Compare and Contrast
The Mormon Church throws its support behind a Salt Lake City law prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals in housing and employment (HT Andrew Sullivan):
The Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake city laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment. The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure that barred such unions. “The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. threatens to stop providing services for the homeless in response to a pending DC move to permit gay marriage, apparently (according to reports) because the law might prevent the Church from discriminating against homosexual couples in the provision of employee benefits:
Under the legislation, which the City Council is expected to pass next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey laws prohibiting discrimination against gays 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.
I would really like to hear what these “other things” are that might be motivating the Church in D.C. to threaten this dramatic step. I just cannot see how the power to refuse employee benefits to same-sex married couples constitutes the sort of fundamental issue of conscience (even given the Church’s stance on homosexuality) that justifies this threat. The Church would likely say that it does not want to be forced to offer its implicit endorsement of same-sex unions by extending employee benefits to them — but it’s hard to see how being forced to provide benefits by law risks conveying any such message. Its objection would seem to have to be to one of two things: (1) the city’s legal requirement that such benefits be provided, which would send a message of endorsement; or (2) the notion that providing benefits to same-sex couples will cause some subset of those couples to remain in their relationship where they otherwise would have broken up (under financial stress?) such that the Church will be cooperating in what it perceives to be an evil relationship. The first seems extremely dubious, since the endorsement comes from the law, not the Church’s compliance with the law, and so the message of endorsement is the same even if the Church is exempted from its reach. The second seems highly attenuated as a factual matter — the cooperation required by the law is so remote and speculative that any claim of conscience based on it seems extremely weak to me.
Good for the Mormons! Shame on us.
UPDATE: Tom Reese says:
[C]an the Catholic Church give health care benefits to gay partners of its employees? The archdiocese says it cannot because gay marriage is against its teachings.
However, remarrying after a divorce is also against Catholic teaching, yet the church gives health care benefits to divorced and remarried couples. No one believes that the church has changed its teaching on divorce. No one will believe that the church has changed its teaching on gay sex if it provides medical benefits to gay couples.
What is needed right now is a toning down of the attacks against the church by those who support the city council’s position. Both sides need to look for compromise. An exemption from the law for religious organizations would affect very few people and would allow the church to continue working with the city on behalf of the poor. The city council could always revisit the issue in the future, but the middle of a deep recession is not a good time to fire the best provider of social services in the city.
I have nothing but the highest respect for Fr. Reese, but I couldn’t disagree more with his take on this. In particular, that last suggestion is a total mystery to me. After showing that the Church’s position does not appear to be one of consistent and sincere conscience on the extension of spousal benefits, he goes on to suggest an exemption because it will only unjustly harm a small number of gay married couples. The requirement that the Church provide spousal benefits does not compel the Church to profess or believe anything. This is different from the adoption example from Massachusetts, where the required cooperation was more direct and the threat to conscience therefore more palpable. Here, the move to withdraw from dealing with the city extends to areas unrelated to adoption and therefore strikes me as punitive and, ultimately, indefensible. Nor does the Church get off the hook (as Fr. Reese suggests earlier in his piece) by saying that it is the city that is refusing to deal with the Church and, therefore, that it is the city that is doing the threatening. The Church is saying it will refuse to comply with the law. Whether we characterize the threat as the withdrawal from the service contracts or as the refusal to comply with the law, it seems to me that the ball (and the wrong) is in the Church’s court.
on November 13th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Eduardo, thanks for posting this. I think the contrast is interesting, though the Salt Lake City law (no surprise) seems carefully crafted to avoid the benefits issue. These topics can make by head spin–as in, I thought existing federal statutes provided exemptions to religious organizations on issue like this? Or does receiving federal/state/local money change that dynamic?
on November 13th, 2009 at 11:05 am
But, David, why are employee benefits the line in the sand? If you employ one member of a same-sex couple, aren’t you equally supporting (i.e., cooperating in) the financial well-being of that couple? What difference does it make whether that support is in cash (wages) or kind (benefits that go to the entire household)? I thought money was fungible (see Stupak amendment).
on November 13th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Eduardo, it’s a good point. And others make a similar point about Catholics buying health insurance with abortion coverage all the time but having not the slightest apparent qualm.
