Catholics and other religious groups across the US have raised more than $25 million (€18.5m) in support of a forthcoming vote in California that could reverse the state’s law permitting gay marriage, and officially define marriage as an act between a man and a woman, according to a report by Timothy Lavin in this week’s The Tablet. In August, the Knights of Columbus fraternal order donated $1.2 million to the campaign for the measure known as Proposition 8.
Late last month, Church leaders across the US began a major push to encourage their congregations to fast and pray for the success of the Proposition 8 ballot, through homilies, telephone calls, and letters to parishioners.
The California Catholic Conference put out fliers in parish bulletins, and dioceses across the state have held workshops discussing the proposition in Spanish and English.
Though initially expected to fail, polls show that Proposition 8 has been gaining support broadly in recent weeks, and the odds on its passage now look about even.
Many gay couples have been rushing to tie the knot while they can: more than 11,000 same-sex couples have wed since the summer, according to a survey by the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy.
In May, the California Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marriage violated the state’s constitution, thus making California only the second state in the US to fully legalise gay marriage after Massachusetts.
The state’s bishops have unanimously thrown their support behind the Proposition 8 effort. In a statement this summer, they called traditional marriage “the source of our civilisation ... and the reflection of our relationship with God”, and called on Catholics to send donations and volunteers to help get the proposition passed.
Last week Fr Geoffrey Farrow, a gay priest who had worked at a Catholic student centre at California State University, Fresno, was sacked by Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock after giving a sermon condemning the initiative.
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(Source: CNI)