If you're an avid reader of my blog or a person who is well informed with the atrocities of the Catholic Church, you probably remember Catholics virtually blackmailing Washington D.C. and suspending charitable donations and services for ALL needy families they serve in D.C. because homosexuals would have to be included.
You're probably also aware of the Pope telling Africans that condoms could make AIDS worse. You may have noticed the Knights of Columbus lying about sexual education and marching to ban government distribution of contraceptives. Maybe you recall the Knights of Columbus donating a tremendous sum of money so that homosexuals couldn't marry in California (Don't you think one million dollars could really, really, really do something for the common good?). You might have noticed several priests and the pope blaming the media, the devil, and even atheism (!) for "petty rumors" about child rape and torture in the Catholic Church.
Once you thought that you've heard it all and that it can't possibly get worse, you read this article from BBC detailing about how Catholic Care (a so-called Charitable organization) doesn't want homosexuals to adopt children.
It's quite obvious that many children would benefit from adoption...but it's even more obvious that if homosexuals could adopt there would be less children without families. But, no, think of the natural law! Homosexuals aren't fitting parents according to Catholic Care! If some Catholics did some research (or just used common sense), this wouldn't be an issue.
According to Catholic Care's mission statement,
Catholic Care is a charitable organisation working on behalf of the diocese of Leeds. It offers a variety of services and support not only to the Catholic population, but also to the wider community as a whole.
Their website also claims that
Catholic Care acts to support all those in need of its services, especially people experiencing disadvantage and poverty, and it acts as an advocate for those unable to represent themselves.
The following facts fly in the face of the mission statement and neighborly love that Catholics often say is the core tenet of Catholicism:
- Catholic Care doesn't want children to be adopted because the parents are homosexuals.
- Catholic Care would rather see children in foster homes than be with gay parents.
- Catholic Care has an unsubstantiated belief that homosexuals are bad parents.
...as usual, beliefs aren't solely personal matters and beliefs inform actions.
Almost certainly because of religious beliefs, Catholic Care is advancing an incredibly false and bigoted position that is denying parents to prospective children who would be otherwise adopted.
This flies in the face of what I hear from theists:
"Everyone is a child of God and you should love your neighbor."
So, what can theists possibly say to defend the position of Catholic Care?
Without a doubt, we'll hear (and probably have always heard)
- They're just misinterpreting what the Bible says.
- I don't support this behavior.
If you are a caring Catholic individual, you probably should distance yourself from this group and speak out. You probably should not tolerate this behavior. You probably don't hate gays and don't make posts about "PERVfest" and insist that your family should stay away from homosexuals.
There's a big disconnect...and at the same time there is an "evolution of religion" in which many people are distancing themselves from fundamentalist positions and truly making their religion a personal matter that is not bereft with dogma. Fine. Great...but the moderates really need to speak out in their [church] communities against behavior like this that other people in their community might endorse or support. Moderates have great power...
I was mad after seeing the BBC article, but then there was Catholic Online's take on it. It's easy to go to Catholic Online any hour of any day to find gross misrepresentation of atheists, people protesting the Empire State Building's owner, or a milieu of other wacky articles attempting to legitimize hateful and harmful positions taken by Catholics.
Once again, not all Catholics are the same and not all Catholics agree with that individual organizations or what the Catholic Church says, but there's no denying that homosexuals are being denied the right to adopt because of religious belief. Adults and children pay for this one...and this is only one case.
Back to Catholic Online. The title of this article dealing with the above mentioned situation is "Last Catholic Adoption Agency in UK Refuses to Compromise with Caesar." The article, as you might have expected, spins the situation into the government being the "bad guy,"
Now, these wonderful people can no longer even place needy children for adoption. Why? Because they refused to compromise with the new Caesar - an intolerant secularist governmental agency which insists that they deny their deeply held convictions. Those convictions are rooted in the Natural Law and based upon a concern for the best interest of children.I never knew that the best interest of children was not being adopted and remaining in foster homes! Of course the "wonderful people" could place needy children for adoption, but they'd just have to give up their bigoted position regarding the inferiority of homosexual parents.
Catholic Online is defending this behavior while blaming the "intolerant secularist governmental agency." That's certainly the pot calling the kettle black. The article makes Catholic Care seem stellar and pristine in the light of denying adoptions because parents are homosexuals. The article than follows with a slippery slope argument and claims that thinking or holding a theological position is a crime,
And, yes, thay are informed by their Catholic Faith. Is that a crime? It may soon become one!
Well, you know that the article is just missing the points and it's certainly a good source for logical fallacies, but that's not the point. The main point is that beliefs may quite clearly inform actions and Catholicism can be very harmful. An organization like Doctors Without Borders would never fail to help people because they happened to be homosexuals. Who cares, anyway? Charitable organizations should help everyone and simply shouldn't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
Catholicism needs to evolve faster and the moderates need to speak up.
The religious basis for this position of not letting homosexuals adopt children stands out on page two of the article. There's no doubt that a religious position is to blame for this...
Catholic teaching about the foundations of family life, a teaching shared not only by other Christian Churches but also other faiths, means that Catholic adoption agencies would not be able to recruit and consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.
As always, The Onion is amazing.