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Published: December 16, 2009
“Anti-Catholic diatribe”
Oral arguments slated today before federal appeals court over San Francisco supervisors’ vilification of Vatican over same-sex adoptions
 An eleven-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled today to hear oral arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of a resolution unanimously adopted by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2006 calling the Vatican “hateful” and “discriminatory” for its opposition to adoptions by homosexuals.
The eleven-judge panel is scheduled to hear the appeal beginning at 10 a.m. in San Francisco.
On Nov. 5, judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a June ruling that the City and County of San Francisco had not acted unconstitutionally by expressing an official hostility to religion and agreed to rehear the case. A three-judge panel of the same court had made the ruling. A majority of the judges on the Ninth Circuit decided the case should get a rehearing by the full 11-judge panel.
Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise will argue the case on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case, the Catholic League and two Catholic residents of San Francisco, said a news release from the law center issued yesterday. The resolution, described by the law center as an “anti-Catholic diatribe,” characterized the Vatican as a “foreign country” meddling in the affairs of San Francisco and said the Church’s moral teaching and beliefs on homosexuality were “insulting to all San Franciscans,” “hateful, ” “insulting and callous, ” “defamatory, ” “absolutely unacceptable, ” “insensitive and ignorant,” said the Thomas More Law Center’s news release.
At issue is Resolution 168-06, adopted in March 2006 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in response to Cardinal William Levada’s telling the Archdiocese of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco that they should not allow adoptive children to be placed in same-sex households. Cardinal Levada was Archbishop of San Francisco before being named to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The resolution urged Archbishop George Neiderauer and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy the Vatican’s directives on adoption by same-sex couples.
According to Catholic doctrine, allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would do violence to these children because their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment not conducive to their full human development. The Church considers such policies gravely immoral and has prohibited Catholic organizations from placing children for adoption in homosexual households.
To read the San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution that led to the lawsuit, Click Here.
Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:31 AM By FrMichael
Shameful that the archdiocese itself apparently is not a plantiff. Our mother church of NorCal continues to be the milquetoast church.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:18 AM By BJ
If they're attacking the Vatican and foaming at the mouth with the criticisms it's a sure sign that their standpoint is contrary to the Will of God. Let them attack. God forgive them in their ignorance... each one will have to meet Him face to face one day and explain their revulsion at the Word of God.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 6:20 AM By OneoftheSheep
The Thomas More law center is one of the most effective agents in our country in defending the oppressed from the statists.
God bless them. I send a batallion of 144 archangels to assist them in battling those who seek to crush the moral teachings of our holy mother Church. Onward, church militant!
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 8:38 AM By Thomas Edward Miles
The CARDINAL is full of himself and need at better choice of words!
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:04 AM By Trini
I do not know what the legal position and the official publicity lines are in the various US states, but in the United Kingdom the handing over of children to be adopted by 'non-traditional' families is approved by the law, and various departments (schools, families, conception and fertilisation agencies, adoption agencies, etc.) repeatedly claim that wherever a child is involved, "the interests of the child come first". In practice, this UK government claim is the most disgraceful hypocrisy, and it is broken more often than it is honoured, since the interests of single women or lesbian couples or male homosexual couples are always put before the welfare of the child, if the child is given over for adoption to a single person or to people who by definition deprive the adopted child of the best surroundings for being brought up to be a fulfilled human being. The best surroundings, according to every scientific survey (and according to the traditions of every religion, and the deepest instincts of human nature) is a solid family of loving mother and father. In other words, to hand over a child to be adopted by one or two people who do not constitute a normal family of loving father (male) and mother (female) is an attack on the most basic human rights of the child.
