Maureen Fiedler on the clamor of some (but far from all) U.S. religious leaders (including Archbishops Salvatore Cordileone, Thomas Wenski, William Lori, and John Nienstedt) for a special "right" for religious institutions to discriminate against LGBT human beings in federally contracted programs:
Catholic institutions, unfortunately, have been in the forefront of shameful efforts to say that discrimination against LGBT people is somehow "religious" or "Christian."
Not too long ago, some people claimed religion as a basis for racial discrimination, too. That was shameful. And today's efforts to claim religion as a basis for LGBT discrimination are equally shameful.
And she's right. Shameful is precisely the correct word here.
I'm ashamed of the leaders of my church, who were, many of them, courageous when the rights of people of color were under attack in the Civil Rights movement, but who have decided, in the case of the historic struggle for human rights for LGBT human beings, to move against the moral arc of history.
The Catholic church in the U.S. is paying a high price for this behavior, and will be judged harshly by historians and future generations of Christians for its' bishops' counter-witness to the gospel in this historic struggle.
P.S. The title of this posting is citing the title of Sister Maureen's NCR article.
The picture of Maureen Fiedler is from her biography at the NCR website.
