Why listen to the Bishops?

Catholic bishops in California are getting on their high horse and preaching about why gay couples should be denied marriage. They are using their unique tax-free pulpits to urge church-goers to vote for Proposition 8 which will strip gay couples of marriage rights. One might wonder if the bishops would have felt as strongly had the law legalized marriage to altar boys.

The bishops are also fund raising from the pulpit for the anti-marriage groups trying to pass the law. One has to wonder why it is that they are allowed to do this tax free? Other groups lobbying for legislation do not have that luxury. Since the Catholic Church has clearly become a political lobby then it should be treated like one. Few people, including most American Catholics, actually take the bishops seriously when it comes to moral issues. And even fewer take them seriously when it comes to political issues. Catholics are more likely to be pro-gay marriage than you typical backwoods fundamentalist.

The bishops are also going to print up literature for priests to use to attack gay marriage. So apparently the church is also in the business of printing campaign flyers. This is a full-fledged political campaign by an organization that is using a tax-exempt status that gives it an advantage over its political opponents.

At the same time, these very bishops are working insidiously to protect the massive tax-free assets of the church, so that tens of thousands of victims of abuse by these self-same protectors of morality, won't be paid the damages that courts have ruled are owed them. These bishops, and those higher in the church fiefdom, protected child rapists from prosecution. And I mean the bishops and cardinals in California in particular. And I mean rapists who forced themselves on children unable and/or unwilling to consent.

These bishops did their level best to make sure that the criminal priests involved were hidden from prosecution. Then they did their best to hide all evidence of the crimes and their role in covering up the crimes. And then they did their best to make it impossible for the victims of those crimes to collect the compensation awarded to them by the courts. And these these bloody hypocrites turn around and claim their anti-gay campaign exist because they want to "protect children" from having gay parents. They didn't give a damn about those children when they were being raped by priests but now they want to protect them from having married parents.

The Catholic Church in general, and the bishops in California in particular, have absolutely no moral standing anymore.

Let's state a few facts for these bishops since they are pretty much out of touch with it for theological reasons. Gay couples exist and will exist no matter what you think. Those couples, for various reasons and through various circumstances, will have children in their families whether you like it or not. If having married parents is good for kids then stripping these kids of the opportunity to have married parents is harming those kids. But really guys, since when did hurting kids bother you?