As the religious right sifts through the rubble of their attack on our freedoms, an interesting factoid has surfaced: The Catholic Church spent $2 million this election cycle to stop marriage-equality efforts in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.
Much of that money can be traced to the Church’s fraternal order, the Knights of Columbus, which previously gave $1 million to push Prop 8 in California.
In other instances it came from parishioners who didn’t even know what their donations were being used for.
Combined with the war chest of the Church’s staunch ally, the National Organzation for Marriage, the total comes to $11.3 million, or 65% of the money used to fight same-sex marriage in the four battleground states.
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That means that a lion’s share of the funding to make gays and lesbians second-class citizens came from outsider groups forcing their agenda on locals. (Our great-grammy called those kinds of folks carpetbaggers.)
Maybe the Church should listen to its congregants: According to Public Religion Research Institute, almost 60% of Catholics support marriage equality—and more than 80% say they don’t feel beholden to their bishops’ political opinions.
“The Church and NOM can continue pouring money into discriminating against LGBT people, but the writing is on the wall for their anti-equality agenda,” said HRC President Chad Griffin, who says Catholic leadership should be use its resources to enrich people’s lives not “on spreading malicious lies aimed at tearing down an entire community.”
Frankly, the Catholic hierarchy’s behavior is downright, well, unchristian. “The majority of Catholics support equality for their LGBT sisters and brothers precisely because their faith compels them to extend the same love and dignity to others with which they themselves wish to be treated,” says Dr. Sharon Groves of the HRC’s Religion & Faith program. “That is the Golden Rule that guides not just those of the Catholic faith, but so many people across religions.”
Photo: Play it Forward
Dumdum
That is no surprise. Shocking but no surprise. We can barely pay our bills get no vacation time, insurance or medical coverage, well I do but only because I have HIV. While these jerks throw money away on a lost cause. The last breath of a dying cumbersome behemoth. I will see you in hell bi**hes. I will be there helping to stoke the flames of your torment. And laughing my ass off.
Matthew
Not sure I like the headline, I think all of us spend money on a wide range of things that others say could be spent on orphans. The Supreme Court allows almost any organization to spend money on political campaigns. What is offensive is not telling congregants that their donations are being used to support a political campaign. If you collect money for the support of the poor, the clergy, church property and church education, it should not be used for anything else. The Catholic Church is required by its own law to respect the intentions of the donor in employing resources. Also, the Church imperils its tax free status by getting involved in political campaigns. Ultimately, the campaign for marriage equality does not affect the Catholic Church, the Church will no more be required to marry same sex couples than it is required to marry divorced Catholics or non-Catholics. The Catholic Church, and any other religious organisation, gets to decide who gets married in their own churches. Churches are not public accommodations under the law, so anti-discrimination provisions do not apply to them.
petensfo
The debate is long since over… the Katholic Khurch Kulture doesn’t like gay people.
And I’m sure they’ve spent a heck of a lot more money than we can trace.
What I don’t understand is how anyone can still walk through the doors of this ‘church’
and not feel like a big, bigoted, fool.
And further, how anyone that knows a gay person, which is really just about everyone at this
point, can ever toss money into the collection basket?!
If they were discriminating against any other minority, the whole concept of prejudice would be a no-brainer. There’s a lot in that bible that gets ignored; how does this item
become so pivotal? It’s just more bigotry masquerading as religious fervor.
Dionte
Knowing is half the battle.
2eo
They claim to be the protectors of the righteous, defenders of the poor, sick and frail.
They spend more money protecting thousands of predatory child rapists and funding death squads in Africa and South America than they do helping people and humanity.
They are a blight, a blight that rapes tens of thousands of youngsters every year, scarring millions over the past few decades alone.
Pathetic.
Dumdum
@2eo: These butt plugs hide behind freedom of speech, freedom of religion, blah, blah, blah. Lawyers, loopholes. They know all the tricks. The only thing we can do is show these ass wipes that we are no threat to them. Let them do their worst, it only makes THEM look bad. There has been a major shift in the collective consciousness. The religious wrong are in their death throes, as are the conservatives. Why do you think they are being so intense now? History has proven time and time again that the old MUST make way for the new. Birth is messy and painful and THAT is where we are now. I am so old now that when I was a boy, The Dead Sea was only sick. I want everything to happen yesterday. I won’t live to see it, but you young people will. Fight the good fight and keep the faith. Remember. That which does not kill us, makes us STRONG.
Dumdum
@2eo: I wish we could talk. Do you have Skype? I really think you are great. I should not presume to think that you would care to connect with one such as I. However; [[email protected]] I am an anomaly coming from backwoods hillbilly moonshiners. To whom I took great pleasure in pissing them off, doing things that made them so angry, that I still bear the scars, of the razor strap. I have to tell it. My dad said. “Do I have a sign on my forehead that says stupid?” How could I pass that s**t up? I could not sit down for a week. I still remember his face when I said.” Oh yea, it’s right there.” That was the day that I became a man. I was 13. I was so over their crap! They always seemed so stupid. But I wanted someone to love ME. Something snapped that day, I grabbed the belt and said with ALL my anger and venom. YOU WILL NEVER HURT ME AGAIN! It was the only time in my life that I wished someone to be dead. WOW! Where did that come from? Sorry bro. Got carried away.
The Real Mike in Asheville
And remember all, those bell ringers from the Salvation Army dip deep into those holiday kettles to fund NOM, KofC and other gay haters.
1EqualityUSA
I wonder if the children cry while they are being raped by the priests. This “church” will pay eternally for their evil deeds, more so because of their roll on the planet . We need not interfere, it’s already underway.
1EqualityUSA
role
MK Ultra
Isn’t that what Jesus did? Spend millions to attack the outcasts, the poor, the sick, etc. from his golden throne atop his palace? Didn’t he estole the virtue of being rich and selfish, and using your fortune to terrorize your fellow man?
What’s that? He didn’t say any of that? In fact he preached against that?
Well the catholic church certainly believes that. They were Orwellian before Orwell was Orwellian!
Hate = Love
Selfishness = Selflessness
Greed = Charity
This would make their devoted followers (not all, those that follow blindly) either naïve morons or psychotic sociopaths. I think it its a mixture of both.
gaym50ish
The people who donated to the National Organization for marriage, which is simply a front for funneling Mormon and Catholic money into these battles, were swindled.
For example, in a mailing piece soliciting contributions, NOM claimed that the Navy required chaplains to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies and had backed down only when Congressman Todd Akin (Yes, that “legitimate rape” Akin) led a move to have the Navy guidelines rescinded. It was a total fabrication, and no chaplain was ever required to do anything related to same-sex marriages.
Most organizations that tell lies in order to collect money would be considered guilty of fraud. Only in a political campaign can you get away with that, but some of those donors must feel that they were duped.
Even the name of the organization is a fraud, because it is not just concerned with marriage but is opposed to ANY advancement in gay rights. They even tried to block a Rhode Island man from receiving the body of his partner for burial, and it took an act of the legislature to resolve it.
dwighter
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