On March 14, the Boston Globe ran an editorial criticizing Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for endorsing a bill that would allow Catholic Charities to continue providing adoption services without servicing gay couples. In a related development, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said he would not attend the installation ceremony of former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada as a cardinal because of the Vatican’s opposition to gay adoptions.
We told the media that the response by the Boston Globe was “perhaps the most anti-Catholic editorial we’ve seen in years by any major American newspaper.” The editorial lectured Romney that he is “governor, not a Catholic bishop.” Worse, after citing John F. Kennedy’s remarks on separation of church and state, the editorial accused Romney, a Mormon, of “accepting instructions on public policy from the pope.”
Newsom, and the entire Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, previously refused to attend a Mass for Pope John Paul II that was presided over by Archbishop Levada, so it came as no surprise that Newsom would refuse to travel to Rome for Levada’s installation. He did so citing as “corrosive and divisive” the Vatican’s opposition to gay adoption.
“It’s open season on the Catholic Church,” we declared. “The bullies need to be beaten back and branded as the bigots that they are.”
