A Catholic Crusade Against Gay Marriage

What was the number one reason that New Jersey state senators voted down legislation earlier this month that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the Garden State? It wasn't the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), even though they are based in Jersey. It wasn't because incoming Gov. Chris Christie (an opponent of gay marriage) is wildly popular.

Nope. It was actually the Catholic Church, which in New Jersey went on a crusade to stop gays and lesbians from marrying. Sure, we knew the Catholic Church was involved in Maine, and that they were involved in California to overturn laws legalizing same-sex marriage. But to hear folks in New Jersey say it, the Catholic Church stepped up their anti-gay tactics in new and intensive ways, sending a death knell into marriage equality legislation.

As New Jersey Senator Raymond J. Lesniak told the National Catholic Reporter, the Church's involvement in Jersey was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

"[The bishops] were critical," said Sen. Lesniak. "The bishops lobbied lawmakers directly, getting people to make phone calls, send e-mails, arrange meetings with legislators. It was the most intensive lobbying by the Catholic church that I have ever seen."

Couple this with the fact that Catholic dioceses around the country are promoting the vitriolic and homophobic Manhattan Declaration, and you can start to see evidence that instead of fighting poverty, fighting for health care, or fighting or immigrant rights, the Catholic Church has chosen to go on a crusade against gay marriage. Wherever a lesbian or gay couple stand united, there will be the Church, trying to bring them down a peg. Or twenty.

In New Jersey, Catholic bishops were not even subtle about how much they hated the idea of gay marriage. They circulated flyers during weekly Mass opposing it. They tried to bully legislators to oppose it. They gave sermons from the pulpit extolling the yuckiness of two people of the same gender falling in love.

Sure, the story of marriage equality in Jersey isn't finished. Immediately after the failed vote in the state Senate, a lawsuit was filed by Garden State Equality and Lambda Legal, challenging New Jersey's civil unions law as separate and unequal. It was the courts that gave us our first marriage equality win in Massachusetts five years ago, and it might be the courts that eventually give us a marriage equality win in New Jersey, too.

Just don't expect Catholic bishops to play nicely.

As an added cup of homophobic tea, more than 40 Catholic bishops 'round the country have signed onto the Manhattan Declaration, a Christian call to arms to do whatever they have to do to stop the lesbians and gays from getting hitched. Though the document was originally released as a non-denominational work, the Catholic Church has really become the leading proponent of it, peddling it to parishioners from Santa Fe to Philadelphia.

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