It seems to me to be self-evident that the law-makers in the US, the UK, and everywhere, who pass laws allowing such hand-overs, and the agency members who carry out such policies, should suffer the severest jail penalties for denying the human rights of the helpless children. It is scandalous to talk of "the best interests of the child" being observed in these cases.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:16 AM By JLS
TEM, you always demonstrate what is known as "dullness of mind", due to your anti-faith. Good for you, though, in that you have no clue as to what the Cardinal is about or even what his words mean. You're like a child walking onto a battlefield; and that is the result of your homosexual advocacy ... it results in blindness. If you really cared what the Cardinal says, then you would study or even contact his office to ask.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:22 AM By St. Christopher
"Thomas Edward Miles": The Cardinal did not say enough. Homosexual adoption is contemptible, as is active homosexual sexual activity. The Church calls out evil by its name. The Board of Supers is nothing more than the squealing demons -- "Legion" -- called out of the possessed man by Christ and permitted to inter into nearby pigs (which ran into the sea, in an act of complete self-destruction). Mark 5:1-20. Confront them at every turn and they will simply revert to their norm. If only the Church were more militant, and more full of its own true mission.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:42 AM By Grisha
A comment on the political process in SF: About 15 years ago, SF switched from citywide to district elections for the 11 member Board of Supervisors. The idea was that it would lessen the influence of big money (from any source) and allow someone to run a neighborhood campaign for say $30,000. I thought it was a good idea. However, one result was that a small group of self styled "Progressives," who seem to have no life outside politics, were able to exert far more influence than their numbers. Essentially, we've ended up since then with a Board of Supes who are considerably to the left of the electorate in general. It happened that in 2006 we had a several supervisors who were fallen away Catholics and had issues with the Church. Unfortunately, they allowed their personal feelings to affect their judgement as public servants. Thus the hysterical screed. When Archbishop Niederauer came here, shortly before the issue broke, he spoke of trying to lower the tempeture of relations between the Archdiocese and the political class in the City. As I understand it however, Maurice Healy, the editor of the Catholic newspaper, decided on his own to publicize the matter of a few adoptions by gay couples several years before, giving these guys an opportunity to take a very cheap shot at the Church. What is ironic is that, aside from the fact that the charge of the American Church is part of a "foreign country" is absurd, both the City of San Francisco and the Church have, from time to time "meddled" in the internal affairs of other nations which we believed were violating the human rights of their citizens. Case in point: Uganda.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:55 AM By Laurie
It's time for Catholics to be more militant regarding rights, respect and tolerance of their moral ideology. Do not be afraid to stand up and take action.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 10:07 AM By Fr. J
Make no law respecting religion? I guess in SF the Christians don't count. I hope they soak SF for every penny they don't have.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 10:12 AM By WOODY GUIDRY
WHY IS THE HARM TO CHILDREN not given consideration because of MORE DISEASE, MORE BROKEN HOMES, MORE STRESS IN A PUBLICLY CONTROVERSIAL LIFE, and on and on?! "Not conducive to full human development" is pretty tame language to describe the real evil of what routinely happens as a child is reared in a SSA AFFAIR setting.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 10:23 AM By Nicholas
Thank God for this promotion of Cardinal Levada; sounds like the right man to fill Cardinal Ratzinger's former post. May more American clergy step up and let the Truth do the talking!
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 10:27 AM By Street Wise in NC
Google “A laughable double standard remnant newspaper “ You will read about an example of what happened when an upstanding homosexual man was allowed to adopt 2 children in North Carolina. Spectacular evil. And the deception the national media has perpetrated to suppress this story is a grave and telling evil in itself. As a nation, we are going to be judged and it will be a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Almighty Judge.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 11:54 AM By Fred
Why is it the liberals never get charged with "hate crimes"? This is one of the most blatant examples of hate. For this hate to be publicly proclaimed by the "government" itself shows the shallowness and hypocrisy of the Board, as well as the subjective application of this PC "law".
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 12:06 PM By John
I can see why San Francisco is called the "Sewer Pit of the West Coast."
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:13 PM By JLS
So Fred, the implication for conservatives who get charged with hate crimes is to immediately declare onself a liberal, so that the charges will be dropped?
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:19 PM By JLS
Trini, what you describe in the United Kingdom is one reason my ancestors left there ... oops, wait a minute, I don't have any English ancestors. Oh yeah some of them left from Scotland and Ireland and Wales ... methinks to avoid the head tax.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:24 PM By JLS
With years and years now of ranting from the sodomite lobby, which seems to have been launched anew by the movie "Brokeback Mountian", it just now occurs to me that there was a movie before that that characterized the typical homosexual lifestyle, entitled "Deliverance".
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:29 PM By Alberto
The Gates of Hell will not prevail against Christianity.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 6:42 PM By Michael
As the SF Weekly this week points out, San Francisco is probably the most poorly managed big city in the U.S.A. The Supervisors ought to tackle real problems, and not resort to their typical pontifications and gutless moral unctuousness.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 7:32 PM By Jim
If such language were levied against any other group besides the Catholic Church, it would be considered "hate" speech.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 7:41 PM By Paul
Go to hell Thomas Miles!
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 11:32 PM By Annika
The Ninth Circuit must determine if the SF Board of Supervisors were establishing a religious perspective in denouncing Roman Catholicism, and in so doing, violating the separation of church and state. The Constitution prohibits the state from establishing/proscribing religious activities, thus at issue is did the SF Board of Supervisors fail to act in a strictly secular manner. The irony of this moment should not be lost on the readership here.
