Catholic Charities Screws Over Its Employees Just to Stick It to Gays

The day before same-sex marriage was to become legal in the District of Columbia (Wednesday), Catholic Charities modified its personnel policies refusing to pay for the health benefits of any newly married couple it employs.

“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,” read the memo.

So just to spite gay folks, and from the fear that one might actually work for them, Catholic Charities is throw its straight employees under the bus? This new personnel policy, by law, cannot apply just to gays. So Catholic Charities is denying benefits to all newly married people.

It’s actually an improvement over what Catholic Charities threatened to do back when the District was debating gay marriage. Back then, Catholic Charities — which provides a myriad of services to the district’s poor — said it would sever ties, all ties, with the District if it allowed same-sex marriage to pass.

Who knows? If this little up-yours to its own employees doesn’t work, maybe it will extend the finger to the District’s poor. In any event, it does not resemble anything close to Christian behavior.

On the same day, other gay marriage opponents petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the D.C. statute from going into effect. These outspoken opponents include Walter E. Fauntory, a legendary civil rights attorney and personal friend to Martin Luther King Jr.

So, what’s the big deal? Can someone just simply clarify that. What is the big deal?

We are in the middle of two wars. American soldiers are dying. Afghan and Iraqi civilians are dying. We have a Congress too inept to get anything done, a president who is being assailed as a noncitizen and a Socialist. We have a massive recession. We have some of the worst dropout rates in our nation’s history. We have almost the worst deficit in our nation’s history.

We have real and difficult issues on the table. Some issues such as poverty, police brutality and a suspect criminal justice system would seemingly be “God’s work.” But this is what good Christian folks want to waste their time doing? Trying to deny gay people the right to get married?

I don’t get it. Why do they care? If Fauntory does not believe in gay marriage then I suggest he shouldn’t marry a man. And excuse me, but I went to Catholic school, and any Catholic organization should be the last group complaining about gay folks. If it weren’t for gays, the Catholic church would likely lose a quarter of its nuns and priests.

More importantly, why do they care? Why would anyone care who a stranger chooses to marry?