The 50 Spot: San Francisco Catholic Bishop Bans LGBT-Friendly Play

The Catholic Church cracks down on all things LGBT again, for the second time in two days.  First came the news this weekend that the Connecticut Catholic Conference was trying to push businesses to openly discriminate against gays and lesbians, and now comes word from California that San Francisco's Archbishop, George Niederauer, is canceling the planned performance of "Be Still and Know," a play that explores the Bible's take on homosexuality.  Proof positive that (yet again) the institutional Catholic Church is unwilling to have any dialogue on the issue of sexual orientation, unless that dialogue begins and ends with condemnation.

We're also covering news from the state of Washington and Kentucky.  To the 50 spot!

California:  The Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco has canceled the scheduled performance of a play, "Be Still and Know," at the urging of San Francisco's Archbishop, George Niederauer.  The play, based on the 2007 book "The God Box," examines Biblical discussions of homosexuality, and comes to the conclusion (like many mainstream Christian denominations) that the Biblical verses often used to condemn homosexuality are regularly taken out of historical context and misused by the religious right.  One teenage student told the California Catholic Daily that "the show is smart, and powerful, and will cause many people to reconsider their beliefs about homosexuality."  That may be the case, but Bishop Niederauer apparently isn't interested in smart and powerful.  He'd rather just have fundamentalist points of view that stifle religious debate and discussion.

Washington: Anti-marriage folks are waging a full on assault to defeat an equal rights measure in Washington that would give same-sex couples some of the same civil benefits that heterosexual married couples receive in the state.  According to KOMO News, anti-LGBT activists are producing YouTube videos targeting several Washington state lawmakers, urging them to vote against the same-sex partner benefits bill.  The groups are also promoting misleading lies that the bill will force public schools to teach about gay marriage.  These tactics are pathetic, but as Proposition 8, they are unfortunately sometimes effective.  And while the activism heats up on this Washington bill, there's still no word when it will come up for a vote in the legislature.

Kentucky:  Sadly, a bill that will ban LGBT adoption in Kentucky made it through a committee in the Kentucky State Senate on Friday - albeit sneakily with Kentucky Republican legislators pulling an under-handed and dirty trick to force the bill to the Senate floor.  The KY Republicans did not announce that the bill was going to be coming up for a vote, and they also limited discussion on the bill during its Committee hearing.  Shameful.  That's not good governance.  That's shoving a party's particular agenda down the throats of the legislature.  As progressive State Senator Kathy Stein (and opponent of efforts to ban gay and lesbian adoption) told the Louisville Courier-Journal: "This was legislation by ambush."  The Kentucky Equality Federation is doing excellent work in the Bluegrass State to defeat this horrible bill.