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Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 11:46 PM By JonJ
The relevant question here isn't whether the city council's resolution was right or wrong (or even evil), its whether issuing a non-binding resolution (which amounts to nothing more than expressing their opinion), against the religious opinion of a church is constitutionally proper. The city council will pin its case around its 1st amendment rights, the church will base their arguments around the establishment clause. I'm certain a lot of debate will center around whether a non-binding resolution is a "law" for purposes of the estalishment clause. I don't see how you can call something with no legal force a "law". The biggest problem the Thomas More center has is trying to impute some sort of compulsion by the state to favor any particular religious faith when they haven't enacted any legislation. ANother problem is that the censure isn't necessarily directed at catholicism as a whole, but just one of its doctrines. The whole thing seems imprudent and tasteless, but I'm not sure if it rises to the level of unconstitutional.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 12:35 AM By Winkyb
Who are these czars??? From whom do they received their authority??? Are they elected??? They are appear to be an self appointed tribunal upsurping civil authority. How can such be permitted a governing body be without the peoples representation/vote. Call attorney general file a complaint to remove this illicit presence.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 1:48 AM By EST
This is an urgent situation that we should pray and ask the Divine mercy for graces to all of us, all of us are God's children and let us ask the God of mercy to grant us HIS Peace, christmas is the coming of the Prince of Peace.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:38 AM By Tom
Look at you judgemental baffoons. How can you sit there and throw your ignorant opinions about people you do not even know. You condemn the very lifestyle that fascinates you. That is right, it fascinates you and intrigues you otherwise you would not care as much as you do! How many of you pigs have sodomized your wives all the while judging innocent men and women? You are all going to hell in a conservative basket with your pope!
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:32 AM By Diane
San Francisco needs to get a new board of Supervisors. They don't know how to manage San Francisco so they go off on a tangent of the so called right of gays to adopt children. They target the largest group still standing in their path, the Catholic Church. Won't work of course. It seems gays and their supporters are so obsessed with this issue they forget how to govern or perhaps they never did in the first place. I say get rid of the whole lot and get some real supervisors in there. St. Francis pray for that poor city.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 9:42 AM By JLS
Regardless of the legal maneuvering, the outcome will be favorable to Catholicism ... as light will be shed on the machinations of the sodomite political machine.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:02 AM By Steve
I've always felt that the Catholic Church has the most caring and loving position toward homosexuals, not a hateful one. When you truly care for people you tell them the truth. The truth, supported by psychological science, is that homosexuals are not born homosexual. Homosexuality is a sickness caused by toxic experiences in childhood. Homosexuals are sexual addicts (homosexuality is an SSA, Same Sex Attraction disorder) because their unnatural sexual experiences delude them into thinking that they are getting the emotional support they missed as children. This is an admittedly a simplistic explanation because of space constraints, but go to the NARTH website to get all the psychological science you need to understand this sad condition. Let's love homosexuals enough to give them the truth and encourage them to get the therapy they need to recover.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:48 AM By Grisha
Diane: See my post above. That will happen when we go back to Citywide election. By the way, under citywide elections gays, if they voted in a block, were pretty much guaranteed 3 seats. Under districts they can only count on one, basically the Castro. Also - most SF gay people I know are as frustrated with the situation as anyone else. Then again, the gay people I know are mostly late middle aged cops, small business owners etc.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:52 AM By Annika
JonJ. A resolution need not have reached the level of "legislative import" to violate the establishment clause. The state, in this case the SF Board of Supivisors, as a legislative body has denounced the Catholic Church. The individual opinions of each supervisor were not expressed, but rather the governance of the county of San Francisco. This action can be viewed as prohibiting a specific religion because it identifies the religion as unacceptable to the people of San Francisco. As well, the resolution went beyond the expression of regret that the archdiocese of SF would not permit gay adoption, but instead denounced the entire religious group on very broad terms. The resolution went beyond the scope of denouncing a specific moral belief, which is widely held by others outside the Catholic Church, and instead, broadly denounced a specific religious group. This is why the Ninth Circuit is reconsidering this case. The importance of the case is marked by the fact an eleven member panel has been convened, rather the customary three panel. The Ninth Circuit clearly views the decision it will make as major and of no small matter. Given its history of progressive opinions, for this court to consider this matter in such a major way clearly indicates this is a Constitutional question.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:14 PM By Mark from PA
Steve, the medical establishment does not support the theory that the homosexual orientation is a sickness caused by toxic experiences in childhood. The Church does not teach this either. You say that homosexuals are sex addicts. Where did you get this from? Some gay people and some straight people are sex addicts but a person's sexual orientation and their sex drive are two different things. I may have been a gay teen but I was surely NOT a sex addict. I was a virgin. When I was in high school I didn't even know what self-gratification was much less do it. The extent of my "sexual addiction" was having a wet dream once or twice a month and my dreams were not even sexual in nature. While I considered this a flaw I did not consider it a sin. I realize that I was not pure, but a sex addict due to my orientation? That is crazy and a stereotype. Steve, you said, "Let's love homosexuals enough to give them the truth." Well, a lot of what you said in your post is not true.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:26 PM By elleblue
I thought you Americans were always shouting about "freedome of speech and thought"? Well if people don't support same sex anything, they have a right not to. Just like you have a right to support same sex relationships!
