Cardinal: Catholic schools welcome kids of gays – but priest made OK call

(Boston) Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley on Wednesday defended a priest who denied admission to a parish school to a gay couple’s child, calling it a pastoral decision and saying the priest had his “full confidence and support.”

O’Malley’s comments on his blog were his first public remarks about the decision earlier this month by St. Paul Elementary School in Hingham to rescind the boy’s acceptance because his parents are lesbians.

A parent of the boy said the Rev. James Rafferty, the parish priest at St. Paul’s, said her relationship was “in discord” with church teachings, which sees marriage as only between a man and a woman. She said the principal told her teachers wouldn’t be prepared to handle the boy’s questions when he realized the church’s view of family conflicted with what he saw at home. The parent spoke to The Associated Press but asked not to be named to protect the welfare of the child.

The decision prompted calls for O’Malley to intervene. The Catholic Schools Foundation, which O’Malley chairs, said the decision was at odds with Gospel teaching, and it wouldn’t fund schools that made similar decisions.

The archdiocese’s head of education later called the parent, apologized and offered to help the 8-year-old enroll in another Catholic school.

O’Malley said Rafferty had come under “undue criticism” for the decision.

“He made a decision about the admission of the child to St. Paul School based on his pastoral concern for the child,” O’Malley wrote. “I can attest personally that Father Rafferty would never exclude a child to sanction the child’s parents.”

The archdiocese said it is creating a policy to clarify its schools don’t bar children with same-sex parents.

“It is true that we welcome people from all walks of life,” O’Malley wrote. “But we recognize that, regardless of the circumstances involved, we maintain our responsibility to teach the truths of our faith, including those concerning sexual morality and marriage.”

O’Malley began his post with a recollection about meeting the young daughter of a murdered woman who had run a brothel while he was bishop in the West Indies. He said the woman’s daughter had left public school because she was being badly taunted, and he immediately directed that the girl be admitted to the local Catholic school.

“Catholic schools exist for the good of the children and our admission standards must reflect that,” he wrote. “We have never had categories of people who were excluded.”

The Hingham case was similar to a situation in Boulder, Colo., in which a Catholic school said two children of lesbian parents could not re-enroll because of their parents’ sexual orientation, and the Denver Archdiocese backed the decision.

“It is clear that all of their school policies (in Denver) are intended to foster the welfare of the children and fidelity to the mission of the Church,” O’Malley wrote. “Their positions and rationale must be seriously considered.”

Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Riverside’s Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network will host its first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Youth in Foster Care Training from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday for foster care workers.

Renowned trainer Robert Woronoff, who will be featured at the free event hosted at the Main Library, brings more than 20 years’ experience working with and for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in foster care, according to a news release. He is a former program director of the Child Welfare League of America and director of LGBTQ services and peer programs at The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston.

“We had housing programs for HIV-positive youth, and a lot of young people I was working with were not HIV positive, but they didn’t have housing,” Woronoff said in the release. “So I called up the largest child welfare organization and made them realize that young people needed housing before getting positive.”

See Training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youths

Florida Times-Union

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/training-on-l…

Prop 8 in court today: Stop Ken Starr from divorcing loving couples!

This morning, before the California Supreme Court, Ken Starr will argue for the forcible divorce of 18,000 loving same-sex couples who married before Proposition 8 passed.
Starr has said the marriage ban should stand because of the state’s role in protecting the welfare of children.

The hypocrisy of “protecting” children by divorcing their parents is unconscionable. Yet this is just one in a parade of outrageous lies by right-wing extremists.

So HRC is launching a new campaign to expose this dishonest fear-mongering against equality – to counteract the lies with respectful dialogue and grassroots action.

Sign our first petition at EndtheLies.org – Tell Ken Starr to stop using lies about child “welfare” to divorce loving parents.

