Wuerl's Gambit: Claims that Church's social services threatened by DC gay marriage

There is a showdown taking place in Washington DC between the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the liberal DC City Council over new efforts to redefine marriage in the District.

I have blogged before about Archbishop Wuerl's decision to actively engage the resources of the local Church on this issue.

The Washington Post has coverage today on the latest salvo fired by representatives of the Archdiocese, claiming that if the gay marriage bill is approved, the Catholic Church may be forced to cease providing its numerous social services in the area.

[As an aside - we should be wary of the objectivity of the WaPo's coverage. This is the same publication, after all, that only a couple weeks ago called Catholic attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli a "bigot" and an "embarrassment" for his personal views about homosexual acts. Well, Ken still won the election, and the WaPo has yet to apologize.]

Anyway, I'd rather trust what the Archdiocese of DC has said itself about the issue in its press release, which points out that in this situation, it is the DC council that is acting as the aggressor - the council have made changes to the language of the bill which render it even more harmful to the free practice of religious entities in the District:

"... [as the bill is currently written,] religious organizations and individuals are at risk of legal action for refusing to promote and support same-sex marriages in a host of settings where it would compromise their religious beliefs. This includes employee benefits, adoption services and even the use of a church hall for non-wedding events for same-sex married couples. Religious organizations such as Catholic Charities could be denied licenses or certification by the government, denied the right to offer adoption and foster care services, or no longer be able to partner with the city to provide social services for the needy."

“It is our concern that the committee’s narrowing of the religious exemption language will cause the government to discontinue our long partnership with them and open up the agency to litigation and the use of resources to defend our religious beliefs rather than serve the poor,” said Edward Orzechowski, president/CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington. Catholic Charities serves 68,000 people in the city each year. The city’s 40 Catholic parishes operate another 93 social service programs to provide crucial services."

The same press release invites folks to visit www.MarriageMattersDC.org for more information.

This threat isn't small potatoes. Though I do not have the time at present to hunt down all the related links and news stories, regular AmP readers will recall that the Catholic Church's social services have been shut down over issues related to gay marriage and adoption legislation (notably in Boston and San Francisco) before. It's a disturbing trend.

I'm also trying to track down parallel stories of religious organizations being forced to shut down their charitable organizations due to harassment for "discrimination" against homosexuals. This sort of thing has happened before but typically it does not receive much mainstream media attention. If you know of cases please send them to me.

update: Get Religion's analysis of the reporting by WaPo is once again a very useful contribution.

update 2: I also recommend reading Chuck Donovan over at Heritage for more context.