Gay Catholics Protest Funding of Initiative

Catholic Church officials are facing protests from gay Catholics and those who minister to them over the size of the church’s contributions to a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriages in California.

Eight of the state’s 12 Catholic dioceses have donated a total of $310,000 so far to the campaign for the measure known as the Knight initiative for its sponsor, state Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale).

The contributions, which make the church the campaign’s largest single donor, amount to almost 10% of the initiative’s funds so far, according to campaign filings. More is expected because the state’s remaining four dioceses intend to make contributions, their bishops have said. The largest contribution, $145,000, came from the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

Other religious groups have made contributions to the initiative campaign or urged members to do so, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Assemblies of God Church, the Muslim-American Voter Assn. and several Baptist, Nazarene, Wesleyan, evangelical and Pentecostal congregations.

But the degree of Catholic involvement has become an issue within the church. In San Francisco, the issue has become sufficiently prominent that Archbishop William J. Levada used his column in the diocesan newspaper, “Catholic San Francisco,” to defend the contributions.

In Los Angeles, Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s 28 Catholic bishops, met Monday with a group of gay and lesbian Catholics, parents of gays and lesbians, and Father Peter Liuzzi, director of the archdiocese’s gay and lesbian ministry, to review the issue.

The degree of the church’s involvement in the campaign has become an issue for many, Liuzzi said. “I was aware the bishops would be supporting the initiative because that’s the official teaching of our church,” he said. “I did not know there would be money involved.”

Dolejsi told the group that the bishops felt the need to offer funds so they could have some control over the literature used in the initiative campaign.

That explanation did not satisfy the group, Liuzzi said.

“There were parents who said they had baptized their son as a child. Then, when he says he’s gay, it seems he’s unwelcome in the church,” Liuzzi said, adding that “it was like two different worlds talking to each other.”

In San Francisco, after Archbishop Levada’s column, Father Zachary Shore of Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, a predominantly gay parish in the city’s Castro district, wrote a letter criticizing the church’s support of the ballot measure.

After he read the letter at a Sunday service, many gay Catholics threatened to withhold money from Sunday collections in protest.

The contributions do not violate federal tax laws, which allow churches to spend money on political advocacy so long as the funds are not a significant portion--usually defined as 10% to 15%--of the church budget.

Moreover, “the funds aren’t coming from Sunday collections. These are discretionary funds which each bishop uses as he sees fit,” said Carol Hogan, spokeswoman for the Sacramento-based California Catholic Conference. “Of course, if you trace the money back far enough, everything goes back to the parishioners,” she said.

Supporters say the measure would ensure that gay couples who marry in other states would not be recognized as married in California. They deny that support of the measure is a sign of prejudice against gays.

“It would be wrong to suggest anyone who supports this initiative is guilty of discrimination against gays or lesbians or is anti-gay,” Levada wrote in his column. “Are Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Bill Bradley ‘anti-gay’ when they say the definition of marriage should not be changed to include homosexual unions? Neither should Mormons, or Catholics, or the many Californians who support the Protection of Marriage Initiative be accused of being so.”

Opponents disagree and say the measure is unnecessary since gay marriage is already illegal in California. The effect of the initiative is simply to stir up anti-gay feeling, they argue.

“People are concerned that their money may have been used to attack the gay community,” said Mike Marshall, manager of the No on Knight Campaign.

The Catholic Church has struggled with its outreach to gays. On one hand the church holds that homosexuality is “objectively disordered.” At the same time, the church affirms that “nothing in the Bible or Catholic teaching can be used to justify prejudicial or discriminatory attitudes and behaviors . . .” and that homosexuals “should have an active role in the Christian community.”

Liuzzi has urged the nation’s Catholic bishops to publicly support gay Catholics. The issue of marriage among homosexuals has become a departure point for many--an issue, like abortion and birth control, that causes people to leave the Catholic church, he said.

As the vote on the initiative, which is on the March ballot, approaches, “an awful lot of feelings of anger and fear will be expressed at the pulpit,” he said. “It’s important to express our support for the gay community.”