IS A RELIGION : My Random Opinionby Cynthia L. Butler, Esq.Graduate of Georgetown Law Center, Litigation practitioner in the District of Columbia.
"Public Accommodation" exemptions for religious
orgs to practice their
tenets have been everywhere widely
adopted. For example, the DC City Council on November 10 passed out of committee the following language appended to their Marriage Equality legislation:
"
No priest, imam, rabbi, minister, or other official of any religious society who is authorized to solemnize or celebrate marriages shall be required to solemnize or celebrate any marriage.
Each religious society has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine, teachings, and beliefs regarding who may marry within that particular religious society’s faith.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a religious society, or a nonprofit organization that is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods for a purpose related to the solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage, or the promotion of same-sex marriage through religious programs, counseling, courses, or retreats, that is in violation of the religious society’s beliefs. A refusal to provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods in accordance with this subsection shall not create any civil claim or cause of action, or result in a District action to penalize or withhold benefits from the religious society or nonprofit organization that is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society. "This strikes me as pretty clear language. They may include an amendment stating something like "neither shall the exercise of any religiously based refusal to provide such services, accommodations, facilities or goods in conjunction in any fashion with same-sex marriage be grounds to deny any such religious organization of any city funds, grants, tax exemption status or bequests in conjunction with any other program that it runs or offers for benefits of residents or inhabitants of the District."
But the purpose of the language seems pretty clear. It was a victory of sorts for the religious communities who should feel as though they were heard on this point.
I suspect that Larry King's research staff reads my blog because most of the controversial topics here he asked a prominent Pastor T.D. Jakes last night. So for Larry's benefit, to correct the record that he misunderstood (and that has been widely misreported and misunderstood, not to single out Larry, bless his heart)- NO, the Catholic church is not threatening to withhold its services to the poor to spite Gay People. Ridiculous. The Catholic Church isn't in the extortion business threatening City Hall.
They were concerned that they just won't be ELIGIBLE for the DC funds to provide the services if they are non compliant with the laws, and if they don't have the bucks to buy the food, they can't feed the folks. It's about Money- isn't that usually the case...
Catholic Charities is a huge feeder organization that distributes funds out to the many Parishes who provide directly services to the needy- shelter, food, prison rehabilitation and reintegration services, medical care in some cases- even free legal assistance here in the District under the Archdiocese legal network for indigents dealing with things like evictions, SSI disability, etc.
That is the concern. An amendment in the general bill would fully alleviate the concern- and readily solve the problem with the bad PR, but the intention of City Council seems pretty clear from the language already in the Bill. Lets not fight phantoms.
I, as a female, personally have not met a gay person who I knew was gay who I didn't love to hang out with (with the exception of a creepy woman who once tried to hit on me). A few gay men in my life have helped me enormously in a variety of ways, including emotionally, and I value them as treasured citizens. You can call me a "fag hag" if you like, because I love my gays! I am Grace to Will. Red hair and all.
But the sexual expression of gayness, I prefer not to think about. Just don't tell me, and I won't ask. That's because I view it as fundamentally objectively "immoral" - according to my faith. I can't get around it. I read too much scripture. I have made peace with loving my gays and drawing a firm line on sexually immoral homosexual conduct. A lot of people I know dance this line. They don't believe they have jurisdiction to Judge. They suspect at least one of their old boyfriends was really "bi" and they have enough to worry about without picking fights with people minding their own business, they are deeply offended by ignorant hate crimes and language against anyone.
When the first Christian missionaries, who were basically mostly Jews ventured into the Greek territories that were claimed as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great (large populations of Jews spoke Greek as their first language at the time of Christ), they found a culture of unspeakable immorality -essentially a culture of 'whatever gets your rocks off" sensuality- they found Temples to Aphrodite and Diana where cult prostitutes practiced gay sodomy as a ritualistic form of connecting with the Divine, they found rampant bi-sexuality and homosexuality and pederasty.
This was totally shocking and scandalous to the Jewish consciousness. There was a debate between the early Apostles concerning whether someone wishing to follow Christ had to convert first to Judaism and all its rules and traditions. It was determined that there were only three essential core rules that would distinguish the communities of Christians and persons wishing to follow Christ from the rest of the Greek hedonistic world: 1. Do not eat the meat offered to Idols, 2. Do not practice sexual immorality 3. Do not eat blood.
The reference to the meat of idols was to honor the commandment and tradition against idolatry and also to make a statement that Christians were separating from the Greek Temple practices which included idol worship through temple prostitutes and other lewd forms of worship. Do not even eat the meat affiliated with such expression. The sexual immorality prohibition is very clear. Everyone knew the stories of what happened to the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the abominations that brought down the fiery wrath of God there. Sexual immorality included any kind of 'fornication' which is one of the things that gets one squarely locked out of the kingdom according to scripture.
This is what distinguishes a follower of Jesus Christ from the "whatever gets your rocks off" masses. This is what the Catholic Church understands is a core principle of discipleship.
Secular Humanist Hedonism (some call it the "pleasure principle") is nothing new to human experience. It is, as a system of beliefs supporting practices, in fact a religion.
Constitutionally, the State may not establish any laws that favor in any respect any Religion over another. This violates the Non-Establishment provision of the First Amendment to the US Constitution (by extension of the 10th and 14th amendments to the States/District of Columbia). Thus, giving money, or state funds only to organizations that embrace the Religion of Secular Humanist Hedonism is against the US Constitution- and will invoke litigation likely to go to the Supreme Court. --and we all know who sits on the Supreme Court.
For that reason, it is only smart, only right, and only Constitutional, to include the clearest Amendment language that does not threaten or jeopardize the ability of Catholic Charities and other social service organizations from receiving District Funds. I believe that the City Council and its Counsel is close to being on the same page and it's a matter of getting the language incontrovertibly correct now.
We are all praying for you.
