to get off with that mess, but still love ya just the same. Watch the relationships on some of our barbershop/beauty salon movies. We've always had gays in the mix, but ya ain't running thangs here!
Finnally, if it pains you so much, I'm sure that one with as much knowledge as yourself, know how to alievate the pain.
You know what pains me about all this "CRAP" and the prejudice (wrapped in the cloak of religion and a god) is that the same book that these black people use to validate prejudice and discrimination, was used to enslave black people, murder, rape and pillage, all but wiped out the Native American Indians (remember bibles and small pox when the Indians didn't work out to be good slaves)...The same book that was used to validate why the races shouldn't mix and marry (interracial marriage...Only in VA not a lifetime ago was a man imprisoned for marrying his white wife)...What kind of a god picks and choses?
Get this "straight" people trying to protect marriage...You are doing a fine job of destroying the sanctity of that on your own just fine...In the black community, nearly 75% of marriages end in divorce, and how many of them do you think are truly monogamous? Not that many if I took a sampling of where I work (men and women)...
So the Constitution says that we keep religion separate from law for a good reason, so that no one religion can dictate or overstep, or that if a person like me, a heathen, decides that he doesn't want to partake in the kool aid and mind control.
Wherever there is oppression and discrimination, whatever the guise, this country is not practicing true democracy, and be careful what you wish for church folk Christians, if Muslims take over this country, all of you will get a taste of just what you are doing to gays and lesbians! Hypocrits!
Why is it deemed "childish" for one organization to make a decision that it deems the right thing to do and another organization (DC City Council) to make a decision that it deems the right thing to do a morally correct decision? The nature in which the City Council decided upon their course of action and it is their course of action without the vote of the citizens which voted them into office reminds me of the old addage, "What's done in the dark will be brought to light."
The Gay/Lesbian Community in the State of California learned via vote of the people that their decision wasn't the correct thing to do and I doubt that the DC City Council would fair any better.
There is a way that seems right to man but the end leads to destruction.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
DC City Council only gained the support of the Council members that were exposed of the darkness that resides within their hearts by their vote for this law. Put the vote to the people and let's see how well they have really gained the support of the citizens of DC. Black folks love the sinner, but California showed that they hate the sin. Don't take it personal! Let the people vote:
More than a tantrum is what the City Council will get!
Mr. Wright wrote: "And that gives the lie to the toxic assumption that black communities will not support gay civil rights."
Sorry, Mr. Wright, but based on the trollocracy of the commentariat here at the Root, I have to disagree. In the Euro-American world, Evangelicalism - which is Fundamentalism with a smiley face slapped on it - is still a minority religion, albeit a large one. Among African Americans, however, Evangelicalism is virtually the only religion.
We will not have real freedom in this county, in thought and in practice, until we shed our fundamentalist tendecies, and relegate Puritanical religions to the dustbin of history.
organizations do not have to fall in line with what some feel is politically correct. most people in this country are not married anyway, so what is the big deal. these homo's and little boy lover's are trying to ruin the country
The perfect response to such a hypocritical organization. The Catholic Church is already well on its way to irrelevance. If they choose to speed the process, why stop them?
This "pick and choose" religious devotion is getting ridiculous. At this point it's just a conduit through which people filter their desire to subjugate others and vent their bigotry. Zero in on the sinners you don't approve of, give a pass of "forgiveness" to the ones you deem worth excusing - repentant or not.
If only the Church and those who are so proud of this threat were equally vigilant against the pedophiles that continue to enjoy its protections to this day. Hypocrites, every last one of ya!
It's true, the Church isn't obligated to extend a dime. But they relinquish the moral authority to admonish others if their own actions are so blatantly self-contradictory. "We are suspending giving to the poor because the particular sin that we've singled out isn't being handled by the city in the way that we think it should. The other sins that continue daily unchecked and without comment... are okay".
This is in keeping with the teachings of Christ? I call bullshit.
Homosexuals may deserve to be left alone to live their lives in peace, but they have no "right" to contaminate and trivialize one of the most important Christian sacraments (and one of the most important institutions of society) with their pointless, absurd, costume-party "marriages." This is one of those cases where you give some people an inch, and they immediately demand the whole nine yards.I commend the Catholic Church for its principled stand against the slide towards pagan filth in this country, and I hope that deviant dunces like Kai come to see the hideous error of their ways.