As the gay marriage debate rages throughout the country, the Catholic Church has told the city council of the District of Columbia that they will no longer provide social services to the D.C. area in conjunction with the government if a proposed gay marriage law passes. The Catholic Church has worked with the D.C. government to provide care for the poor and the homeless for some years, but if city council passes a same-sex marriage law without an exemption for the Church to be able to discriminate against homosexuals, the Church will pull out of its contracts with the government. While the Church has every right to pull out of its contracts, this is a petty attempt by the religious institution to prevent the passage of a law acknowledging the civil rights of gays and lesbians by using the poor and the homeless as a bargaining chip. The D.C. City Council is right in its opposition to the influence of the Church and refusal to amend the legislation in such a way that would make the Church exempt from recognizing the civil rights of homosexuals.
It is important to note that the law would not require the Catholic Church to perform gay marriages. Things that the law does allow include making the Church extend medical benefits to and set up adoptions for homosexual couples. This is a problem for the Church because condemnation of homosexual intercourse is a main tenet of the Catholic tradition. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently released a letter stating that "gay marriage hurts society," as well as expressing distress over the view that marriage is a private matter, and not an issue critical to the structure of a "healthy society." The Church is currently receiving public money via their contracts with the District, and so they must comply with city ordinances. Due to its stance on homosexuality, the Church would find it impossible to go along with the laws of the city in this case and would find a need to pull out of its obligations. But to use its services for the poor and the homeless as a bargaining chip to gain support for exempting the Church from recognizing the civil rights of homosexuals is despicable.
The Church has argued its position from the stance of allowing for a conscientious objection to laws that the Church finds morally reprehensible. The problem with this is that the city is in no way forcing the Church to comply with something the Church finds morally reprehensible. The Church can pull out of their contracts with the city (without implicitly threatening the livelihood of the poor and the homeless in an attempt to sway the city council's opinion) and avoid having to provide equal treatment to homosexuals, thus preserving the Church's understanding of moral integrity. They can also maintain their contracts and provide equal treatment while continuing to chastise homosexuals from the pulpit. The religious freedom of the Church is not being curtailed by these laws. The laws are affirming the civil rights which homosexuals are entitled to by the 14th Amendment, that all people are entitled to receive equal protection under the law.
The problem here is that the Church finds certain practices, such as giving employee benefits to gay couples, to be immoral. In reality, these practices are civil rights. There are plenty of examples in American history of groups of people being denied their civil rights, the most obvious example being blacks. Fortunately, the D.C. City Council has realized that homosexuals cannot be treated any differently than any other segment of society just because of their sexual orientation. Unfortunately, the Church has not reached that conclusion and thus they are choosing to use their influence on social services in D.C. to influence the government's decision to uphold civil rights.
If the D.C. City Council were to bend to the Church's ultimatum, it would set a terrible precedent. Groups that work with the city would have ground to stand on in order to receive any number of exemptions from any number of laws based on the fact that they find them unconscionable. Government funds would be used to discriminate against a specific group of people. The fact is that homosexuals are entitled to equal treatment under the law, and thus the Church has no right to receive an exemption from laws ensuring against their discrimination. The Church has all the freedom it deserves in terms of being able to speak out against homosexuality and encouraging its members to vote against gay marriage and extending rights to homosexuals. But for the city council to allow the Church to blatantly discriminate against homosexuals would be a grave mistake. The City Council is in the morally correct and legally correct position in this instance, and if the Church wishes to continue its social services, it will have to either comply with city laws or find another means of helping the community.
Michael Khavari's column appears on Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at m.khavari@cavalierdaily.com.
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