Over 150 protestors showed up this past Sunday at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica after learning that the archdiocese donated $10,000 to defeat same-sex marriage in Maine. The protesters included a 90-year old woman with two grown lesbian daughters and a 10-year old girl there to defend her lesbian mother.
Also attending the rally was Jacob Piwowarczyk, 21, of St. Louis, who showed up with a badly injured eye and an arm in a sling. He and two friends were attacked by four men in the parking lot of a gay bar early Saturday morning in what he called a hate crime.
"Are the Catholic dollars placed in the offering basket behind us not private? Do you tell the donors what you are doing with them?" organizer Ed Reggi of Show Me No Hate told the crowd. "Why not fund love, archbishop?"
St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson released a statement in response to Sunday's protest, saying the donation came from a "special needs fund" supported with "private gifts" that is not used for formal operations. The fund is used at the archbishop's discretion, so responsibility for this act bigotry lies directly at Carlson's feet.
Show Me No Hate, the group responsible for organizing the protest, wants same-sex marriage legalized in Missouri. They plan to rally outside the New Cathedral every Sunday throughout Advent, a twenty-five day period straddling the Christmas holiday.
The Roman Catholic Church led the successful charge to overturn a law that would have made Maine the sixth state to allow same-sex marriage. Leading up to the Nov. 3 vote, 45 dioceses around the country contributed a total of $180,550 to the effort, according to campaign finance records.
Tax-exempt religious organizations are not allowed to participate in political campaigns for candidates, but they can "engage in advocating for or against issues and, to a limited extend, ballot initiatives," according to Internal Revenue Service regulations.
It's very much past time work to toward stripping churches, especially the Catholic Church, of their tax exemptions. The Catholic Church has become nothing more than a right-wing political action committee and a hate group. They recently attempted flat-out blackmail in an effort to stop a Washington, D.C. city council vote on same-sex marriage.
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