Leading LGBT voice scorns
Cardinal Levada LGBT adoption ban

By Pat Murphy

March 14, 2006

Cardinal William Levada represents "all that is wrong with the Catholic Church" as evidenced by Vatican opposition to LGBT adoptions, a San Francisco LGBT leader said today.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano, longtime elected member of San Francisco governance and LGBT leading voice, gave an emotional condemnation of Rome policy and urged Levada to withdraw the directive.

Rome reiterated the 2003 policy over the weekend causing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to withdraw his attendance from the March 24 formal installation of Levada as Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Catholic Charities of San Francisco place adoptees in LGBT families, and Ammiano urged the Vatican to permit local policy to continue.

Ammiano made the remarks during today's Board of Supervisors meeting.

"You know, as a gay Catholic, Cardinal Levada is everything that is wrong with the Catholic Church," Ammiano told Board colleagues.

"If this Cardinal would put the kind of energy into ending sexual abuse and homophobia in the church as he does in persecuting same sex couples…

"He said it is violence. You are doing violence when you place children with same sex couples.

"Well, I say to you, I think there is a reason that the office that he represents now was once called the Office of the Inquisition, because they cannot see beyond the humanness of this particular population.

"It seems to me that if the Catholic Church is losing members, they should welcome, they should embrace gay and lesbian and transgender people who embrace that faith.

"No one is going to tell me that I am not Catholic.

"No one is going to tell me that I am doing violence to children. That is criminal and if we could impeach him I would make that resolution," stated Ammiano.

Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Michela Alioto-Pier joined the Ammiano resolution as co-sponsors.

Dufty represents the heavily LGBT Castro District and is a member of the LGBT community. Alioto-Pier is among current generation of the prominent Alioto Italian Catholic clan.

"It seems that it's so contradictory that lives that so often are thrown away, that are being reclaimed, that the gay and lesbian parents that I know are most often involved in special needs adoptions of children who are not being supported in life.

"That somehow someone of faith could stand in the way of that and think that they know better - that's the most disappointing thing because here in San Francisco Catholic Charities has done such a good job of making it a priority for looking out for the children.

"I think it is truly tragic… that now children are going to be hurt and in the future children and could be denied the opportunity of having a good home," the District 8 supervisor said.

Dufty will hold a press conference March 27 encouraging LGBT families to participate in greater numbers with San Francisco Foster Care programs.

Text of the Ammiano resolution follows:

Resolution urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity has head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.

WHEREAS, It is a insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great City's existing and established customs and traditions such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need; and

WHEREAS, The statements of Cardinal Levada and the Vatican that "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households," and "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children" are absolutely unacceptable to the citizenry of San Francisco; and,

WHEREAS, 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; and

WHEREAS, Same sex couples are just as qualified to be parents as are heterosexual couples; and

WHEREAS, Cardinal Levada is a decidedly unqualified representative of his former home city, and of the people of San Francisco and the values they hold dear; and

WHEREAS, The Board of Supervisors urges Archbishop Niederauer and the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to defy all discriminatory directives of Cardinal Levada; now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the Board of Supervisors urges Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican (formerly known as Holy Office of the Inquisition), to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.

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