But whether the Catholic Church should provide such benefits or not doesn’t seem to be a debate that is best answered/decided in this forum, by the City Council’s means. I thought an online Q&A at the WaPo with the Georgetown government expert Patrick Deneen (who is reliably conservative, before anyone starts jumping to conclusions about Georgetown) was very informative:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/11/12/DI2009111208573.html?hpid=talkbox1
It does seem as thought the City Council, for whatever reasons, went further than it had to in enforcing such a requirement. Moreover, even the ACLU apparently testified that they could be on shaky ground.
Also, it seems the archdiocese would not necessarily be halting their services but simply providing them without city contracts. Important distinctions, even if the larger principle–that of injustice for gay couple–is still violated.
PS: Many also invoke the Ocean Grove, NJ case as relevant here as the Methodist groups that own it was forced to rent to a lesbian couple by a court decision. That never seems apt to me since the reson they had to rent the church property to the gay couple was that they rent it to everyone. Catholic Churches, as far as my experiences go, do not rent sanctuaries to then general public for weddings. Am I wrong?
on November 13th, 2009 at 11:49 am
One might truthfully say that the bishops have lost their moral compass. Of course they have lost it (or is it business as usual) many times in history. For example take the laws against stealing which were more severe than murder or other comparable crimes. The reason was to protect the rich rather than to serve justice. In this case it is an example to preserve one of the three issues some bishops have which are against homosexuals. Along with abortion and women’s ordination.
on November 13th, 2009 at 11:54 am
“But, David, why are employee benefits the line in the sand?”
There’s an insurance reason, maybe not a sound reason, but a reason why. Since homosexual unions are not widely recognized in the business and political world as stable or permanent in the way marriages are, there is seen to be an insurance risk where someone will announce that he and someone who is sick are now a couple in order to get benefits for the sick person after they get sick. I suspect that in the case of homosexuals, bigoted fears about AIDS may be part of this. But in general it also goes for heterosexual couples that are not married as well. Some companies and some states ignore this and have their own domestic partnership rules where they will cover a domestic partner (and interestingly more and more employer groups have been asking for this) but there it is.
on November 13th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/11/12/DI2009111208573.html
on November 13th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
There’s an insurance reason, maybe not a sound reason, but a reason why.
Unagidon,
I venture to say that although this may make some sense to those in the insurance business, it is not the reason why the Church in Washington is worried that they might have to provide benefits to same-sex partners. They are not making an economic argument about the cost of benefits. Let’s not pretend they are.
on November 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
David, believe me, I’m not. I was speaking to the idea that employee benefits are often seen as a line in the sand (as such).
on November 13th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I just read this blog post this morning commenting on what David G. and Grant link to above. “Threat” seems like the wrong way to characterize this. But I haven’t followed it closely.
on November 13th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Why doesn’t the Catholic Church in DC try to adopt the compromise that Cardinal William Levada worked out when he was the Archbishop for the San Francisco diocese and San Francisco passed a law requiring all businesses doing business with the City to extend benefits to domestic partners? Cardinal Levada was able to get San Francisco to agree that it would a business or agency as being in compliance if it allows each employee of that business to designate a legally domiciled member of the employee’s household as being eligible for “spousal equivalent benefits.”
This compromise has the benefit of not requiring the Catholic Church to inquire about the relationship between the employee and the person receiving the benefits except to the extent necessary to verify that he or she is a legally domiciled member of the employee’s household. Cardinal Levada’s explanation of why this is an acceptable solution under Catholic doctrine was published originally in First Things and a reprint of it can be found here: http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9708/opinion/levada.html One of the things that he stressed was that this compromise allowed Catholic agencies to avoid adopting benefit policies that equated domestic partnerships with marriage between a man and a woman because this policy would apply to situations that do not involve marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships. For example, if my sister were handicapped and uninsured and I was an employee of the Catholic Church in San Franscico, I could have her receive health insurance benefits similar to those available to spouses as long as she was a “legally domiciled member” of my household.
on November 13th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Nothing in the discussion David and Grant link to explains to me why the Church is willing to hire homosexuals in long, committed relationships, but finds being required to provide their partners with benefits to constitute a fundamental threat to its freedom of conscience. Help, please? Why does it draw the line at in-kind benefits? I like the SF compromise mentioned in the comments above, but I still don’t see the justification for refusing to extend spousal benefits beyond couples the Church recognizes to be married.
on November 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Eduardo, I have no answer for that.
