The 50 Spot: San Francisco Catholic Bishop Bans LGBT-Friendly Play

Published March 09, 2009 @ 02:39AM PT

Most Holy Redeemer

The Catholic Church cracks down on all things LGBT again, for the second time in two days. First came the news this weekend that the Connecticut Catholic Conference was trying to push businesses to openly discriminate against gays and lesbians, and now comes word from California that San Francisco's Archbishop, George Niederauer, is canceling the planned performance of "Be Still and Know," a play that explores the Bible's take on homosexuality. Proof positive that (yet again) the institutional Catholic Church is unwilling to have any dialogue on the issue of sexual orientation, unless that dialogue begins and ends with condemnation.

We're also covering news from the state of Washington and Kentucky. To the 50 spot!

California: The Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco has canceled the scheduled performance of a play, "Be Still and Know," at the urging of San Francisco's Archbishop, George Niederauer. The play, based on the 2007 book "The God Box," examines Biblical discussions of homosexuality, and comes to the conclusion (like many mainstream Christian denominations) that the Biblical verses often used to condemn homosexuality are regularly taken out of historical context and misused by the religious right. One teenage student told the California Catholic Daily that "the show is smart, and powerful, and will cause many people to reconsider their beliefs about homosexuality." That may be the case, but Bishop Niederauer apparently isn't interested in smart and powerful. He'd rather just have fundamentalist points of view that stifle religious debate and discussion.

Washington: Anti-marriage folks are waging a full on assault to defeat an equal rights measure in Washington that would give same-sex couples some of the same civil benefits that heterosexual married couples receive in the state. According to KOMO News, anti-LGBT activists are producing YouTube videos targeting several Washington state lawmakers, urging them to vote against the same-sex partner benefits bill. The groups are also promoting misleading lies that the bill will force public schools to teach about gay marriage. These tactics are pathetic, but as Proposition 8, they are unfortunately sometimes effective. And while the activism heats up on this Washington bill, there's still no word when it will come up for a vote in the legislature.

Kentucky: Sadly, a bill that will ban LGBT adoption in Kentucky made it through a committee in the Kentucky State Senate on Friday - albeit sneakily with Kentucky Republican legislators pulling an under-handed and dirty trick to force the bill to the Senate floor. The KY Republicans did not announce that the bill was going to be coming up for a vote, and they also limited discussion on the bill during its Committee hearing. Shameful. That's not good governance. That's shoving a party's particular agenda down the throats of the legislature. As progressive State Senator Kathy Stein (and opponent of efforts to ban gay and lesbian adoption) told the Louisville Courier-Journal: "This was legislation by ambush." The Kentucky Equality Federation is doing excellent work in the Bluegrass State to defeat this horrible bill.

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Comments (3)

The Archbishop of San Francisco, canonically speaking, is Josef Ratzinger, the Fuhrerpapen. The surrogate "Ordinary" of the diocese was appointed by the Fuhrerpapen's successor, and acts only in conformation to the Curia and Magisterium.

If you understand the canon law and theology inherent in the Universal Episcopacy of the Pope, since 1870 - it is more important than the Infallibility law also promulgated that year.
Infallibility of dogma "ex cathedra fidei" has been promulgated only a few times. Since Pius XII used it in the early 50's, the new strategy is to declare views in encyclical format.

So, unless this archbishop of San Francisco, and former bishop of Salt Lake City wants to go the way of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, he tows the line of the Fuhrerpapen.

Posted by A B on 03/09/2009 @ 08:00AM PT
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Erratum - although many Roman Catholics await his successor....para 1 sent 2 should read....predecessor in lieu of successor.

Posted by A B on 03/09/2009 @ 11:21AM PT
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It's unfortunate that the Most Holy Redeemer Church cancelled a performance of a play that discusses gays/lesbians in a religious context because of an intolerant Archibishop. In addition, it's not great to hear that a campaign of oppression against LGBT people in Washington is taking place, however their view on LGBT rights is wrong because it's contrary to the concept of civil rights. Finally, the Kentucky bill that would deny LGBT couples the right to adopt children can't pass because it's legal discrimination.

Posted by Edwin Bonilla on 03/09/2009 @ 01:18PM PT
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Michael is the Communications Director for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, and previously was Communications Director for Pax Christi USA, a progressive Catholic human rights organization.