It's a fight straight from the Vatican now landed on the wind-swept
prairie of western Minnesota — all because of a Magic Marker, a yard
sign and a 16-year-old boy with an iPhone.
Lennon Cihak, a high school junior in the Minnesota town of
Barnesville — population about 2,500 — was raised Roman Catholic like
his parents and grandparents.
His mother and father, Shana and Doug
Cihak, were baptized, confirmed and married in Barnesville's century-old
Assumption Church, the same one where Lennon had been attending
confirmation classes since spring.
Then on Oct. 24 — 13 days before the vote on a proposed state
constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one
woman — everything changed.
That night, Lennon attended a
run-through for the ceremony of his confirmation, the sacrament in
which believers reaffirm their faith. Lennon, who was named after
Beatles member John Lennon, says nothing special happened at church to
set the fateful events in motion, but for weeks he had been thinking
about the marriage amendment. A lot of his friends were opposed, saying
it didn't seem fair.
"In the Constitution it says all men are created equal. If they can't get married, they aren't equal," he remembers thinking.
So that night he took a pro-amendment yard sign, changed "Vote Yes"
to "Vote No" with a black marker and scrawled the words "Equal Marriage
Rights."
He then posed with the sign, snapped a photo with his phone,
and posted the picture on his Facebook page.
That's when things got messy.
Shana Cihak, a City Hall billing clerk, says the next day there was
an urgent message on the family answering machine for her and her
husband to meet with Father Gary LaMoine, the parish priest.
That
conversation on Oct. 25, according to her version, started cordially,
with the priest telling them they needed to come to church more often.
But then, she says, LaMoine told her that Lennon's opinions on
same-sex marriage were in conflict with the church and that her son
could not be confirmed.
She was stunned.
Lennon had only expressed an opinion. He wasn't even
old enough to vote. Why should he be denied a sacrament when others who
break church rules are not?
"Do you mean to tell me," Shana Cihak says she told LaMoine, "that
when you stand up there on Sunday and you see all of those families with
two or three kids, you don't know they are using birth control?"
She
says she was told she could no longer serve as sponsor of one of the
kids in the confirmation class. She came home in tears.
LaMoine and Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who oversees the Diocese of
Crookston, which includes Assumption Church, did not respond to requests
for an interview. But in a strongly worded letter LaMoine sent to
church members on Nov. 15, the priest tells a very different story: "It is to my dismay that what should have been kept an internal
church matter has now become a public controversy," LaMoine wrote,
adding that he knew nothing about the Facebook posting until his
secretary found it the day after his meeting with the Cihaks to talk
about issues he did not specify.
He called Lennon's Facebook picture —
which was "liked" by several members of the confirmation class — a
"defacement" and apologized to the parish for the Cihaks' behavior.
He also said Lennon was the one who decided to end the confirmation process.
LaMoine wrote that he never denied Lennon's confirmation, but added:
"Even if he had not withdrawn … I would have had no choice but to remove
him from consideration given his rejection of marriage as we understand
it. Rejection of the church's teaching on marriage is a very serious
breach of faith."
Lennon says the idea that he quit is untrue.
The Catholic Church's highest leadership has been vehement in its
opposition to same-sex marriage. In March, Pope Benedict XVI urged a
delegation of U.S. bishops, including those from Minnesota, not to back
down in the global fight against same-sex marriage.
The U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops has also taken up the fight. "We should be
strengthening marriage, not redefining it," says Tim Roder, associate
director for the promotion and defense of marriage at the conference.
St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt crusaded in support of
Minnesota's proposed marriage amendment, sending two letters — one just
before the election — to every priest in the state telling them to
advocate for it in their congregations.
He wrote that the issue of
preserving traditional marriage was "one of the greatest challenges of
our times," and that any priest who disagreed must remain silent.
Of the $4.5 million raised to support the measure, about a third came
from the Catholic Church. About $50,000 came from the Diocese of
Crookston, says Gary Goldsmith, executive director of Minnesota Campaign
Finance and Public Disclosure Board.
The dust-up in Barnesville quickly escalated. It was featured on talk
radio in nearby Fargo, N.D., where callers split evenly between those
who applauded the church for sticking to its rules and those who said
"maybe it's time they need to open their eyes," says show producer
Daniel Gunderson. A Facebook page, "I Support Lennon Cihak," has nearly
3,000 "likes."
Reader comments on Catholic blogs have come down solidly
in support of LaMoine.
The incident caught the attention of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation.
Ross Murray, director of faith, religion and values
for the group, says it is not an isolated case. He cited a Michigan man
whose invitation to speak at his former Catholic school's commencement
was rescinded after someone spotted a Facebook post where he announced
his engagement to his male partner.
"I don't know who has decided that they need to monitor their members' Facebook pages," Murray said.
Doug Cihak wonders about that as well. "What are you doing looking
over our shoulder, reporting a kid's Facebook page to father?" he says.
"Get a life, will you?"
Although the amendment failed statewide, in Barnesville it passed
easily, leaving the Cihak family unsure of their next step. "We don't
have anything bad to say about the Catholic Church. I've been a Catholic
my whole life. I'm 53. I don't plan to do anything else," Doug Cihak
says.
Lately he has been rethinking once-steadfast beliefs. "Before, I was
always one man, one woman. I am a conservative," he says.
But at the
polling place, he paused when it came to voting on the Marriage for
Minnesota Act.
"In the end, I sided with my son."