Organized religion has always had a problem with those pesky gays, and their touchy-feely 'I want to have a regular relationship like everyone else without being legally discriminated against' bullcrap. This news story, though, is dang near the closest thing to parody you're going to read all day.

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 law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
This Story

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men 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.

To sum it up, the Catholic Church, the long proclaimed emissaries of God on Earth, have taken a page straight out of the Scooby-Doo villain textbook: deny gay people rights, or we'll stop feeding the homeless.

There are literally so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin.

Maybe with the hypocrisy. I understand that Catholics are all about punishing people for other people's behavior, but isn't this a little crazy? I mean, I have a Bible on the bookshelf right next to me, and if I go by topic, it looks like one of the first things I see about good works is:

In case some one of your brothers becomes poor among you in one of your cities, in your land that Jehovah your God is giving you, you must not harden your heart or be closefisted toward your poor brother. For you should generously open your hand to him and by all means lend him on pledge as much as he needs, which he is in want of... You should by all means give to him, and your heart should not be stingy in your giving to him, because on this account Jehovah your God will bless you in every deed of yours and in every undertaking of yours. For someone poor will never cease to be in the midst of the land. That is why I am commanding you, saying, 'You should generously open up your hand to your afflicted and poor brother in your land. [Deut. 15:7-11]

I mean, it's been a while since I left my namby-pamby Liberal art school, but I don't see anywhere in there that says 'Oh, and punish the poor people if the local government makes poor decisions'. Actually, I think if we'd look in the Bible, we'd find the complete opposite. Didn't God choose to help and uplift the slaves of Egypt when their local government did something they disagreed with? I'm pretty sure I remember teaching a story like that in primary once...

Look, I'm not the most orthodox person in the world. Nobody will ever accuse me of being overly religious. But I'm pretty dang sure I have a really good idea what that Jesus guy was talking about, and I'm also pretty sure this goes in the face of it.

I mean, let's not even get into the messy implications of using the Bible to strip civil rights from the gay community. This is a straight up messed up charity issue. The implication is, we'll do charity work, but ONLY if you do this other thing for us in return.

That's not charity work, then. It stops being charity when you place demands on it.

It's fine if you want to cut off thousands of homeless and poor people because of an ideological conflict, but please, let's not pretend you're any better than the rest of us. And that you're not spitting directly in the face of your Creator.

|