Neither does Tom Reese, but he does have a punchy take on the whole episode:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/11/catholic_charities_gays_and_dcs_poor.html?hpid=talkbox1
on November 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Thanks, Mr. Gibson for the link to Fr. Reese’s well-reasoned piece.
So, remove all of the hot air – why can’t DC and the church use the same compromise solution as worked out by Levada in San Francisco? Am I missing something?
on November 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
This kind of argument also came up in England with the Equality Act and Catholic adoption agencies – Church 1, State 1, The Tablet.
I agree with Eduardo on this – shame on us.
on November 13th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Nothing in the discussion David and Grant link to explains to me why the Church is willing to hire homosexuals in long, committed relationships, but finds being required to provide their partners with benefits to constitute a fundamental threat to its freedom of conscience. Help, please?
Eduardo,
Here I am to save the day!
The reason, I would suggest, is that there is a strain of homophobia in the Church. I would not deny that opposition to homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage is utterly consistent with other teachings of Catholic sexual morality. To call the Catholic Church homophobic purely on the basis of its teachings about the “intrinsic evil” of homosexuality would be inaccurate.
However, just because one can make a moral or religious case against certain behaviors and the people who practice them does not mean one is incapable of harboring prejudices against them or treating them unjustly as well.
For example, profound disagreements between Catholicism and Judaism undoubtedly have existed from the early Church to the present, and I don’t see how anyone can criticize the Church for that. However, that did not guarantee that there could not be anti-Semitism in the Church. Far from it.
While the Church may lament it, there is certainly no campaign against the extremely common practice of cohabitation among Catholic couples before they are married, nor is there an insistence that Catholic married couples must not use artificial birth control. In the Washington case, I have seen several references to the fact that Catholic Charities has not refused to pay for benefits of spouses of divorced and remarried Catholics. But same-sex marriage is a “nonnegotiable.”
Many in the Church have a “thing” about homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I think it’s just a fact. There are certain fixations in the Church, and abortion and same-sex marriage are two of them. I have disagreements with the Church over these and many other issues, but even if I didn’t, I believe I would still say the same thing. The intense focus of the Church on abortion and homosexuality is not merely a matter of Church doctrine on the subject, but also is the result of gut reactions and prejudices that will some day be seen, in my opinion, in the same light as centuries of anti-Semitism within the Church. The same is true, I think, about the Church’s attitude toward women. But I am not holding my breath waiting for change.
on November 13th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
In some universities an employee with a domestic partner who can show that they have shared expenses and a primary residence for a certain period of time can be offered the same health benefits as an employee who is married. Not only can gay couples use this benefit, but straight couples who have chosen to live together in a long-term relationship, and singles living with a friend or relative in a domestic partnership. It seems only fair. The only problem is working out a reasonable contract with your insurer, and using the buying power of the whole group of employees to ensure a fair outcome for all.
on November 13th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I was struck by the reverse comparison. Both the state (with respect to gay rights) and the church (with respect to Stupak and abortion) are concerned not to give money to people whose actions violate their basic moral commitments. So the state wont give money to Catholic charities to fund the good things it does, because those funds are used to support people who engage in what the state believes is a discriminatory practice, but which the church believes is acting in accordance with the moral law.
And the church is fighting to support an amendment that will not allow funds to go to support benefit packages that include abortion, despite the fact that most of the benefits in that package are good, because it will support people who engage in what the church believes is an immoral practice, but what the state believes is a legal right.
In both cases, the other side is responding–what–don’t you see the good that this does? Don’t you see the small level of cooperation involved?
on November 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I think it’s disturbing that the Bishops did not want Catholic tax payers to contribute directly or indirectly to abortion through health insurance, but they feel fine that gay taxpayers will be contributing through gov contracts to an institution that will discriminate against them.
on November 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Hello David N. (and All),
I think you are probably right about homophobia in the Roman Catholic Church. But I thought I should add that there might be an alternate explanation for vigorous campaigns against same sex marriage and extending benefits to same sex partners. With respect to both these issues, at this time there is still a high probability of passing laws that will prohibit or tightly curtail both same sex marriage and benefits to same sex partners. On the other hand, at this time there is pretty much no prospect of passing laws that would prohibit or curtail the use of contraception or cohabitation outside marriage. Could that be why we see so much more visible campaigns against same sex marriage and benefits to same sex partners?
