Once you recognize that moral disapproval in and of itself is not a legitimate basis for depriving liberties or equality, there’s no other justification left for these type of laws that single out gay and lesbian Americans for ill treatment this is why Cardinal Francis George and US Conference of Catholic Bishops have become irrelevant in the discussion of LGBT rights, and why Pope Francis is now willing to entertain the approval of civil unions for both straight and LGBT couples.
States around the country have been given all these opportunities to come up with any kind of legitimate, credible argument for why same-sex couples should not have the same marriage rights as others. And over and over again now, in a steady drumbeat of decisions, judges are rejecting those arguments . These state governments can come up with nothing.
We’re seeing a really steady and accelerating progress in the courts for LGBT people not just the Supreme Court being like the lone court, you know, reaching down and issuing somedictat. [Rather,] the Supreme Court, when it comes to the gay rights cases it’s had in the last, you know, almost two decades now, has been not leading the way but acknowledging where the country is . When sodomy laws were struck down, at that point in time only like 13 states still had those kinds of prohibitions on the books. The court was not in any way, I think, getting out ahead of evolving notions of personal liberty and equality.
We call on NCR and other Roman Catholic media to recognize when we speak of homophobia we are in essence speaking about the Church’s full Teaching on the homosexual person. Promoting discrimination in any form can only be understood by most reasonable people as a personal bias from many in the Church to scapegoat LGBT people because of their difference nothing else is at play.
The Rainbow Sash Movement takes a very different view than the National Catholic Reporter. We see this situation in terms of homophobia, like racism and sexism it should be condemned wherever it rears its ugly head, but for some reason the editors of NCR promote the ideal to debate homophobia as a concept. We do not.
Bob Murphy
Rainbow Sash Movement
Chicago Rainbow Sash Movement 