Upholding marriage rights

As the gay marriage debate rages throughout the country, the Catholic Church has told the city council of the District of Columbia that they will no longer provide social services to the D.C. area in conjunction with the government if a proposed gay marriage law passes. The Catholic Church has worked with the D.C. government to provide care for the poor and the homeless for some years, but if city council passes a same-sex marriage law without an exemption for the Church to be able to discriminate against homosexuals, the Church will pull out of its contracts with the government. While the Church has every right to pull out of its contracts, this is a petty attempt by the religious institution to prevent the passage of a law acknowledging the civil rights of gays and lesbians by using the poor and the homeless as a bargaining chip. The D.C. City Council is right in its opposition to the influence of the Church and refusal to amend the legislation in such a way that would make the Church exempt from recognizing the civil rights of homosexuals.... read more