Catholics for Marriage Equality

by Michael Jones · 2009-09-17 08:53:00 UTC
Topics:

Catholic Church

Much has been said about just how heavily involved the Roman Catholic Church in Maine is with trying to take away marriage rights for gays and lesbians in the state. The Maine Church has lent their public relations guru, Marc Mutty, to help direct efforts to repeal rights from gays and lesbians, and has helped fundraise for discrimination by hosting special collections in churches up and down the coast. Thankfully, not all Catholics are siding with the official church line.

A smaller but outspoken group of Catholics are starting to organize in Maine to push back against the discriminatory rhetoric coming out of the official church in Maine. As SeacoastOnline points out, these Catholics are trying to reclaim a bit of their Church identity, by pointing out that "God is love," not "God is discriminatory."

The group has started to circulate a petition to organize Catholics around the issue of marriage equality and equal rights. Part of the petition reads: "As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the state of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual."

Better yet, the petition points out that Catholics were once denied certain civil rights because of their identity. For the Catholic Church to now push discrimination instead of acceptance is an ugly ironic twist.

Finally there's an alternative storyline coming out of Maine that says, a) not all Catholics are bigots, and b) while the official Church might like to muddy the waters between church and state, not all Catholics are on board.

Meanwhile, the No on 1 campaign continues to run a wonderful campaign to try and preserve rights for gays and lesbians in Maine. Their commercial this week hitting back at lies and smears coming from anti-gay organizers is fantastic. Together, folks from across all religious stripes are supporting the No on 1 campaign. You can, too.

(Photo courtesy of HouseofSims' photostream on Flickr.)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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