Practicing Limited Compassion: The Archdiocese of Washington DC

Here’s an interesting not-much-reported story related to Gay Marriage.  It seems the Archdiocese of Washington (that’s Washington DC) has issued a News & Events post on its website within the past couple days threatening that they may not be able to keep helping the poor because — get this — the DC City Council is considering passing a law that would require the Archdiocese to not discriminate based on same sex marriage status “the use of a church hall for non-wedding events for same-sex married couples”.

Again, the DC City Council is considering passing a law that would require the Archdiocese to not discriminate based on same sex marriage status “the use of a church hall for non-wedding events for same-sex married couples”.

Obviously, the law applies to everyone so-to-speak, not just the Archdiocese, but what’s interesting in the Archdiocese’s own announcement is the very example they provide . . . and I’m still trying to make sense of it.

I get the Archdiocese hates gay people or, perhaps more fairly put, is intent on pigeonholing them as second-class citizens.  But aren’t they playing their hand a bit too much when they offer — by their very own example — that they do not want to rent their space to same sex married people, even for non-wedding events?

I mean, seriously, let’s say two people in their congregation are gay (very, very likely).  Let’s say they’re a couple and that do or want to get married.  (I have no knowledge of what the status of Gay Marriage is in DC.)  And let’s just step that forward a bit for the sake of argument and say they are married.  The Archdiocese’s own statement indicates that they would be inclined to not rent space to them simply because of their same sex marriage status, even though they were members of the congregation interested in conducting a non-wedding event.  Huh?

Sorry, Archdiocese, but that does sound a little discriminatory to me.

But there’s one last thing I’m curious about . . . Let’s say I wanted to have an event at an Archdiocese-owned location.  What’s the Q&A when I call someone to try and book?  ”So you’re interested in renting a hall — Ok, what date?  Uh-huh.  Ok, are you regular sex or same sex married?”

Weird, huh.