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From New Ways Ministry: The issue was sparked this week by a Washington Post article on Bishop Paul LoVerde, of Arlington, Virginia, who has instituted such an oath for religious education teachers there. Four teachers have already resigned because of the requirement. The Post report states:
“The Arlington Diocese, which includes nearly a half-million Catholics across northern and eastern Virginia, is one of a small but growing number that are starting to demand fidelity oaths. The oaths reflect a churchwide push in recent years to revive orthodoxy that has sharply divided Catholics.
“Such oaths are not new for priests or nuns but extend now in some places to people like volunteer Sunday school teachers as well as workers at Catholic hospitals and parish offices.
“One in Baker, Ore., reiterates the sinfulness of abortion and says, “I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter.” One in Oakland, Calif., requires leaders of a group doing outreach to gay and lesbian Catholics to say they “affirm and believe” official church teaching on marriage, hell and chastity. [For the Bondings 2.0 report on the Oakland oath, click here.]
“The Arlington ‘profession of faith’ asks teachers to commit to “believe everything” the bishops characterize as divinely revealed, and Arlington’s top doctrine official said it would include things like thebishops’ recent campaign against a White House mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage. Critics consider the mandate a violation of religious freedom.”
The article quotes Rose Zagarri, one of the resigned teachers:
“Zagarri said the oath was a “slap in the face” to Catholics who have remained active and close to the church despite controversies.
“ ‘Although I fully understand the authoritative role of the Catholic hierarchy in defining the teachings of the faith, in my view only a person who is willing to abandon her own reason and judgment, or who is willing to go against the dictates of her own conscience, can agree to sign such a document,’ she wrote to Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde.
“ ‘This is not in the spirit of what people go to a Catholic church for, which is community and a loving, welcoming environment. It’s exclusionary, a suppression of dissent, let’s all line up and be the army of God,’ Zagarri said in an interview for this article.”
A Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog reports that the loyalty oath in the Baker, Oregon, diocese (mentioned above) states that some of the teachings that the oath includes are:
“the sinfulness of contraception, the evil of extra-marital sexual relationships, the unacceptability of homosexual relationships, the wrongness of co-habitation before marriage.”
According to the Post-Intelligencer, the Baker diocese oath goes even further on the issue of abortion, with the statement:
“I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience on this matter.”
A wise warning against such loyalty oaths was raised by Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, director of the leadership program for Catholic educators,University of Notre Dame. The Washington Post article concludes with:
“Nuzzi said he keeps a photo on his desk from the 1940s that shows all the German bishops in their garb, doing the Nazi salute.
“ ‘I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.’ ”
–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry
In 10,000 Same Sex Couples Magazine, an excellent overview of the benefits of the ACA for LGBT persons. Excerpt:
Nondiscrimination protection measures have been included in the Affordable Care Act, and significantly, by 2014, insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions such as HIV or transgendered medical history.
Increased services for preventive care and HIV testing and treatment have been included in the ACA. As insurance companies will no longer be able to cancel or deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, Americans living with HIV will have better access to care and to life-saving drugs, whereas currently, an estimated 25% of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV in the United States have no health insurance coverage. Many of those living with HIV without insurance, or with insurance but consistently fearful of having it canceled due to a pre-existing condition, have been forced to pay out of pocket or seek other methods of treatment.
LGBTQ Activist Chris Barnett of San Francisco says: “I’ve been fortunate to have health coverage all my years of living with HIV, so pre-existing condition has thankfully never directly affected me. Though I must say, in my early years with this, late ’80s to early ’90s, I was fearful of using my insurance for fear of being redlined, so I paid for early treatment out of pocket, or found medical studies.”
As most states in America fail to recognize same-sex relationships, healthcare through a spouse’s workplace is not an option for many LGBTQ Americans. This often results in a high number of citizens forced to pay high prices for private insurance or to forgo having any insurance at all due to cost. With ACA’s expansions to the affordability and accessibility of healthcare, more LGBTQ Americans will be able to be covered.
Beach-themed fundraiser to raise money for Montana grants and scholarships
Join me on a Flathead Lake cruise!
Pride Foundation aims to “make waves” with the first-ever Flathead Lake Equality Cruise on Sunday, Aug. 12, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The boat will depart KwaTaqNuk Best Western Resort at 4 p.m. sharp, so guests are encouraged to arrive by 3:45. Tickets are $45 for individuals and $80 per couple and can be purchased online at www.pridefoundation.eventbrite.com.
