Equally Blessed, an umbrella group of four pro-LGBT rights Catholic organizations, today condemned comments made by Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, past president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, objecting to Chicago’s gay rights parade. On Fox News Chicago, George said, “You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.”
Equally Blessed charges in a statement that George “has demeaned and demonized LGBT people in a manner unworthy of his office. In suggesting that the Catholic hierarchy has reason to fear LGBT people in the same way that blacks, Jews, Catholics and other minorities had reason to fear the murderous nightriders of the Ku Klux Klan, he has insulted the memory of the victims of the Klan’s violence and brutality.”
The statement goes on to emphasize that they have “no fight with the Catholic Church,” noting that public opinion surveys show Catholics are more supportive of LGBT rights than other Christian denominations. Equality Blessed objects to “the positions of the Catholic hierarchy and the way it uses its influence to force its narrow theological understanding on the wider society. Cardinal George’s offensive comments are further evidence of just how insensitive and out of touch the hierarchy is, and why opposition to its views is necessary.”
