A homosexual website, ChurchOuting.org, was launched with the intent of publicly disclosing the gay priests serving in the Archdiocese of Washington. The goal of this outing was to intimidate gay priests, as well as heterosexual priests who may be “romantically involved,” into voicing objections to the Church’s opposition to gay marriage.
This initiative is the work of Phil Attey, self-described as a “Liberal-Gay-Ardent Obama Supporter”; he was active in the Obama Pride Metro-DC campaign. According to a news report, “Attey is going to approach priests he thinks are gay, and warn them that they better stop lobbying against gay people, seeing how gay they are…or…else?”
Catholic priests were also being pressured to sign the “Declaration of Religious Support for Marriage Equality,” a statement by Clergy United for Marriage Equality. The statement, while it was not one we support, was respectfully written. Accordingly, we wrote to members of the Steering Committee of this group and asked that they disassociate themselves from this attempted hijacking of their effort.
We announced that we were prepared to assist any priest in the Archdiocese of Washington who was the victim of harassment, intimidation or stalking. Whatever resources a priest would need, we would see to it that he would be served. Fortunately, we didn’t have to.
If radical gays wanted a showdown with the Catholic League, they should have known that we never back down from a fight.