Since it’s no longer as acceptable to display open bigotry against LGBT people, the right-wing has resorted to lies and fear tactics. Take Ken Starr’s statement that same-sex marriage amounts to “seizing and hijacking the marriage relationship in order to achieve apartheid-type values.”
HRC’s EndtheLies.org campaign will help us combat these untruths in the media, in Congress, in our statehouses, schools, workplaces and faith communities. And that will be key during the brewing battle over hate crimes legislation – which the right-wing is already trying to drag into the gutter.

They say that hate crimes laws will criminalize pastors and “do away with our freedom of speech.”

They spent millions during the Prop. 8 campaign telling Californians that marriage equality was corrupting schoolchildren and eroding their “moral character.”

They’re running absurd ads that suggest transgender anti-discrimination measures will lead to men attacking women and girls in public restrooms.
We’ve exposed dozens more outrages at EndtheLies.org – check it out and sign our Ken Starr petition today.

Right-wing extremists will keep spreading these lies as long as no one holds them accountable. They will continue to raise money hand-over-fist and use lies to block hate crime and workplace protections, marriage equality, HIV/AIDS funding, and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
That’s why YOUR action is so critical. These lies aren’t just offensive – they stand in the way of basic fairness and equality.

EndtheLies – starting with Ken Starr’s!

Last night, HRC joined with other groups to sponsor Marriage Equality USA’s “Eve of Justice” vigils across California. Today, hundreds of protestors will gather outside the courthouse in San Francisco during the oral arguments. The court will issue a ruling within 90 days. This is one of those rare moments in our movement when we can shine a light and change hearts and minds – please spread the word to family and friends.
Warmly,

Joe Solmonese, HRC President

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/prop-8-in-cou…

Bill would ban adoptions by unwed couples

The state had an infant, 2 weeks old, 10 weeks premature, HIV positive and abandoned at a hospital. The child wasn’t expected to live long but needed 24-hour care and parental nurturing.

Would they take the baby, asked the social worker who had evaluated and approved them for foster care.

“That was a Friday. We garage-saled all weekend and picked him up that Monday,” Morgan said. The couple later adopted the boy.

“Now we have this beautiful, healthy, happy, totally normal 18-year-old son. You tell me — what’s wrong with that?”

Morgan said he and his partner were the first openly gay couple to adopt in Tennessee.

If bills introduced in the Tennessee House and Senate this session succeed in the state’s new, Republican-dominated legislature, unmarried couples — gay and straight — could be barred from adopting.

People on both sides of the issue say their primary concern is the welfare of children. But that’s where the agreement ends about who should and should not be able to adopt in Tennessee.

The bills’ advocates say that Tennessee law was never intended to allow unmarried couples to adopt but that the state attorney general and Department of Children’s Services interpreted it incorrectly.

It’s clear children belong in “traditional” families, they say.

But those who oppose the bills say they would leave more children lingering in a state system that has made strides since a court ordered Tennessee to more swiftly connect eligible children with adoptive families.

“Remember that children in foster care don’t typically have a line of people going around the block waiting to adopt them,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

See Bill would ban adoptions by unwed couples

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/bill-would-ba…

McGowan’s work led to acceptance for gay athletes

Jack “Irene” McGowan, who died January 23 at the age of 78 after a lengthy battle with heart ailments, found the inspiration to create a world of opportunity and acceptance for gay athletes in an era that had little of either.

“I was born in 1931, during the Great Depression,” Mr. McGowan said in an interview in his home on October 15 while convalescing between trips to the hospital. “They didn’t have welfare then. My mother, unfortunately, was raped when she was 13 and had my older sister. From there on she had three kids by the time she was 17. And they just took us away from her. My father deserted her and they put us in a Catholic orphanage. I spent from third grade to the ninth grade in the Catholic orphanage in New Haven, Connecticut.”

The orphanage had a Knights of Columbus sports program and relied on charitable contributions form the local community.

See McGowan’s work led to acceptance for gay athletes
Bay Area Reporter, CA