(RNS) The White House’s novel online system for allowing citizens to petition the administration on any number of causes has led to various unintended consequences: petitions to secede from the U.S. following President Obama’s re-election; a petition for Vice President Joe Biden to star in a reality show; and a petition for the government to disclose its secret archives on extraterrestrials.
Now there is a petition to designate the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group for its opposition to gay rights, and it may wind up generating almost as many press releases as signatures.
The “We the People” petition was filed on Christmas Day and was prompted by Pope Benedict XVI’s Dec. 21 year-end address to Vatican administrators in which he denounced gay marriage as a threat to Western civilization.
The petition blasts Benedict for “hateful language and discriminatory remarks” and for implying “that gay families are sub-human.” The petition says that as a result of those remarks, the Roman Catholic Church “fits the definition of a hate group as defined by both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.”
As of Monday (Jan. 7), the anti-Catholic petition had garnered just over 2,200 signatures, well short of the 25,000 signers it needs by Jan. 24 to reach the threshold for consideration by an administration officials. (The federal government does not designate hate groups; it only prosecutes certain hate crimes.)
But conservative Catholic media and activists were already leveraging the petition to highlight their opposition to President Obama.
On Jan. 4, Catholic News Agency published a story quoting Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council – which gained notoriety when it was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 – saying the petition reveals an “underlying agenda” to “stigmatize any disapproval of homosexuality at all and essentially to silence us.”
Catholic Advocate, a lobbying group with ties to the Republican Party, followed up with an email blast later that day citing the petition and asking for emergency donations to “help us launch an all-out campaign against the Obama Administration’s hateful, secular agenda.”
And Thomas Peters, a conservative activist who blogs at CatholicVote.org, asked that the White House “declare once and for all that it does NOT consider the Catholic Church to be a ‘hate group.’”
The ADL also responded, with national director Abraham Foxman calling the petition’s claim “an outrageous and offensive conceit” and saying it was “irresponsible for the promoter of this petition to use our name.”
The originator of the petition is only identified on the “We the People” website as “Zach N” of Atlanta.
As of Jan. 4, “Zach N,” however, had a counterpart of sorts in “Patrick T,” who started another petition demanding that the “bigoted” people who signed the petition demanding that the Catholic Church be listed as a hate group should themselves be designated as a hate group. So far, the counter-petition has generated fewer than 900 signatures.
KRE/AMB END GIBSON
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Activists mobilize around White House’s Catholic ‘hate group’ petition
[...] But conservative Catholic media and activists were already leveraging the petition to highlight their opposition to President Obama. [more] [...]
Belief Blog's Morning Speed Read for Tuesday, January 08, 2013 – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
[...] Religion News Service: Activists mobilize around White House’s Catholic ‘hate group’ petition The White House’s novel online system for allowing citizens to petition the administration on any number of causes has led to various unintended consequences: petitions to secede from the U.S. following President Obama’s re-election; a petition for Vice President Joe Biden to star in a reality show; and a petition for the government to disclose its secret archives on extraterrestrials. Now there is a petition to designate the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group for its opposition to gay rights, and it may wind up generating almost as many press releases as signatures. [...]
Rosemary
The problem with this anti Catholic activist is that these people try to put themselves in God’s place. If we put God first in our lives, the thoughts of our hearts and the words of our lips would be very different,
These people need to bring God and His teachings down from their heads, 18 inches to their hearts. They need to remember Good Friday, when He died for us – all of us, not just Catholics. We need to remember a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated the birth of God made Man. We need to remember as the early Christians knew that Jesus Christ is God, Jesus Christ is King and we need to proclaim this by our words, our actions and our love for our neighbor.
Emmanuel Atuwosi
Democracy, freedom of expression & of worship, these are some of the beautiful things about the USA. But when anything, including human liberty, is stretched too far, disastrous consequences usually follow. To us on this side of the Atlantic, America appears to have over-developed to the point of SELT-DESTRUCT. Or why would gay (homo-sexual & lesbian) behaviour become something that reasonable human beings would fight to institute as their own fundamental human right? Truly, according to one of our poets here, that’s AMERICA AND THEIR AMERICA. God save America!
Activists mobilize around White House’s Catholic ‘hate group’ petition
[...] SOURCE Religion News Service [...]
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