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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReport: Knights of Columbus Spends Millions to Fight LGBT Rights
The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization devoted to charity, unity and fraternity, has spent at least $1.4 million in recent years to promote anti-LGBT studies to U.S. bishops, according to an article published last week in the National Catholic Reporter.
The money was used to send Catholic bishops to workshops hosted by the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. Last year participants heard an address on parenting by gay people, featuring conservative psychologist Thomas Finn, who once told lawmakers in Connecticut that children raised by same-sex couples are vulnerable to risks such as increased presence of sexually transmitted disease, violence, substance abuse, mental health problems. This conclusion is at odds with several mainstream studies about children of same-sex couples.
Previous seminars at the center have featured presentations from Brian Brown, head of the National Organization for Marriage, and Richard Fitzgibbons, an advocate of the controversial and, in some places, illegal practice of conversion therapy to turn gay people straight. In an interview in 2006, Fitzgibbons said the goal of such counseling is for men to uncover early conflicts, forgive those who hurt them and increase their male confidence which in time may lead to the resolution of same-sex attractions.
The Knights of Columbus has been a leading opponent of equal rights for LGBT Americans. In 2008 the New Haven, Conn.based organization contributed $1 million to support Californias Proposition 8, which repealed marriage equality in that state.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2014/01/28/report-knights-columbus-spends-millions-fight-lgbt-rights
giftedgirl77
(4,713 posts)down here in SC, I told them I donate my money to the local abortion clinic in town & told them to go fuck themselves.
Next time I see them I'll have to remember this issue as well.
William769
(55,145 posts)Stomping out bigotry one bigot at a time.
Not Me
(3,398 posts)this past weekend. Claiming that they were soliciting money to help 'the handicapped'.
I looked at the one guy and said, "Why would I *ever* give money to the Knights of Columbus?"
He was flabbergasted. Apparently they don't get much vocal pushback. But they should.
giftedgirl77
(4,713 posts)if they were a branch of the Klan. You have to admit Knights of Columbus sounds pretty Klan like.
dickthegrouch
(3,172 posts)If this is born of experience or personal knowledge, Finn must know of large numbers of molesting priests who've been treated for STDs. If his statistics were pulled out of his ass (as I strongly suspect), Garbage in = Garbage out, and he's committing the bigger sin: that of bearing false witness.
He's a big reason I despise all Catholic infrastructure.
xfundy
(5,105 posts)from a kid unless another priest got to him/her first.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nt
progressoid
(49,978 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)Cha
(297,154 posts)Exposure!