USCCB: sexual orientation, gender identity should not be protected categories
March 28, 2011
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is opposing a proposal by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of categories to which anti-discrimination policies would apply.
“Making ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ a protected classification for purposes of federal housing programs has no support in any Act of Congress and appears at odds with at least one other, namely, the Defense of Marriage Act,” write Anthony Picarello and Michael Moses, USCCB general counsel and associate general counsel. “The proposed addition of these new classifications (‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’) in HUD regulations may, perhaps unintentionally, cause a type of discrimination not contemplated in the proposed rule.”
“Specifically, the regulations may force faith-based and other organizations, as a condition of participating in HUD programs and in contravention of their religious beliefs, to facilitate shared housing arrangements between persons who are not joined in the legal union of one man and one woman.”
“By this, we do not mean that any person should be denied housing,” Picarello and Moses continued. “Making decisions about shared housing, however, is another matter. Particularly here, faith-based and other organizations should retain the freedom they have always had to make housing placements in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs, including when it concerns a cohabiting couple, be it an unmarried heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple.”
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Posted by: impossible -
Mar. 29, 2011 12:20 PM ET USA
If the USCCB sincerely opposes legislated intrinsic evils, why do they continue to muddy up the theological waters by issuing misleading documents about so-called "Faithful Citizenship?" To facilitate the progressive (socialistic) Democrat policies, like nationalized health care, they totally ignore the Catholic Social Teaching about subsidiarity and the warnings against Socialism in Papal encyclicals from Rerum Novarum to the present. Evil is evil no matter by whom perpetrated.