This is really about a lack of respect! Laws will not force people to accept what you don't want to.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:21 PM By Mark from PA
In regard to NARTH, it should be mentioned that they are a small group that lacks any respect from the wider scientific community. NARTH advocates reparative therapy which has been condemned by the American Psychological Association. The APA has condemned it because it has been shown to lead to depression and even suicide. Reparative therapy is dismissed by every reputable association of therapists. They consider it abusive to force children to submit to such therapies. NARTH does have some support from fundamentalist protestants who consider the homosexual orientation to be in and of itself sinful.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 7:39 PM By JLS
PA, NARTH is respected by those who have benefitted from its services. Those who disrespect it are not scientists, but charlatans. Why? Because they are biased without cause. When, btw, are you going to realize that the word "scientist" stuck to somebody's lapel means nothing. You evidence having no knowledge of what science is, and the sin of that, PA, is belief in hype.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 7:43 PM By JLS
Harrassment can also be a felony level crime, and the SF Board should be arrested and locked up for it. They also have engaged in the federal crime of violating the civil rights of the Church, and conspired to do it under color of law. Each member should be sentenced to five years, and the mayor to ten years in federal prisons, and then sentenced to at least three years in state prisons for the felony harrassment crimes with conspiracy.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:24 PM By RR
Mark from PA; TMI-Too Much Information in your post @ 3:14 P.M. :(
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:08 PM By JonJ
JonJ, Oh, I know there are many arguments to be made about how the city council's statements have a coersive nature to them. And, I'm aware that an 11 judge panel indicates the court sees a significant question. And, further, I must admit I not really well versed in constitutional analysis; I haven't really dealt with them since law school other than as a somewhat informed spectator (heck, I don't even practice law anymore since I left patent practice and became a co-founder of a heath care IT venture). I guess one thing I don't like is the city council's act condemns the Church for exercizing THEIR 1st amendment rights and religious freedom.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:14 PM By craig
They hate use (catholics) because of our beliefs of that their sinful nature of impurity which hemosexual have a sexual disorder just like a pedophile, we respect them as a person (made in gods image) like everyone else but their nature ruins human morals and they insult us for that, and its a hate crime against us too for who we are. All we are doing is teaching people human morals for the sake of our children and our morals, for we are humans not animals or a sexual manaic for its the nature of animals not humans Society is teaching human to be so sexually acxtive these days that they become like animals and lose all their morals which it makes it seem like its a normal thing to them, humans are loseing the nature of who they really are " a temple for the holy gost" but we mock god when people do this impure behavior or sexual acts.
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Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:40 PM By 1abqdad
No matter how "PC" the public wants to claim to be, the TRUTH is that statistically, a child is better off in a "traditional" family! Yes, I realize that there are exceptions to every rule, but the "system" must act in a statistical nature to best serve the child! After spending many years in Scouting and having many children whose "parents" were gay (No, we did NOT discriminate, as we were there to serve the kids), the TRUTH is that the children of "gay" parents ALWAYS had to deal with no end of issues associated with their parent's "situation". That is reality. The biggest problems resulted from the fanatical "couples" that did everything possible to ensure that everyone knew they were gay. The reality is that ANY abnormality is a problem for kids. The key is how the parents behave. My committee chairman was a minister/therapist and his daughter was gay. (He was grandfather to two of my scouts.) Anyway, he helped me to minimize the issues associated with his daughter's CHOICE to make her status public. I did everything possible to minimize the issues for the boys, but the truth is that it was never positive because of the mother's behaviors... NOT because of anything we did! The bottom line is that anything that deviates from the "norm" is not positive for these children who already are "at risk" because they are in "the system". Why do anything that is potentially negative for them? Since there is NO shortage of adoptive parents, there is NO point to taking any risk.