Now having just said that I admit I’m unsure why we don’t see a much more vigorous campaign within the Roman Catholic Church against contraception. For one very minor example, I was surprised when my fiancée and I did our pre-Cana retreat that we had to promise in writing to raise any children we might have Roman Catholic but we didn’t have to promise in writing never to use contraception.
on November 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I really don’t have a problem with the church cancelling its contracts with Washington DC if the government insists that the church financially support unjust or sinful practices. This is not much different, istm, than the church refusing to pay for contraception for its employees. The burden is on those who oppose the church to demonstrate that the church would be acting unjustly in some way. Thus far, a number of folks have decried the church’s view, but nobody has tried to explain why it is unjust.
That the Church of Latter Day Saints opposes discrimination against homosexuals in housing and employment is laudable. Catholics should say, “Welcome aboard – it’s about time!”
The analogy between a gay couple living together and a divorced-but-not-annulled Catholic remarrying is poorly drawn. We can see that the church sees an important moral difference between the two because the church already has a very well-understood and frequently-availed process for regularizing the situation of the latter, whereas no process could ever regularize the former, as it is impossible for two men or two women to be married to one another. I’m assuming that this official church view is not news to anyone reading this blog.
I would think that there are many other people in various human relationships with church employees to whom the church also doesn’t currently extend fringe benefits, including unmarried heterosexual couples living together (a much better – although still imperfect – comparison to homosexual couples), couples who date but don’t live together, best friends since kindergarten, nieghbors, and Internet chat buddies. Knowing someone really well and being fond of them does not, or at least should not, thereby qualify a person for a free ride on the other person’s benefits.
on November 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
The RCC position in DC can be aptly characterized as: “Blackmail for Jaysusssss!”
on November 13th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Helping people to maintain their health is a good thing, whether they are gay or straight. Catholic-run hospitals take good care of gay patients. What’s so different about paying for the health insurance that may help keep them out of the hospital, especially when a partner’s work has earned it under a legal contract?
And the threat to pull out of contracts to provide social services is not only punitive, it is heartless. Think of all the innocent, needy people who will not be helped, and the social workers and health providers who will be out of work. And of course it makes the church officials involved look vindictive and childish: if the team won’t play by their rules, they will take the ball and bat and run home to mama with it. “So there.” It will be interesting to see how they try to untangle this mess.
on November 13th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Corporations are head and shoulders ahead of the Catholic Church when it comes to recognizing fairness and value in their employee groups.
Corporations see it as a great way to attract, retain and motivate talent. If they want the best talent, they have to create the kind of workplace where many employees want to work.
There is a growing acceptance of the real-life diversity of people’s personal life in the United States; that whatever people’s values or beliefs are, diversity exists.
People have had strong opinions on all sides. Ultimately it comes down to an economic decision. If corporations want to meet the needs of employees and customers, then they have to accept that this country is diverse.
As stated by David N. above, the church seems to be willing to overlook a lot of what it does not foster, i.e., cohabitation, divorce, etc. Are we being told that these are lesser “sins” while LGBT partnerships are somehow “unforgiveable sins?”
on November 13th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
That the Church of Latter Day Saints opposes discrimination against homosexuals in housing and employment is laudable. Catholics should say, “Welcome aboard – it’s about time!”
Jim,
It is difficult to control my anger at a remark such as the above.
The Mormon Church is endorsing gay-rights legislation. The Catholic Church is opposed to gay-rights legislation. It’s as simple as that. See Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons, The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, 1992. A sample:
From earlier in the document we have the following, which is quoted from Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986):
Many, particularly among the gay community, read this as dangerously close to encouraging — or at least excusing — violence against gay people.
The Church feels that “good” homosexual persons have no need of legal protection, because they will keep their orientation secret and not engage in homosexual behavior. It’s solution to discrimination against homosexuals is to urge them to stay in the closet.
In short, the Catholic Church opposes “unjust discrimination” against “homosexual persons” as long as they remain “chaste” and keep their orientation a secret. It does not in any way support rights to housing and employment for gay people who are actually known to be gay.
To quote Kurt from Vox Nova:
on November 13th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
The analogy between a gay couple living together and a divorced-but-not-annulled Catholic remarrying is poorly drawn.
