Radical secularists score another one. NYTimes
Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois have shuttered most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in the state rather than comply with a new requirement that says they must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and adoptive parents if they want to receive state money. The charities have served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service network for poor and neglected children.
The bishops have followed colleagues in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts who had jettisoned their adoption services rather than comply with nondiscrimination laws.
The battle for religious freedom is the civil rights battle of the century.
Either way, though, let’s not forget the broader picture: The decision of the Illinois legislature to initiate the requirement in the first place — knowing it would hamstring Catholic Charities, which provides essential services — demonstrates an appalling willingness to allow an adult agenda — the mainstream acceptance of gay behavior — to supersede children’s interests. The spokesman for the state’s child welfare agency has said he thinks the child welfare system Catholic Charities helped to build is strong enough to withstand CC’s departure. But it’s hard to believe the shuttering of so many CC affiliates won’t make the burden of finding a home for children in need even greater.
We built it. They took it.
December 30, 2011 at 12:44 pm
The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were both ratified by two-thirds of the states. In California, in Proposition 8, the people voted down and against gay-marriage. Judge Vaughn Walker, a practicing homosexual, with conflict of interest did not recuse himself, overturned the will of the people. Put this on the ballot for the people to be heard or we are no longer the land of the free, the home of the brave. Let practicing homosexuals stop destroying "the laws of nature and nature's God" from the Declaration of Independence. This country is founded on all men being created equal. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". If I robbed a bank and then demanded equality with persons who work for a living, my demand for equality is bogus, fraudulent. Decriminalizing the desruction of equality, and criminalizing persons who object to the obvious threat to our freedom is the work of the devil.
December 30, 2011 at 2:01 pm
We shouldn't be surprised. It's the very mark of a "radical" that he is willing to do just anything to advance his aims. Next target….Catholic hospitals.
December 30, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Why don't they stand up and fight this? Why not keep the doors open and make the gov't shut it down?
December 30, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Do we really need the government money that badly? Why not cut back a bit, spit in the gov's face and keep the doors open?
December 30, 2011 at 3:50 pm
I am of two minds about shutting down operations. For a long while, I thought, "Shut it all down! We'll show them how much they need us!" the reality of that tactic is that government programs and the draw on tax revenue will Increase and "they" won't miss us much at all. This tactic also seems to limit God's ability to act. So, what if we just kept functioning, take the financial hit, and give God the room to do something to His greater glory?
December 30, 2011 at 7:31 pm
All citizens pay taxes. Taxes belong to each and every citizen, even while being administered by the administration. Catholic citizens pay taxes as citizens and as parishioners, Catholic citizens have already paid their taxes. The Catholic Church cannot be taxed. This would be taxation without representation, two taxes, only one vote. It is not a tax exemption for the Catholic Church, for the Catholic Church is owned, in whole and in part, in joint and common tenancy by each and every person, and everything, is held in trust for all generations to come. Catholic Charities is being discriminated against and penalties are being imposed by the criminalization of the innocent human being,and the exercise of conscience.
Hillary wrote a healthcare bill that criminalized the act of practicing medicine and healing, imposing a two year federal prison sentence upon any innocent doctor practicing medicine, unless the doctor’s practice was according to Hillary’s definition of “patient”. Obamacare, criminalizes decent acts of charity and the exercise of conscience and imposes the denial of the same tax dollars that Catholics pay to the government as penalty to Catholic Charities. This is taxation without representation. How can Obama ignore Catholic citizens their constitutional First Amendment rights and still levy taxation upon Catholics?
When two become one, the newly begotten human being comes into existence. “When two become one” is also the definition of when a family comes into existence. Homosexual practitioners refuse to acknowledge their partners’ immortal soul. The immortal soul is “endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights” as inscribed in The Declaration of Independence, our founding principle. It is the duty of the government to protect the virginity, innocence and civil rights of its constituents. In defiance of the First Amendment’s civil rights of persons exercising their conscience, ”or prohibit the free exercise thereof” Obama criminalized the exercise of conscience. This denial of citizens’ immortal souls is unconstitutional, since only a person has an immortal soul, to whom unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator.
