Infidels of Every Denomination

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Denounces The Vatican

Yes, you read that right.  Earlier this week the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued a resolution denouncing the Vatican and its Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith generally with regard to its teachings about homosexuality, and specifically about it's directive to the Archdiocese of San Francisco (among others) and Catholic Charities not to participate in adoption placements.  (I've included the full text of the resolution at the end of this entry.)  The directive was in response to legislation requiring that adoption services not discriminate against lesbian and gay applicants.

You've already seen my mixed thoughts about such anti-discrimination policies that don't allow exemptions for religious services providers.  I wish I could tell you that my opinion has solidified one way or the other, but it hasn't.  I'm still torn, and suspect I will be for some time.

What's interesting me here is the Supervisors' resolution itself.  The Vatican is a sovereign nation, and it's perfectly legitimate for a nation or one of its political subdivisions to denounce the conduct of a foreign state (which the Supervisors made clear it was doing in the second paragraph -- the first "whereas" clause -- of the resolution).  In that sense, what the Supervisors did was proper.  Where things get sketchy is that it's not just a nation -- it's also the center of a religious body:  is it proper for a government entity to officially denounce the teachings and directives of a particular religion, and the actions of its clergy?

The Big Deal about Big Love

HBO's new series Big Love has gotten quite a bit of press, mostly aimed towards its portrayal of a polygamous family.  The key word being "polygamous."  Perhaps some of their promos mentioned the word "Utah."  One word you most definitely didn't see, however, was "Mormon."

Interesting, that.  Especially since, from where I'm standing, the show's about a Mormon polygamous family -- the most relevant word being "Mormon."

I wonder how the press -- and the Mormon church -- would have reacted to that?

Catholic Charities stops facilitating adoptions in MA

I may have more to say about this later,  but I wanted to at least get things started.

As you may know, Massachusetts has a law prohibiting discrimination against gay and lesbian families when placing children for adoption.  A few months ago Catholic Charities' board unanimously voted to continue to facilitate adoptions of hard-to-place children in state care, despite the state law.  Last week Catholic Charities announced that, pursuant to the decisions of local bishops, it would no longer participate in adoptions in Massachusetts.

First, kudos to Catholic Charities' board -- especially the members (seven, I believe) who resigned in protest -- for intending to make this decision after careful thought and consideration.  It's my sincere hope that those former board members -- perhaps with the assistance of others still on the board -- have the desire and ability to found a new agency that continues the good work that Catholic Charities had been doing for all children.

Second, was there really no way to work around this apparent conflict?

Three In Love

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now and hadn't gotten around to it: Trio marries in legal civil union in Netherlands.

The Netherlands is already pretty progressive, as one of the first countries to allow full gay marriage rights, so perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that this kind of civil union (consisting of a straight man and two bisexual women all involved with one another) comes out of that part of Europe too.

Polyamory activists around the world have got to be snapping to attention over this and speculating what it could mean. As a poly person myself, I'm pretty excited about it. Not because it's likely to open any floodgates; with the struggle that gay marriage faces in the US, I'm under no delusions that our turn is coming anytime soon. But even though it's little more than clever use of a legal loophole, it's a milestone. It brings the notion of a legal polyamorous union out of the realm of the abstract and makes it an actuality. That's more than I think a lot of us thought we would ever see in our lifetimes.

Needless to say, most of the buzz I've seen about this news item has come from the wingnuts.

Activist...Legislature?

As many expected, Gov. Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger will veto the same-sex marriage bill passed just yesterday by the legislature. Fortunately for all decent Californians, his approval ratings might even be lower than Bush's, and it seems unlikely that he won't get kicked out on his ear next election.

This is what I love:

"The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action, which would be unconstitutional, but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state," [press secretary Margita Thompson] said.

Wait...these wingnuts always get me all confused. So now judges are ok and legislators are activists overriding the will of the people? But I thought...? Oh, forget it.

I'm of the same mind as the Gentleman-- get rid of legal marriage altogether and let people determine for themselves who constitutes family for legal purposes, without any of the incendiary rhetoric around it.

Good news, but it shouldn't be necessary

So, it appears that the California legislature has shown some gumption and passed a bill allowing same-sex marriage.   Something to be happy about, even though it was a near-run thing and the Governator is likely to veto it... the latter part is ironic to me, as is so much of his homophobia, given the amount of gay fascination with and participation in his former career of bodysculpting...

But anyway, it got me to thinking:  why is this necessary?  Why is "marriage" a concept that  needs government involvement at any level?

Indiana Child Custody Victory

While this shouldn't be surprising (and certainly isn't to me), it's good news nonetheless!

As some of you may recall, Thomas Jones and Tammy Bristol were taken by surprise last year when the judge overseeing their divorce included in the divorce decree an order -- supported only by his personal beliefs -- prohibiting either parent from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and ritual."  Because both parents are Wiccan, religion had not been an issue in the divorce.

Jones and Bristol appealed the ruling, with the help of the Indiana ACLU.   Yesterday the Indiana Court of Appeals issued a unanimous decision striking the court's requirement from the divorce degree and upholding the parents' rights to share their religion with their children.

Maine voters to decide Anti-Bias Law

Maine governor, Democrat John Baldacci, has signed into law a piece of legislation that would add sexual orientation to the state's human rights act after the state legislature readily passed it. Similar legislation has been put to popular vote twice before and been defeated.

Naturally, the local homophobes Christian Civic League has gotten on the warpath to defeat it, organizing a petition to force the issue to be brought to a vote once again in order to have it repealed. (More on the story here.)

The law's opponents claim that it's a backdoor (pun intended) way for gay activists to get the state's defense of marriage law overturned. And of course they're trotting out the old "we're having a distasteful lifestyle forced on us against the will of the people" whine tasting.

Here's the thing.