Catholic Charities of Washington Drops Spousal Coverage Due To D.C. Marriage Equality Law

[Hissyspit]

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15380/catholic-charities-of-washington-cuts-off-its-nose-to-spite-its-face

Catholic Charities of Washington Cuts Off Its Nose To Spite Its Face
by: Keori
Tue Mar 02, 2010 at 00:44:12 AM EST

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Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C. has completely jumped the shark. The Washington Post reported on Monday on a letter sent from Catholic Charities President and CEO to its staff regarding some changes as a result of D.C.'s marriage equality law going into effect this week.

Dear Staff,

I am writing to you to inform you of an important change to our group health care benefit plan that will take effect on March 2, 2010 due to a change in the law of the District of Columbia. It is important to note that the existing health coverage of current employees will not be affected by the change. New employees and current employees requesting revisions in benefit coverage will be affected by this change...

We sincerely regret that we have to make this change, but it is necessary to allow Catholic Charities to continue to provide essential services to the clients we serve in partnership with the District of Columbia while remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith.

Translation: The homos can get married starting this week, we still hate them, and in order to avoid providing them healthcare coverage if they work for us, we're not going to provide health benefits to spouses at all anymore. Those of you not already enrolled, tough s**t.

This is the third tantrum the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has thrown over marriage equality. First, Catholic Charities in the District threatened to stop all social services - homeless shelters, food pantries, medical care for uninsured children - unless the District backed away from the promise of marriage equality. In winter. Before Christmas. During a recession and a health care crisis, with numbers of homeless in the city skyrocketing. Catholic Charities ran nine homeless shelters using public funds as one of their monetary sources, and threatened to shut them down in revenge.

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Rev. Barry Lynn,  the Executive Director of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, said a few weeks ago that, “If ‘faith-based’ charities cannot or will not obey civil rights laws, they ought not benefit from public funds." In 2008 Catholic Charities received $16 million in social services contracts with the District. That was over half of that year's $23 million budget. In order to continue receiving that money, they have to treat gay and lesbian married couples the same way they do heterosexual couples. And oh, they're doing it, all right. They're screwing over ALL their employees in order to spite a few. How very Christlike of them.

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[Kolesar]

1. Jesus is love...eom

[sam sarrha]

2. always wondered about Jesus.. the long hair, wore a dress, lived with a bunch of guys in dresses.

[tom_paine]

3. When people are denied life-saving health insurance, RW Jeezuz fires his M-16 gleefully in the air!

Real Jesus sheds a tear, but then, nobody listens to his long-haired greasy hippie socialist self, anyway.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Yikes! What kind of "charity" is this?!

x(

[tom_paine]

5. The Charity of Blessed RW Jeezuz.

Poor Real Jesus. His message of peace and love never had a chance against the rippling Ramboesque muscles and decsisive action of RW Jeezus.

Back to the Dark Ages we go, when RW Jeezuz ruled all under his malevolent gaze of ignorance and fear.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I've never thought of Catholics as right-wingers, since those I know sure aren't.

Several of them are members of this board. And I ran into my mother's priest at a march against the impending attack on Iraq... :shrug:

[tom_paine]

8. RW Jeezuz trancends one religion or another. I was not Catholic-bashing.

There are good people in every walk of life, race, creed, and color.

But RW Jeezuz dominates the narrative of Chritianity, and has ever since the numbers of people murdered for RW Jeezuz far exceeded the number of people saved from murder by Real Jesus, that socialist hippie.

The original Tom Paine once said that the most evil thing ever in human history was Christianity. I would say fundamentalist religion rather than one particular form, but one can forgive Tom his parochialism since he was so close to the greatest, longest reign of RW Jeezuz in human history, the Dark Ages.

Lots of Liberals got murdered or burned back then, ignorance and fear ruled everything and everyone, and woe betide the curious, inquisitive questioner of dogma if they dared speak their mind.

I do not say this with relish, I simply state fact and was not Catholic-bashing.

Organized religion tend to remind me of a character in Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle", Dr. von Koenigswald. This character is a former Nazi SS Doctor who is repentant and goes off to tend to the poor in a Third World Country.

Of him, Vonnegut says (and I paraphrase here), "At his current rate of saving people by his ministrations, the number of people he saved will equal the number of people he let die sometime around the year 3100."

[bulloney]

7. Unfortunately, the most visible arm of the Catholic church are the RW factions.

Right-to-Life is one of the most visible.

Things like the Catholic Rural Life Ministries are very progressive. They speak for social justice and have informed on things such as the implications of concentration of markets and wealth. The church seems to keep them in a low-profile and hardly talk about them during church services. But on a regular basis, you'll get your dose of why we have to vote Republican for president because the opponent is a baby killer, or he/she promotes the gay lifestyle, or...

[Dorian Gray]

9. This story upsets me immensely

I am interested to know how the people at Catholic Charities in DC are handling this news.

[shireen]

10. DISGUSTING.

so much for being good Christians.

[Toasterlad]

11. This Is The Best Thing That Could Possibly Happen

The more the catholic church recedes from society and refuses to contemporize, the faster this evil cult will die off. Hopefully, it will take all of christendom with it, and we can begin an age of reason, where our laws are not based on superstitious voodoo from thousands of years ago.

[queenjane]

12. I'd love to think this, too

But it seems like "humanity" is clinging ever tightly and more desparately to this idiocy. Times get hard, people retreat to their safe haven of superstition . . .

[The Straight Story]

13. Hate speech - you sure you are on the correct website? (nt)

[Toasterlad]

14. That's Rich. Some Christian's Going to Lecture a Gay Person About Hate.

Are you sure you're in the right century?

[eShirl]

15. Spiteful group for a charity. n/t

[ehrnst]

16. It's right there in the Scriptures:

'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me."

Unless one of the servants in your employ hath a man as a wife, or a woman as a husband, then verily, may you do harm, and also refuse good, to me. I will reward you for turning away the child without a mother, the poor, and the least of my bretheren, so long as you are doing it to make the those who love who you hate suffer. If thou dost have a short order cook that hath the music of Clay Aiken in hs soul, and hath a husband, then shall you neglect the needs of all those who are married in your employ.