The thought processes of someone who believes that restricting an organizations right to freely discriminate somehow restricts the organizations religious freedoms have to be twisted indeed. The contradictions between Christian talk and Christian deed are simply too numerous to mention in the space of this article but a recent move by a Catholic agency in Illinois includes several of the most common in one fell swoop.
The Christian Church has been heavily involved in running orphanages for over 1000 years and the government seldom became involved in adoptions until about 75 years ago. When a child lost their family or were abandoned by them civil authorities. When people talk about the horrors committed by religious zealots through history Christians always come back with “well look at all the charity the Church does”. There is more than one kind of Charity however. A charitable act is supposed to be given with no expectations of recompense. In other words charity is helping people because the act of helping is a good thing to do. But anyone who has been homeless and who has tried to stay at a Christian run shelter, knows that you will sleep on the side walk if you refuse to attend the mandatory church service.
The Illinois government has been funding Catholic Charities in the State for nearly 50 years and the organization handles a large percentage of adoptions for the State. This funding comes from tax payer dollars and not all tax payers are Catholic. Not all of the children and prospective parents are Catholic either. If the Charity is accepting funding from tax payers dollars and performs a function for the State that affects non-Catholics, then it only seems fair that they should not discriminate based on religious grounds. But the Illinois Bishops do not see it that way. They are quite willing to accept State money and claim that their “God” created all men, they claim that restricting their discriminatory practices actually restricts their religious freedoms.
Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki actually claimed that if we do not allow the church´s intolerance society was being intolerant. Maybe the Bishop would like us to return to the Inquisition or which burnings, other great examples of Christian intolerance. The uproar started when an, inexplicably Catholic, gay couple in Marion, Illinois, were turned away from Catholic Charities because of their sexual orientation. The Illinois State Legislature voted in 2010 legalize same-sex civil unions however and this means that if any organization takes government money form contracts then it must recognize these unions.
The opponents of this Catholic practice are saying that the issue is a civil rights issue. They say that the Church is using exclusively religious reasons for illegally discriminating while they are under contract, which is a violation of State law. But they are also taking the battle to several other levels as well. The Obama Administration now requires religiously affiliated hospitals and charity groups to adopt health plans for employees that cover contraception if they take grants or have contracts with the government. The lawyers for the Church claim that by excluding them from contracts for actions taken with religious conviction, they are being excluded for religious reasons.
Catholic charities receives about 62% of its gross earnings from government contracts and in 2010 alone it received over $2.9 billion. This is all being done when things like environmental protection, easy scholarships and grants, even police and teachers, are being cut to the bone. But instead of using those contracts to help all people the Church needs to use its power to discriminate against anyone that does not follow their particular belief system. In a Catholic hospital a woman is more likely to die if she needs an abortion and a child is more likely to spend life as ward of the State than in a loving, same-sex home.