Seattle-based Pride Foundation has made a big splash in Montana since hiring on-the-ground staff in 2011, sextupling the number of active donors in less than two years. Pride Foundation has increased from $19,000 to nearly $50,000 the amount of grants and scholarships given out in the state over the past year.
According to Regional Development Organizer Caitlin Copple, who is also the first openly gay member of the Missoula City Council, Montana is part of a larger national trend toward greater acceptance of people, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
“From the city ordinances protecting the community from non-discrimination to the increase in the number of high school Gay-Straight Alliances around the state to the changes in both the Republican and Democratic party platforms, Montana is rapidly becoming a more friendly place for gays and lesbians,” Copple said. “Most importantly, more of our heterosexual family, friends, and colleagues are also ‘coming out’ as supporters of full equality in our state.”
Indeed, co-hosts for the upcoming cruise include Rep. Ellie Hill (D-Missoula) and Dr. Tyler Smith of Missoula, Cathy and Ned Cooney of Bigfork, Mary Stranahan of Arlee, and Beth Frazee, Paul Vestal, and Bryony Schwan, all of Missoula.
Special thanks to event sponsors KwaTaqNuk Resort, Mamalode Magazine, and FlatheadEvents.net. If you would like to sponsor or co-host, please contact Caitlin@pridefoundation.org.
And yep, I’m gonna be there.
Founded in 1985, Pride Foundation is dedicated to inspiring a culture of generosity to connect and strengthen organizations, leaders, and students who are creating LGBTQ equality across the Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. To learn more, visit www.pridefoundation.org or email Caitlin@pridefoundation.org.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is asking the Supreme Court to overturn same-sex partner benefits for Arizona state employees. The Arizona Daily Sun reports:
Legal papers filed by Attorney General Tom Horne contend that a three-judge panel of the appellate court got it wrong when it concluded earlier this month that it is illegal for the state to provide health care and other benefits to the partners of married workers while refusing to do the same for same-sex couples.
He said the state is allowed to make such distinctions.
In the opinion of several lawmakers in Arizona (who disagree with the move), this appeal is purely “to make a point” against immorality- oh, and to save the state some money. The Daily Sun again:
Hanging in the balance is whether gay workers will lose benefits they have had since 2008. That is when then-Gov. Janet Napolitano got her Department of Administration to rewrite the state’s personnel rules to expand the definition of who is a “dependent” for purposes of state employment.
Under those rules, that included someone living with the employee for at least a year and expected to continue living with that person. The rules, which did not specify the gender of the partner, also required a showing of financial interdependence and an affidavit by the worker affirming there is a domestic partnership.
But in 2009, after Napolitano resigned to take a post in the Obama administration, the Republican-controlled Legislature approved — and Brewer signed — a state law narrowing the definition and specifically excluding unmarried couples.
… According to the Department of Administration, there are 226 employees of the state, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University who are receiving same-sex domestic partner benefits. He said the annual cost is slightly more than $5 million a year.
Does this sound familiar? Prop 8, anyone? The question is whether the balance of social opinion and acceptance will have an affect on this decision. Fascinating also that this request comes just as the general elections ramping up…
I remember ACT UP as a bunch of people who would do anything to get AIDS seriously discussed by officials- hell by anybody. In the 80s and early 90s, gay men were often reviled as AIDS-infested refuse. ACT UP was founded to fight for their lives.
In his new movie, Jim Hubbard tells the story of the group. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Deutsch: Act Up Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Making a confrontational movement accessible without diluting its life-or-death message, Jim Hubbard‘s United in Anger: A History of ACT UP offers a straightforward biography of the activist group as seen from within its ranks.
In opening titles making a few stark assertions — 40,000 people died of AIDS in the U.S. between 1981 and 1987 (others sources offer different figures), a period during which Ronald Reagan couldn’t say the disease’s name in public — the film establishes both the immense fear within the gay community and the way that fear and anger attached itself to uninformed, foot-dragging, or oppositional politicians and institutions.
Following an onscreen timeline, the doc begins with Larry Kramer‘s call for a protest movement in 1987, using copious period footage to show how quickly New Yorkers took to the idea. Video shot in meetings and on the streets shows a movement that, in laser-guided messaging and organization, contrasts with some current protest movements — a comparison made inevitable as we hear one ACT UP member suggesting they take over an official building “by occupying it with our bodies.”
