to the rescue

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Feb 23, 2004

In 1994, the burghers of Cincinnati enacted a law which denied homosexuals "any claim of minority or protected status, quota preference or other preferential treatment." Remember the random lynchings of gays this provoked? The limbs lost to frostbite after spinsters were summarily turned out of their apartments into the snow? The cellists and theatre designers who forfeited their jobs to beery fathers of eight? Neither do I.

"As I and many others understand this amendment," declaims Cincinnati Bishop Daniel Pilarczyk, "it provides that no protection can be offered to homosexual persons on the grounds of their homosexual orientation." Note that the bishop doesn't point to any concrete instances of injustice occasioned by the law in the course of the past decade, nor does he even suggest that any injustice ever occurred. He's making a technical point at law. Not everyone agrees:

State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr., a Catholic who serves as treasurer of the campaign to keep Article XII, said he won't argue with the archbishop on church teaching. But he said Pilarczyk misunderstands what Article XII says. "Article XII is completely consistent with church teaching. It does not discriminate, nor does it give special treatment to homosexuals," said Brinkman, a Republican from Mount Lookout. "It has always been equal rights -- not special rights."

Can Pilarczyk, the legal amateur, make bold to support a counter-intuitive change in the ordinance on the grounds that he has some special acquaintance with the law? Well, yes. He broke it:

In what is believed to be the nation's first criminal conviction of a Catholic diocese, Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk on [November 20,2003] pleaded no contest to charges the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati failed to report child sexual abuse by priests.

Once again, parody is enfeebled by reality. A Catholic bishop frags Catholic families by covering for sexual predators among his clergy, and then, in the most sententious tones, suggests that Catholics should frag their own families at the voting booth. And why? To advance the gay agenda.