Kersten's faulty examples provide crucial lesson in gay marriage debate

Katherine Kersten's Sunday column, "Gay-marriage efforts build, ominously: If it becomes the law of the land, expect wide-ranging consequences," said that gay marriage will have consequences for religious people if legalized. Kersten's faulty examples (several come from states where gay marriage is still illegal), actually demonstrate something much bigger than the threat of gay marriage: religious organizations would be wise to ask God for support, not the government or risk compromising their beliefs.

Kersten writes, "If gay marriage becomes law, churches and religiously affiliated organizations may be denied tax exemption, on grounds that their beliefs are "contrary to public policy." The threat is "credible" and "palpable," according to Robin Wilson, a law professor at Washington and Lee University. In New Jersey, for example, a Methodist ministry had to fight government officials to defend its tax exemption for a facility after declining to allow two lesbian couples to use it for civil union ceremonies."

Kersten is referring to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association pavilion, a facility which had been open to the public for decades, was given a $500,000 a year tax break because it's public, had been repaired with public money and a court ruled more than 100 years ago that the space "had been dedicated years ago by the association as a public highway." Kersten doesn't mention that the Methodist church in New Jersey only decided that the facility was private when a lesbian couple decided to commit their lives to one another in the pavilion -- and after more than one hundred years of public use and and millions in public money. Also, same-sex marriage isn't legal in New Jersey, but instead the state provides civil unions.

Kersten writes, "Some faith-based charities may have to stop providing social services. Catholic Charities in Boston -- which specialized in adoptions involving hard-to-place kids -- had to give up adoption after gay marriage began in Massachusetts. Religiously affiliated hospitals, rehabilitation centers and homeless shelters that get government contracts or deal with Medicaid and Medicare may be similarly threatened."

Kersten fails to mention that Catholic Charities in Boston had already provided adoptions for 13 same-sex couples before the Vatican intervened. Catholic Charities put up a significant fight to continue placing children with stable same-sex families -- so much so that eight members of its board resigned in protest at the Vatican's pressure

It wasn't the legalization of same-sex marriage that led to the showdown with the Vatican (Catholic Charities defied the Vatican when the 42-member board voted unanimously to allow adoption by gay couples), because Catholic Charities had been quietly placing children with same-sex couples for years before same-sex marriage became legal. The organization cited the state's anti-discrimination laws as the reason they allowed gay adoption.

Kersten writes, "Public employees may be disciplined or dismissed if they refuse to approve of homosexual acts. Recently, for example, a professor who taught Catholic theology at the University of Illinois was fired after a student accused him of hate speech. The professor had written in an e-mail that Catholic theology teaches that "sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same," and had said he agrees with this view."

He wrote, "Homosexual men have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted...Yet, if the morality of the act is judged only by mutual consent, then there are clearly homosexual acts which are injurious to their health but which are consented to. Why are they injurious? Because they violate the meaning, structure, and (sometimes) health of the human body." He added, "(Natural Moral Law) says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same. How do we know this? By looking at REALITY. Men and women are complementary in their anatomy, physiology, and psychology. Men and women are not interchangeable. So, a moral sexual act has to be between persons that are fitted for that act."

The crux of the firing was that the University of Illinois had an agreement with the Diocese of Peoria that gave the Catholic Church virtually complete control over the theology courses. Howell had to pledge his allegiance to the diocese in conflict with academic integrity, the University's anti-discrimination policies and the separation of church and state (religious indoctrination using public school funds).

Kersten wrote, "In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Christian Legal Society at the University of California, Hastings, College of the Law could be denied status as a registered student group because it holds that the only rightful form of sex is between a man and woman within marriage -- a view that violates the school's nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation. The ruling may sound the death-knell for orthodox Christian, Jewish and Muslim campus groups."

Again Kersten cites an instance where same-sex marriage is illegal -- though it was legal in California for several months in 2008. The CLS wanted to be a registered student group that would receive money from the school for its operations. But, members had to agree not to engage "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" which includes "sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman."

The group can still meet at the school and say whatever they want about gay sex, they just don't get public school funds if they choose to exclude people.

Government should be the arbiter of fairness, equality, and inclusion because it works for all of us; that's what we pay it for. But religion inherently excludes, and in partnerships where one entity demands inclusiveness and the other demands the right to exclude, neither ends up accomplishing anything for the general public.

Churches depend on their adherents and God for support. Matthew 7:7 says, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association should have asked God for money for repairs and to pay its taxes, the Christian Legal Society should have asked God for funds to run their student group, Prof. Howell should have asked God to find him a job in the church, and the Vatican should ask God for money to run its Catholic Charities. Had they done that -- turned to God instead of the government to fulfill their needs -- they wouldn't have had to compromise their beliefs.