December 30, 2011 at 7:39 pm
If practicing homosexuals have no immortal souls, then practicing homosexuals have no Creator endowed,unalienable rights. Only Congress gets to legislate any laws through the will of the people. Obamacare, like Hillarycare,is unconstitutional. more at rosaryvictory.blogspot.com
December 30, 2011 at 8:29 pm
The reason why churches are tax exempt is not double taxation. Some companies and some non-profits are double taxed. The reason has everything to do with the 1st Amendment. To protect the sphere of religious institutions, government can not use its taxing authority to subjugate them to be under their control. As a result, a tax exemption was put into implicit terms and specific procedures. Out of this came, as it always does with politicians pandering to potential supporters, an extension to secular non-profits on the basis they served a public good.
December 30, 2011 at 11:33 pm
That's the problem, isn't it? Taking money fron the state. I'd guess back in 1900 the Church ran a lot of things without state monies. Go figure.
-Mike Demers
December 31, 2011 at 12:06 am
Christina said…
Do we really need the government money that badly? Why not cut back a bit, spit in the gov's face and keep the doors open?
DECEMBER 30, 2011 10:20 AM
It isn't an issue of funding so much as it is one of licensing. In order to provide adoption services an organization must be licensed by their respective state to do so. What the Illinois legislature just did is guarantee that Catholic Charities cannot even be licensed in that state to perform adoption services unless they allow for child placement in homes of homosexual couples.
December 31, 2011 at 12:44 am
@Charles: A non-for-profit has no profits to be taxed, no matter what the legislation says. Gifts, stipends and donations have had their taxes paid by the donor, when the citizen paid his fair share of the tax, and whose good will and generosity comes out of his livelihood. The government must acknowledge the citizen's sacrifice, as this is an exercise of free will, a civil right of the individual whose sovereign personhood constitutes government at every level. For the government to turn around and deny the will of the donor for the non-profit to have his gift is taxation without representation. Isn't this is why government has no sovereign authority, authentic authority, to make any legislation over Pregnancy Centers any more than government has the real authority over persons who come to my private home to gain assistance. Rosa Parks would have to sit-in at the Pregnancy Center to make sure the government does not tell her what to say and how to say it. This is not commerce, this is freedom walking, the exercise of conscience and virtue. Now, if the Pregnancy Centers charged for their services, it now becomes a business. Business must be honest but business is not charity. And government grants to Catholic Charities is not charity, nor is it a donation but a fair share of the common good. While it may seem otherwise. I am in total agreement with what I am told by Charles. Politicians using government are criminalizing non-criminal acts to engineer and manipulate the people. The child given over to same sex couples is not being asked if he wants to be raised by same sex couples. The child would not have informed consent to give until he was emancipated. Gay rights has spread as a radioactive mushroom cloud over society and poisoned our atmosphere. Government of the people must follow the most natural lifestyle. The child raised by a same sex family has the civil right to sue the government for allowing his life to be obstructed and his immortal soul to be denied.
December 31, 2011 at 1:02 am
@mrflibbleisvryx said…
"It isn't an issue of funding so much as it is one of licensing. In order to provide adoption services an organization must be licensed by their respective state to do so. What the Illinois legislature just did is guarantee that Catholic Charities cannot even be licensed in that state to perform adoption services unless they allow for child placement in homes of homosexual couples."
Politicians playing God and rewriting our Constitution without ratification by two-thirds of the states. The state cannot deny a license to charity. Charity is in the realm of religious exercise "or prohibit the free exercise thereof"…The First Amendment. Taxing charity would also "prohibit the free exercise thereof"… The First Amendment.
December 31, 2011 at 2:57 am
That's the American Way, haven't you heard?? Living and dying by the sword.
Rick Santorum:
“They want to drive faith and faith and moral conclusions that come from faith out of the public square and out of the public law and replace it with their values. Don’t give me this idea — I hear this: ‘Oh, you’re a moralist. You’re trying to impose your values.’ Everybody’s trying to impose their values. That’s what America’s about.”
December 31, 2011 at 10:44 am
As government power grows, eventually the only power will be government power. No more power of family, community, church, commerce…
The wages of Big Government are… aww, I'm sure you can figure it out. Next election and every election vote like your immortal soul depends on it – because it does!