With chapters focusing on major demonstrations at the FDA, Wall Street, NIH and White House, the film charts the movement’s evolving mood and expanding agenda. If bystanders at the time saw them as mainly making a lot of noise, Hubbard and his many interviewees cite an impressive number of successes arising from these events; sped-up drug approvals, lowered pharmaceutical costs, and various bureaucratic victories, seen in hindsight, allow veteran activists to express satisfaction they couldn’t show while chanting accusations or being hauled out of sit-ins in handcuffs. They also acknowledge how central ACT UP meetings became to participants’ social lives, with some members attending meetings every night; in between the die-ins and agit-prop campaigns, we hear, “ACT UP was very sexy.”
Probably hard to watch- I can’t watch AIDS-era movies without a deep, overwhelming grief- but I will. We can’t afford to forget.
An exploration of Pride Parades as indictors of liberty from Good.is:
Click for larger version
The President is making good on his promise to finally repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act- an act designed to smugify people who can get married (and have- some of them four or five times) and alienate those who can’t (like this couple, who have been together for 48 years). From the Atlantic Wire:
Washington DC: United States Supreme Court (Photo credit: wallyg)
The Department of Justice is asking the Supreme Court to hear appeals for two different cases to finally decide whether or not DOMA is constitutional.
Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner reports David Verelli filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court asking them to review the law’s controversial Section 3 to see if it “violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State.” The question is connected to the Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management case. In a ruling in February, a U.S. District Judge ruling on the case said that DOMA was unconstitutional. It’s currently slated to be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but now it’ll be presented to the Supreme Court before the Ninth Circuit can even make a ruling.
The other case the DOJ asked SCOTUS to look at is Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services. A judge from the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled against DOMA in the case in May. Another judge from the First Circuit Appeals Court ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional at the beginning of June.
The Associated Press reports the “earliest the justices might decide to hear the case is in late September.” Arguments would be made over the winter, with a final decision coming in late June. So basically, DOMA is the new blackAffordable Care Act.
This administration is taking the dignity of LGBT persons to an all-time high, politically speaking. We are closer to being equal citizens than we have ever been, and today- despite the miles left to go- I’d like to celebrate that.
Click here for an exhaustive list of the Obama administration (and Congress’) accomplishments.
This photograph appeared in the front page of The New York Daily News on Sunday, June 29, 1969, showing the “street kids” who were the first to fight with the police. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today marks the 43rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which began on June 28, 1969. It was a watershed moment for LGBT persons- when a few people at the Stonewall Inn in New York City decided they weren’t going to be pushed around anymore by a bullying city police force.
It was the beginning of the modern day gay rights movement. A movement which, I believe, has culminated in more progress in the last three years under the Obama Administration than it has in the last forty. Marriage equality, civil unions and domestic partnerships in some states and sovereign nations; partners’ rights upheld; local non-discrimination ordinances; repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell; passing of the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Act; enormous Pride celebrations all over the land…. Much of the credit goes to activists all across the country whose tireless efforts against second-class citizenship have been rewarded by a population who now often sees discrimination against LGBT persons as archaic, draconian and just plain mean. The 5,000 people participating in Montana Pride 2012 among them.
We have a lot to be proud of, but this is no moment to rest on our laurels. The Montana Republicans may have removed the homosexual criminalization plank from their platform, but it was hardly touted as a move for equality:
According to state Rep. Keith Regier, who chaired the party’s crime committee at its convention last weekend that ultimately voted to remove the line, people were having a tough time getting the nuances of the law and subsequent court cases.
While the court’s decision in 1997 “addressed homosexuality between consenting adults,” Regier said in an e-mail, “it is still illegal with concern to solicitation, children, etc.”
“There has been confusion with this issue,” he said. “I felt the committee wanted to just remove the homosexual reference because of the confusion it caused as it was worded.”
But he added that “Removal of the reference to homosexual behavior does not mean Republicans condone that behavior.”
Like I said- not concerned with equality at all. Don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted it’s gone- but Montana Republicans have a long way to go to prove that they stand for equality- chief among them is taking the obsolete sodomy law of the books during the next legislative session. Oh, and not making homophobic ignorant remarks during testimony.
Sigh.
Oh, and the double anniversary? Today is the 21st anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. Ironic, huh?
For arguably one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, the man who effectively ended World War II, the father of modern computing, one of the most scorned and ill-treated men by the British Government because of his sexuality, I offer you this photo on the hundredth anniversary of his birth:
click for source
Brilliance should never again be shamed….
And if you don’t know anything about Alan Turing you should. Look him up. Now.
From Eternity To Here 