In what many believe is a chilling of free speech rights and freedom of religion, Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics (OSE) is attempting to penalize the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport for failing to register as a lobbying organization for urging Catholics on its website to take part in a public rally and providing transportation.
The Office of State Ethics in Connecticut is attempting to force the diocese to register as a lobbying organization where they would be forced to file periodic reports of expenses and submit to ongoing audits by the state.
Executive Director of the OSE Carol Carson, said in an interview with CMR that she could not comment on pending litigation. But she insisted that the Catholic Church was not singled out but was one of 29 different groups that have been contacted by the OSE. She said the reason for the policy is that the people have a right to know “who is spending money on influencing legislative action.”
She said that the limit an organization can spend before being considered a lobbyist is $2,000. “If you lobbied and only spent $1,800 you don’t have to register,” she said.
When asked if she knew for a fact that the Church spent over $2,000 she once again said she couldn’t speak specifically about this case. She did say however that actions by the OSE can be initiated in different ways. “If we open the newspaper and see full page ad it doesn’t matter what they’re saying. Full page ads costs a lot of money.” She said something like that would likely start the process.
But she added that sometimes a complaint comes from a third party. She refused to say how the action against the Church originated.
According to court documents, the complaint against the Church includes its failure to register as a lobbyist under Connecticut General Statutes Section 1-95 before or in connection with:
1. organizing, funding, providing transportation to, or participating in a rally held in front of the Connecticut State Capitol on March 11, 2009 to protest Raised Bill1098;
2. making statements on Plaintiffs website opposing Raised Bill 1098 and Raised Bill 899 and urging viewers of the website to contact legislators to oppose Raised Bill 1098 and Raised Bill 899 and making the expenditures necessary to make such statements;
3. organizing, funding, providing transportation to, or participating in any rallies relating to any legislation in the future; and
4. making statements opposing legislation and urging website viewers to contact legislators to oppose legislation in the future.
In an interview with CMR, Connecticut Republican Party Chair Chris Healy said he sees the actions of the OSE as “an outright prohibition on speech. He said the rules regarding Ethics in the state are “horribly broken.”
When I spoke with Susan A. Fani, Director of Communications for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, she said she agreed, that the OSE’s actions is nothing short of an attempt by some in Connecticut state government to “try to control the church. There’s an agenda there,” she said. “We have to put them in their place.”
Fani said she believes much of these efforts “ties into the gay agenda” and is an attempt to “intimidate” the Church.
Many believe that the animosity between the Church and the state comes mainly from the Church’s successful attempt to amend Connecticut’s gay marriage legislation to include a “conscience clause” that would prohibit the state from forcing churches to perform gay marriages.
And with that victory, then the Church found itself in the crosshairs of the infamous and anti-Catholic Bill 1098 in March of this year, which proposed forcing local parishes to have lay councils that would oversee finances thus relegating priests and bishops to the sideline.
The bill was nothing short of a government backed coup on the Church. So the Church responded by speaking out and encouraging Catholics and anyone who cared about religious freedom to speak their mind at the public hearing for the bill.
In March, about 4,000 people showed up to protest the bill which was withdrawn hours before the scheduled time for the public hearing.
Bishop William Lori called the addition of the “conscience clause” and the defeat of 1098 “two tremendous victories” for the Church.
But then came the letter from the state saying that because the Church had rallied people to defend itself from government encroachment, the Office of State Ethics said it acted in a way to change legislation and was therefore an illegal lobbying organization.
That’s called a Catch 22. Either the Church had to sit idly by as their abilities to run their own parishes directly was taken away by the government or be labeled a lobbying organization with all the bureaucratic red tape, rules and laws associated with it.
Calls to the diocese went unreturned but in a video available on the diocesan website, Bishop Lori said, “the citizens in Connecticut should be able to speak their minds about the moral issues of the day.”
The diocese has filed suit in federal court fighting the OSE. Fani said that the lawsuit is the only good news to come from the mess. “They’re obviously trying to intimidate the church. But the good news is the church isn’t shutting up.”
June 11, 2009 at 10:53 pm
One of these days the state is going to find a way to win. The bishops of CT already rolled over when the state forced them to administer contraception without testing whether or not the woman is already pregnant.
I hope they win this fight, but even if they do there will be one down the road where they (or the bishops of another state) will lose. What will we do when that happens?
I hope we're willing to ignore the law and face the consequences. We can handle persecution, but if we give in to the government and stop preaching and practicing the parts of the faith it disagrees with it'll be death for the Church in those diocese.
We can recover from giving into public opinion, I feel we're slowly reclaiming orthodoxy and orthopraxy from post-Vatican II insanity. But the government is like a pitbull, once it gets a good bite on us it won't let go until either we're dead or it is. The early Christians survived pagan Rome's persecution and transformed it into the Holy Roman Empire – do we have the fortitude of the early Christians?
June 11, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Brian – the early Christians had nothing to do with the "Holy Roman Empire", which was neither Holy nor Roman. While the Roman empire became Christian under Constantine in the 4th century, the Western half collapsed a century later, survived by the Eastern half, later to be known as the Byzantine Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was a loose conglomeration of Franks and other Germanic barbarians who sought legitimacy by simply encorporating the words "Holy Roman" into their empire (very much like the Kiev-Rus used "Tzar" from Caesar and titled Moscow the "3rd Rome".
Apologies for the history lesson, but it helps to know these things when making analogies.
June 11, 2009 at 11:53 pm
So, say the state is considering legislation that will affect me and my partners in our small business, and virtually no one else. We write our representatives, take a few trips to the State House, expense some meals, hotel rooms, and other expenses through our business. It adds up to over $2,000. We get fined for being unregistered lobbyists.
How is that NOT limiting our right as citizens to speak on our own behalf.
Thank God I don't live in Connecticut (although I'm sure my home state can catch up) and I sure as shooting won't be moving there under any circumstances.
June 12, 2009 at 1:21 am
History lesson accepted, no apologies necessary.
June 12, 2009 at 1:30 am
This has to be fought, and fought hard. This is a test case. And even if it ISN'T a test case now, it's going to become one.
June 12, 2009 at 4:25 am
I commend Bishop Lori for defending the rights of the Church to her First Amendment free exercise rights. I wish the bishops here in Massachusetts would also defend the Church in the courts. They should never have caved on the same sex adoption issue by getting out of the adoption business. They should have fought it in the courts, and if they lost, the government oppression would be that much clearer.
June 15, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I am embarrassed to live in such a nut-case state. Between this and gay marriage, I'd like to leave.