A student at a Catholic school in Greenwich, CT showed her support for Planned Parenthood by posting one of its stickers on her laptop. She was told to remove it.
A teacher at a Catholic school in Miami was fired following news that she “married” her girlfriend.
A Catholic school in Michigan told a lesbian softball coach that she could not keep her job if she decided to “marry” another woman.
And a lesbian couple is suing after being told they could not adopt a child through a Catholic foster care agency in Texas.
What is troubling about these cases—there are many across the nation—is the contempt that some in the media, and some activists, have for the First Amendment rights of Catholic institutions to practice their teachings.
Catholic teaching maintains that life begins at conception. Therefore, elective abortion is immoral. Planned Parenthood is the leader of the pro-abortion industry in the United States. To support it is to support abortion.
The Texas couple has neither federal nor state law on its side. Catholic non-profits like Catholic Charities can receive public funds distributed to the bishops’ conference and go about their business—in this case running a foster care program—without crossing state and church lines, provided they do not engage in “intrinsically religious” activities, e.g. religious worship. Last year, Texas passed a religious liberty law protecting the right of agencies like Catholic Charities to turn away LGBT couples as prospective parents.
Catholic teachings do not recognize a union between two people of the same sex as a marriage. Teachers who choose to work at a Catholic school typically sign a contract, as the lesbian teacher at the Miami school did, saying they will uphold Church teachings.
The lesbian coach in Michigan was not told that she was in violation of Catholic teachings because she was a lesbian. But when she went public with her intent to “marry” another woman, everything changed.
“When someone is living outside of Church teaching or participating in behavior not in line with Church teaching and makes it known publicly,” the school said, “they cannot fulfill their primary mission to lead by example.”
Why is it that homosexuals are almost never seen trying to crash the schools and social service agencies run by Orthodox Jews and Muslims? After all, both have similar strictures to Catholic entities on these matters.
We all know why—gay activists have decided to target the Catholic Church. If they had any respect for the diversity that Catholic institutions offer, they wouldn’t be so busy trying to shove their secular values down the throats of Catholics.
