On Sunday, February 12 — "Freedom to Marry Day 2012" — four of Chicago's most prominent LGBT organizations have called on people of good will to join a protest against Cardinal Francis George's continuing campaign against LGBT rights. This protest was initiated by the Gay Liberation Network, and Dignity Chicago and the Chicago Rainbow Sash Movement have endorsed it, and Equality Illinois has agreed to support it with publicity.
The annual protest, timed to coincide with Valentine's Day, was initiated in Chicago by GLN a decade ago, and this year will take place at 10:30 AM, Sunday, February 12 in front of Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State Street, Chicago.
Besides George's repeated, controversial comparisons of Lesbians and Gays to the Ku Klux Klan and his apology which many viewed as weak, activists point to several other reasons to join the protest:
*** Writing in the January 15th issue of the official Archdiocesan newspaper, George said he had "fear" that the so-called "liberty of the Catholic Church" is under attack. As easily the single largest, and arguably most influential religious denomination in Chicago and Illinois, any notion of a "threat" to the Catholic Church here is patently absurd. What is true is that Cardinal George and the Church leadership internationally have used their considerable influence to try to stop civil rights for LGBTs.
*** In Rome in a January meeting with the diplomatic corps, Pope Benedict XVI condemned same-sex marriage as a "threat to humanity" and decried "policies aimed at marginalizing the role of religion in the life of society, as if it were a cause of intolerance." But no one is talking about the government forcing the church to celebrate same-sex marriages or other equal rights for LGBTs and women in the Church, any more than forcing the church to re-marry divorcees. What LGBT activists are saying is that they will no longer allow sectarian beliefs to determine the laws which people of other faiths ( or no faith ) are forced to observe.
Not content to fulminate against equal rights from the pulpit, Cardinal George and other religious leaders ignore their tax-exempt status and enter the political arena to try to influence legislation. George, for example, has opposed every advance for LGBT rights in Chicago, in Cook County, and across the state — largely without success. Unfortunately, he has had more luck helping our enemies win victories in California and Maine, where anti-gay bigotry defeated marriage equality, at least for the short term.
Polls show that a majority of Catholics in the pews back LGBT rights. It is the hierarchy of the church that is out of step with the membership for which they falsely claim to speak. For that reason, GLN is calling on Catholics and others of good will to unite in opposition to the backward mis-leadership offered by Cardinal George.
For more information email the Gay Liberation Network at LGBTliberation@aol.com .