December 31, 2011 at 1:52 pm
I was hungry for a mother and you gave me two men. I needed a father and you gave me two women. I asked for an egg and you handed me a snake. I asked for a loaf of bread and you handed me a stone. You lied to me using tax payers’ money to make it be true. If God wanted me to have a family of two men or two women I would have been born of two men or two women. I was born of one man and one woman, my mother and my father. God gave me a family of one mother and one father and I am born of one mother and one father. Why do you lie using tax payers’ money? Why have you denied to me the existence of my immortal soul with its intellect and understanding, as I am assimilating in my subconscious the mothering of a woman and the fathering of a man, joined in holy wedlock, the very tools of growth and wellbeing, that I, too, may become a well adjusted and happy person fulfilling my destiny? Why am I being used for your social engineering experiments, like Megan Kanka, who was raped and strangled, murdered by the sex monster social services put into her neighborhood to make him normal? Why am I being raped of my personal freedom for the sake of your social agenda? I was hungry for a mother’s milk, compassion and gentleness and you gave me a cold stone, a black rock, a lie. I was hungry for a father’s strength and discipline and you gave me rapaciousness, wantoness, deliberate fraud. As Charles Dickens said in his story entitled “Chimes” “You had no business being born” I have more business being born that you have business lying to me about it…using tax payers’ money. I was hungry for a mother….
December 31, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Oh, I forgot. The above is the civil rights lawsuit that is going to be filed against this government
December 31, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Mary, You make a great case for ending double taxation whether it be companies or non-profits (some non-profit activities are taxed, btw). It is indeed a penalty against citizen participation and investment, and created no less by the very political class that hopes to restrict citizen contributions to only activities that they too can benefit or manipulate and exchange for benefits. However, to be clear, religious institutions have not just a great argument to rely on, but the First Amendment as well.
December 31, 2011 at 4:33 pm
This is baloney. The Church should just continue to discriminate against gay adoptive parents and not take government money. And let's be real here. No child will suffer from this. If the RCC doesnt want to be in the lawful adoption business many others will. They just need to follow the laws. The church ash 3 options – (A) shut down so others can do it, (B) do it on its own dime, not the taxpayers, (C) do it on the taxpayers dime and follow the laws. The church CHOSE option A.
December 31, 2011 at 8:07 pm
@Patrick:
The Ancient Blogger wrote:
Gomorrah, the Sodomite, said: “For four thousand years Sodomites have resisted LOVE and preferred to experience rapacious, unrelenting lust”. Gomorrah, the Sodomite said: “If I wanted children I would be doing the natural thing. The only thing children, everybody’s children, are good for is for more lust.” “Queen Lesbos said: “I do not want children. Children are too much work and trouble. Children need to be loved and to love. This is why I use my servants to discharge my lust and be done with nature for the unnatural.”
Gomorrah, the Sodomite, and Queen Lesbos are addicted to lust. Persons, then and now, addicted to drugs, alcohol and lust are not proper parents, cannot form a family, and do not love in an ordered parent-child relationship. When the lust addicts turn on the adopted children, the state will need to protect the children. Christ said to Pontius Pilate: “The one who turned me over to you has the greater sin.” Can a state so steeped in sin have any recourse?
Gomorrah, the Sodomite, prefers his mouth to be filled with brimstone and fire and naphtha. The Sodomite prefers to rile his life away in fecklessness and waste.
December 31, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Charles said…
“However, to be clear, religious institutions have not just a great argument to rely on, but the First Amendment as well.” ..because the First Amendment, all our founding principles are founded, instituted, on the sovereign personhood of the Person of God. Again, Mr. Charles, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the reality, and add that: The sovereign personhood of every individual has constituted government through our founding principles. Government comes to be who it is through free will and freedom. Excluding the Person of God, human sovereignty and personhood is a hill of beans. The Person of God, Jesus Christ, instituted HIS Catholic Church. If Christ had not come in HIS Person, there would be no Catholic Church, no Gomorrah, the Sodomite and no Queen Lesbos, nope, not even Beelzebub, no one really would make a hill of beans. But Jesus Christ has come and made of man, His brother and filled His brother with LOVE. When government comes in the form of this love without respect for the sovereign personhood of the human being, man’s free will and freedom, this government is a LIAR.