Route of control
Dear Editor:
Although I agree with most ideas in your article "What's next for the Pride Parade?," I do disagree that if the option of moving the parade downtown (an idea I oppose) that the date would have to be change to accommodate the Taste of Chicago.
The parade has been on the last Sunday in June (to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion) for 42 years. The Taste has around for a mere 31 years. As the parade grows in popularity, the Taste has been scaled down this year and pulled its lowest attendance since 1986. I truly believe if any dates need to be changed, the change should began with the Taste.
I would suggest a new and improved route for the festivities: Begin at Halsted and Belmont (the same as before), go north to Addison, west to Clark and then north to Andersonvville.
Let the debate begin!
Thanks,
Gary Chichester
A matter of priorities
Dear Editor:
In June of 2003, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an updated teaching on gay marriage. For the first time, same-sex adoption was prohibited and same-sex adoptive parents were characterized as "doing violence" to children by adopting them. This is the motivating factor behind the current lawsuit pitting the State of Illinois/ACLU against Catholic Charities in Joliet, Peoria, Springfield and Belleville.
The lawsuit is asking a Sangamon County judge to uphold their policy of providing publicly funded foster care and adoption services only to married couples and single parents living alone, while referring couples in civil unions to other agencies.
Other Catholic adoption agencies in San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington and other archdioceses have abandoned a tradition of care to thousands of needy children in favor of discrimination against same-sex couples. This does violence to adoptive/foster care children when they are denied the loving care of a Gay or straight parents solely based on intolerance.
It is painfully obvious to most reasonable people that the needs of hard-to-place foster children in loving homes are not the primary goal of the Illinois Catholic Conference. Sacrificing the real needs of children needing adoptive loving parents for a singular Catholic identity that is being shoved down the throat of many Catholics by an out-of-control hierarchy that clashes with the "Sense of the Faithful" runs contrary to the very gospel values we claim to proclaim.
Their first priority is the enforcement of a poorly conceived Vatican Statement that runs contrary to Illinois law which makes it unlawful to discriminate against same sex couples when it comes to adoption/foster care.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois has shown an unwillingness to engage in a reasonable dialogue process that puts the needs of these children as the first priority. On the other hand, certain members of the gay community's political leadership have been open, and supportive of such a dialogue process.
I once again call on the Catholic Conference of Illinois to cease its adversarial role that only does harm to orphaned children. Further, to enter into a genuine dialogue process that puts the needs of these orphans as the first priority without any conditions.
Joe Murray
Rainbow Sash Movement