Jim,
Are you speaking of the “internal forum”?
on November 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
“[C]an the Catholic Church give health care benefits to gay partners of its employees? The archdiocese says it cannot because gay marriage is against its teachings.”
The archdiocese talks as if its hands were tied. Tobias Haller makes a good case that the Principle of Double Effect, originating with Thomas Aquinas, is readily applicable to this case, and available if the archdiocese wanted to use it.
He makes his argument here:
http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-on-dc-situation.html
on November 13th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I agree with Fr Reese that gay civil marriage shores up stablilty of relationships, communal and family bonds, and marriage itself.
David Nickol, those texts you quote from the Vatican make more and more embarrassing reading every year. It is good that the Church has spelt out in black and white its mistaken views on homosexuality from 1975 on. The historical record will be very clear when these views are corrected, as they quite evidently will have to be, just as the Church’s view on Galileo had to be corrected. On this see http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng59.html
on November 14th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Eduardo, when did you start writing for “Commentary”…?
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=543
Don’t spread yourself too thin!
on November 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am
When I opened our NM moring paper today, the first letters to the editor were vitriol filled staements about the Church (comparing them to the Taliban) because of the DC matter.
The interface of Church service to the community withChurch beliefs is becoming, I think, increasingly thorny.
Next week’s pastoral on marriage from USCCB may increase that tension as well, and broaden the view in the community of a Church out of touch and conflicted in its own service role.
on November 16th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
David N: The first passage you excerpted, the CDF document from 1992, seems to argue that homosexuality should not be the basis for affirmative action – in other words, it’s not something that should qualify as a hiring *preference*. Now, that could an interesting question to consider. But I assume you quote that passage to demonstrate that the church endorses hiring *discrimination* against homosexuals. Non-discrimination in hiring is not the same as affirmative action in hiring. My understanding is that the LDS has come out against discrimination. Whether they have said anything about affirmative action, I don’t know. But it’s apples and oranges.
I’m not aware of a single legislative initiative that the Catholic church has supported that endorses discrimination against homosexuals for employment or housing – say, in the last 25-30 years. Are you? Or are you aware of the church speaking up in defense of employers or landlords who discriminate against gay persons over that time period? I’m not claiming categorically that it has never happened anywhere, but I’m not aware of it, and believe the church’s record on the ground is very much in the opposite direction – opposing employment and housing discrimination against gay persons.
The second passage you quote, going back to 1986, seems to be stating two things (1) the church is adamantly opposed to violence against gay persons, and (2) its opposition to violence shouldn’t be construed as a change in its basic view of the nature of homosexuality. This passage seems to be striving for much the same balance as is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (a document, btw, that would be more recent than either of the docs you quote).
You comment, “Many, particularly among the gay community, read this as dangerously close to encouraging — or at least excusing — violence against gay people.” Those readers need to read the first paragraph you quoted from that document, which couldn’t be more clear that the church, far from encouraging or excusing violenge against gay people, opposes it and encourages its local leaders to speak out against it. Think of the clergy you know. Would any of them encourage or excuse violence against gay persons? All of the clergy I know would gladly speak out against it, would march against it, would write letters to the newspaper against it, etc.
The third passage you quote (without attribution; is it also from the US bishops 1986 piece?) seems to be describing reality as those authors saw it back when it was written. Thus, in the authors’ view, people don’t discriminate against gay persons if they don’t know they’re gay. That seems so self-evident that it’s not clear why it was thought to be worth saying. But your comment: — “In short, the Catholic Church opposes “unjust discrimination” against “homosexual persons” as long as they remain “chaste” and keep their orientation a secret. ” — doesn’t fairly summarize what the quoted passage says. The passage doesn’t prescribe, it describes. Perhaps there is more in that particular doc that does make the point you’re trying to make. If so, then I’d think the next step would be to look at documents of more recent vintage, and see if they say the same thing; or something different; or nothing at all about discrimination in hiring and housing; and then determine what that says ahout what the church actually teaches.
I do think this is an area in which church teaching has developed. Documents from the 80’s and 90’s aren’t the church’s final or most recent words on homosexuality. I don’t know if you’d find the more recent docs more congenial, but at least they’re more likely to reflect what the church teaches now.