SF Politics and LGBTPosted by Robert at 26 Mar 2006 10:24 pm
Standing up for religious freedom
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to stand up for religious freedom. So why do I disagree with Debra Saunders about her position that the City is intolerant of religious freedom? She made this argument because the City will stop giving money to Catholic Charities for social services if it stops allowing gays and lesbians to adopt. The key issue here is that they are receiving City money. They can choose to follow anti-discrimination laws or not. If not, then they don’t get City money. Period.
Churches have every right to promote their values but not on the taxpayer’s dime.
March 29th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Saunders writes,
“A decade later, the city can’t pull funding for adoptions because it doesn’t give Catholic Charities a dime for its adoption activities. It can, however, withdraw city dollars for Catholic Charities’ programs for the homeless and people with HIV/AIDS. Once again, politics could trump healing.”
So even though the City doesn’t fund the adoptions, you want the City to punitively withdraw their funding from Catholic Charties’ homeless and AIDS programs? How is that a useful step for anyone? All that does is hurt the homeless and HIV/AIDS patients who are currently receiving help from this organization. You’re using these homeless and HIV/AIDS patients as pawns in a game to force Catholic Charities to adhere to state laws the way you think they should.
Instead of this kind of manipulative game, perhaps it would be better to have the State tell Catholic Charities to abide by the rules or get out of the adoption business. It is a State law that governs adoption, isn’t it? The City has no dog in this fight when it comes to the adoptions.