San Francisco, CA has Officially Condemned the Church

St. Francis is probably not all that happy that a city named after him is choosing to take such a course of action.



The title of this post is not an exaggeration. From WorldNetDaily:



A San Francisco city and county board resolution that officially labeled the Catholic church's moral teachings on homosexuality as "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "defamatory," "insensitive" and "ignorant" will be challenged tomorrow in court for violating the Constitution's prohibition of government hostility toward religion.


Resolution 168-08, passed unanimously by the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors two years ago, also accused the Vatican of being a "foreign country" meddling with and attempting to "negatively influence (San Francisco's) existing and established customs."


It said of the church's teaching on homosexuality, "Such hateful and discriminatory rhetoric is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors."



Of course, this is all the Church's fault for actually taking a stance against sin. How dare She presume such authority?



The anti-Catholic diatribe had been challenged in U.S. District Court on similar grounds, but District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled in favor of the city, saying, in essence, the church started it.


She wrote in her decision, "The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith provoked this debate, indeed may have invited entanglement" for instructing Catholic politicians on how to vote. This court does not find that our case law requires political bodies to remain silent in the face of provocation."



For the folks who actually want to defend this exercise in jackassery by the City Board, granting certain other messes in the jurisprudence about incorporation and what constitutes someone making a law, explain to me how a teacher wearing a crucifix or a copy of the Ten Commandments on a wall or lawn can be claimed as a violation of the First Amendment, while formal action taken by the vote of a governing body is not.



This is the sort of thing that makes you wonder how far we might be from open persecution. Taken at face value, this would make the Church a hate group, engaged in hate speech, not to mention classifying Catholics as subversives under the direction of a foreign power.



Somebody get Thomas Nast on the phone.