UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody
Posted on January 10, 2016 by Betty Clermont
For over three decades, the Republican Party has used the Religious Right to energize conservative Christians to political activism and to get out the vote. Republicans running for office in numerous states and the U.S. Congress are preparing for battles in 2016 over discrimination protection for LBGT persons, religious exemptions for nonprofits and businesses objecting to gay marriage and contraception, and greater restrictions on abortion and Planned Parenthood.
At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) annual General Assembly in November, “their first assembly since gay marriage became legal nationwide, they vowed to uphold marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and to seek legal protections for those who share that view. Some bishops said they were committed to reversing the U.S. Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling last June … Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City said a concerted effort was needed to ‘build a consensus’ to do so. As a model, he pointed to new state laws that have made it harder to obtain an abortion.”
USCCB president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, “highlighted the bishops’ push for religious exemptions for charities, schools and individual for-profit business owners who oppose gay marriage and other laws and regulations.”The assembly “also heard an address from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican’s U.S. ambassador who was behind Pope Francis’ controversial meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who briefly went to jail rather than comply with a court order to issue same-sex marriage licenses … The ambassador received two standing ovations from the bishops.”
Confirming the reason for his “secret, emotionally charged” meeting with Davis, Pope Francis stated that “conscientious objection” by “government employees” is a “human right” on the flight back to Rome.
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