I’ll let Change.Org cover this one.
Archbishop Wuerl wants D.C. to put the question of same-sex marriage on a ballot, so that voters can decide whether gays and lesbians ought to have equal rights. There’s some of that good-ole religious compassion for ya’. According to Wuerl, only straight people getting hitched can provide the type of loving relationships that keep families and children stable.
To that, here’s a big cry of bullshit. Why? Because as Massachusetts has shown in their state, gay marriage has simply no detrimental impact on marriage or the family. In fact, five years after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, the state has some of the lowest divorce rates. And by low, we mean as low as they were 80 freakin’ years ago.
You’d think the Church would stop for a moment and recognize that. Or you’d think the Church would look up from it’s navel and see that in Washington, D.C., one out of three children live in poverty; the District has some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the country; or that high school graduation rates in some areas of Washington stagger around the 55-60 percent mark. Surely those issues have to be more important that whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry, right?
Not if your faith runs as hollow as Archbishop Wuerl’s.
For the life of me, I don’t know why Wuerl is making this move, except to remind Rome that he’s still there, and still does not have the Red Hat. I have a friend who knew Don Wuerl many, many years ago. Back when Don Wuerl was Cardinal John Wright’s fair-haired boy. He says Wuerl’s middle initial might just as well be “A” for “Ambition.” Wuerl wants to be a Cardinal. And maybe Pope. That’s all he wants.
This attack against our LGBT friends is nothing more than an attempt to draw attention to himself, nudge the pope to make him a Cardinal.
This is not about Wuerl’s opposition to homosexuality. This is about Archbishop Wuerl making a career move. The ultimate career move Wuerl has been hoping for his entire life.
And he will succeed.
One of his predecessors in Pittsburgh did something equally inane. In the 1980s, Bishop Bevilacqua came up with the brilliant notion that women should not have their feet washed in church on Holy Thursday. I’ll not go into the absurd reasoning he used, but it was really silly.
Bevilacqua was eventually rewarded with the Red Hat, and he eventually became Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia.
The next year, Pittsburgh went back to permitting women to have their feet washed on Holy Thursday.
Look, Don Wuerl wants to be a Cardinal in the Catholic Church. That’s all he’s ever wanted. He’ll cry tears of joy when he finaly gets the Red Hat.
And our LGBT friends will have his shoe-prints on their faces.