DADT, Gay Marriage: Who cares?

Last week wasn't very good as far as blog posts went. And I'm sorry for that. This week, I've got three posts already written.  This one is considered "timely," as my Examiner.com editors like to say.



A while ago, I wrote an article about gay marriage in New York.  It was entitled: Gay Marriage, so what?  I suspect you can guess what my general conclusions were.



I collect all sorts of weird articles, and magazines.  On the one hand, I could read Guns and Ammo, then the Spring catalog for a major publisher, then Time Magazine (until they went anti-Semite), the list goes on.



One such magazine is Salute, the magazine of the archdiocese for the military services, USA.



Yes, the military has their own archdiocese -- their Cardinal is the Cardinal of New York City.



In their Summer, 2011 issue, there was a statement from Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, the Archbishop for USA military services. (An Archbishop is more hands on.)



His statement was two pages long, and here's an excerpt ...

"The church is unwavering in her commitment to the pastoral care of all persons in need, regardless of sexual inclination or anything else.  All people in need are served by Catholc Chaplains with zeal and passion for bringing the reality of the Risen Lord to all.  Whether Don't ask don't tell persists or not is immaterial to that bedrock principle.  The faithful .... must never forget that those with a homosexual inclination must be treated with the respect worthy of their human dignity."  [Typed by hand, any typos are mine]

In short: that's nice, we don't care if they're outed, it doesn't matter to us.



The message then cited Federal law (1 USC subection 7)... which I believe is commonly known as the defense of marriage act (DOMA).



So, "yes, you have DADT repealed. Who cares? We don't like it, but we're not going to marry gays, and you're not going to make us. We can continue, business as usual."  Everyone can move on.



Which is pretty much what I said the first time about gay marriage.



It's so nice when the Catholic Church listens to me.

[More below the break]



Then, on September 30th, the Pentagon issued an order allowing all military clergy to perform gay marriage ceremonies ....



The response of Broglio?  It's pretty much the same. Not to mention, there is still DOMA.  It's a federal law.  How can a federal agency allow the existence of something that, legally, does not exist at the federal level?



And, come April, 2012, what will happen when all of the gay married couples file joint income tax? The IRS cannot acknowledge them -- the IRS is a federal agency.  Accountant friends (and relative) are already saying that the IRS will not accept joint filings from any of the new marriages from New York (et al) between two men, or two women.



Not to mention .... the military has bases all over the 50 states. Gay marriage is only passed in about ... Five? (CA, VT, MA, NY, HI).  Isn't that a bit of a problem? And arguing that they are federal institutions is a problem, when you consider that, again, DOMA is federal law. State laws do not matter in this instance.



Is it just me, or did someone not think this through?



As I said the first time: I'll start to care about gay marriage when someone comes after religion in its name.



I don't care just yet. Initial reports of this story said that "military chaplains are being forced to marry homosexual couples."  I cared for about five minutes, then I looked for more footnotes.



However, now that I found that it "allowed" gay marriage, instead of "requiring" clergy to perform them, I'm back to not caring. Though the legal situation is going to be hilarious.

Catholic news roundup: HHS, abortion and more

Well, this has been an interesting little month. Active readers to this blog know that I am the Catholic Examiner for Examiner.com.  Which means I basically report what people say. A lot. And there is a metric ton of stupid every day when it comes to subjects like "Catholics."

Seriously, I typed it in as a search term on Twitter a few times, it was like spelunking into a troll cave. And this month, it got even worse.  Or better, if you want to view it that way -- I got a lot of writing done.  However, while I usually have a Catholic review at the end of the month, this month already requires a massive column dump.

 It started simple. In Obama to churches: drop dead, I reported that the government program commonly known as Obamacare was going to be making Catholic churches pay for abortions, and sterilizations, and contraception, even though the church preaches that all of those are immoral.  And, since the first one was "Drop dead," I had to be a smartass and follow it up with Churches to Obama: and on the third day, we struck back. -- there is a petition against Obama's little mandate.. After that, I figured I should ask a common question -- didn't the church support Obama? And Obamacare?  Not only that, but wasn't Obama pro-abortion before he ran for the Oval office? So, I asked if the Church is still gullible after all these years? The next predictable FAQ ... why is the Catholic church against abortion, and contraception, and all the other stuff.  What is the big idea, after all?  So I had to call it the Catholic church, abortion, and natural law ... you'll see what I mean.

And then Nancy Pelosi earned her thirty pieces of silver ... in this case, she came out to stand with the Catholics ... who supported Obama, declaring it an act of courage to stand against the church. Let's just say I used The Princess Bride a lot. Given that this is consistent with her stance for her entire career, I had a lot of people asking if Pelosi was to be excommunicated.  It was a little sarcastic. Even my editor caught up on it.  

He who takes the Catholic vote takes the election. Guess who ... may not?  I ran some electoral math on the 2012 election. You might be surprised at the problems here.

After a while, as you can imagine, this got kinda stupid. And I was tired of all of it.  So, I discussed the Million-dollar ripoff of the New York archdiocese -- and you thought the priests were the problem. I then did a brief examination of Occupy wall street and the revenge of the Vatican ninjas -- just when you thought you were safe, huh? Then Proposition 8 was overturned -- my only note there is that it might be a little soon to pop the champagne.

Then the government did something stupid, and the Army censored the Catholic church over the issue of -- you guessed it -- Obamacare.  Oy.  

And then, Chris Matthews stood with Catholics against Obama ... and that was strange.  And what was even stranger? So were a lot of other people in the news media, and I covered that in my News roundup: Catholics and the HHS mandate.  Then, even  Rand Paul defended the Catholic church .... and he's not even Catholic!

Then, last Friday, there was a press conference.  I listened, then wondered: Has Obama compromised on churches? The answer .... probably not.  But you'll have to read that and decide it yourself.

Be well all.