Cardinal’s Appeal 2018 Response on ENDA

Joseph M. Glimer,
Executive Director of Development
Archdiocese of Washington

Dear Joseph,

Thank you for acknowledging my $200 contribution for the Cardinals Appeal for this year, which will be taken from my account in $20 a month increments. Fate would have it that my other monthly donation to the Human Rights Campaign is for the same amount. Their project is the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which seeks to insure equality in the workplace for gay and lesbian individuals. I know that the Church shares that goal in the abstract but is currently having difficulty when these employees decide to enter into civil marriage appropriate for their gender identity. Instead of throwing the couple a party, or even blessing the union, they fire the employee.

Please stop doing that. As I learned in the Baltimore Catechism, all civil marriage is considered less than sacramental, yet heterosexual couples are not fired when they contract such unions. I imagine they do get a party and even an offer to bless the union at a later date. That fidelity (and ending promiscuity) is celebrated for one group and not the other is sheer bigotry and sour grapes, considering the leading role the Church played in opposing marriage equality. Its time for the Church to put on its big boy pants and admit it was wrong in this instance.

Gays are differently made. The discovery of Epigenetics proves it, although we should have simply believed these individuals when they told us that they were born this way. It is not a chosen orientation, anymore than those priests for whom celibacy comes naturally chose their asexuality. Many think that those asexual feelings should be a guide to us all. They are not, from sacred continence to unitive sexuality within marriage. Gays and lesbians are open to raising children, if you only allow them to adopt or use IVF, are functional if you leave your preconceptions behind, and marry each other, with the officiant as witness, just like all sacramental unions.

Of course, I am not asking you to solemnize such unions yet, although I will when my daughter is old enough to marry her girlfriend. I am merely asking you to stop indulging in sour grapes and bigotry and in so doing have my contributions cancel each other out.

Of course, to speak prophetically a bit more, you are aware that there is a lawsuit that is using the gay marriage decisions as precedent to declare that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already protects gays and lesbians in their employment rights. There will be no exceptions and I suspect that the next Congress would not enact any, nor would the Court not agree with me that sour grapes is not a justified reason to fire gay employees who marry. While there are those lawyers who would encourage you to let them take that case, I am asking you not to. Indeed, I suspect many of my fellow donors agree. You have our addresses. Just ask us.


Yours in Christ,

Michael