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Posted Friday, December 18, 2009 8:14 AM By MarkF
Steve, you're so right. But you only have half the story there. The rest of the story is that there is a campaign of censorship by the health care professionals. Take for example the APA's censorship of studies that show that the homosexual inclination can be changed in some cases. The media, which is the other half of the campaign, made it look like the whole of APA condemned these studies. The truth is that a small panel of six or less people, several of whom were radical homosexuals themselves, spoke for the whole of the APA. There are also many, many psychologists out there who try to speak about the true nature of homosexuality. But they are intimidated, slurred, censored and ridiculed. This is homosexual tolerance for you. I used to be bothered by this but not so much anymore. Deep down people know that homosexuality is a destructive force. Right now we have the luxury of ignoring that for a time. A rich man can be a spendthrift for a time too and not realize that he is moving closer to disaster. This is where America is...for a while. Let the dissenters bully and whine and pretend to be oh so holy. They are the new Pharisees, always shaking their fingers at everyone else, but never looking at their own behavior. Like I've said many times...ignore, ignore, ignore. Silence, silence, silence. Please, can we try to stick with this as a New Year's resolution? We've tried every other way. Total silence will work, believe me.
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Posted Friday, December 18, 2009 9:21 AM By Abeca Christian
It is inhumane and an injustice to purposely place a child to be adopted to same sex couples! If one is truly looking at what is best for the child, they would look for a one mom and one dad married couple family to adopt these children because children do best with a mom and a dad. Society has allowed adoption to same sex couples only because they are not looking at the best interest of the child, they are only fulfilling the selfish needs of the dysfunctional same sex couples who say heck with what these kids needs, we need to feel normal so we need to adopt our own kids, we we we....it is all about the so called "gay agenda" to normalize itself no matter at what cost and who they hurt in the process.
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Posted Friday, December 18, 2009 12:17 PM By Charles O. Coudert
Until they got out of the adoption business in 2006, Boston Catholic Charities had a long tradition of placing orphans for adoption with gays. In December 2005 their 42 person board of directors voted unanimously approving the practice (two clergy board members did not vote). A sad reason given for supporting the continuation of homosexual adoption is that gay households provided a welcome for hard to place youngsters.
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Posted Friday, December 18, 2009 1:59 PM By Gibbons in SF
Grisha, re your comment of Dec. 16: "As I understand it however, Maurice Healy, the editor of the Catholic newspaper, decided on his own to publicize the matter of a few adoptions by gay couples several years before, giving these guys an opportunity to take a very cheap shot at the Church."
I don't think that's correct. The first publicity, that I am aware of, about Catholic Charities allowing adoptions by same-sex couples came from the national homosexualist publication "The Advocate" on December 6, 2005. Google "Little Catholic Gifts." The statements made there by members of Catholic Charities are extraordinary. The Archdiocese/Mr. Healy were responding to those statements.
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Posted Friday, December 18, 2009 3:15 PM By Abeca Christian
Charles O. Coudert I know, I heard that same argument from liberal people saying that it is better to adopt out to a good homosexual couple than not at all, but I say it is the more reason to make sure we adopt these children to a normal, one dad and one mom stable home, they are the ones who need that more because they were already harmed by not having a good mom and a good dad, why damage them further by taking away the chance of them ever having a relationship with a mom and dad, because each one fulfill needs that only a mother can give and only a dad can give. We need to make sure that all children be given that same chance as any other child would have, had they have the blessing to. No institution or society has the right to impose on a child's right to a normal and healthy development.
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Posted Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:20 AM By Mark from PA
RR, the reason that I say too much is to counter the sterotypes some people have here that gay and bi-sexual people are evil sex addicts. I find stirring up prejudice against a group of people one dislikes to be un-Christian. If one of your children was a gay teen how would you like it if they read some of the things that some people here have to say? Hate speech hurts real people, it hurts kids.
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Posted Wednesday, December 23, 2009 2:46 PM By Mark from PA
RR, hope that all is well with your Mom. May God bless your family with Christmas joy.
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Posted Friday, December 25, 2009 4:01 PM By Abeca Christian
Mark from PA you are not in any position to say that Steve has posted incorrect information. You have nothing to back that up. I agree with what MarkF posted on December 18, 2009 8:14 AM. In order for us to help those with homosexual tendencies, we need to speak the truth and lead them to the road of healing.
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Posted Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:45 PM By Mark from PA
Abeca Christian, Steve said that homosexuality is a sickness. This is his opinion. He also said that homosexuals are sexual addicts. While some homosexuals may be sexual addicts, most are not. More heterosexuals are sex addicts than homosexuals. Calling a group of people that one dislikes "sexual addicts" is in no way caring or loving.
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