Partners in Bigotry

Catholics and Mormons may not agree on many points of Christian dogma, but they're in perfect accord when it comes to fighting same-sex marriage:

The media in Salt Lake City have discovered the documents revealed prior to Election Day that show a long-time collaboration between the Mormons and the Catholics to destroy what they call "Homosexual Legal Marriage."

DailyKos Diarist thereisnospoon had these documents in a pre-Election Day diary, and summarized them:

Yep, you got that right. They were thinking of this in California way back in 1997. They were saying, "referendum is expensive. We have the money, but we don't have the public face. So let's join with the Catholics, because they have a better reputation."

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco who renewed this relationship this summer when he asked for the LDS Church leadership's assistance had most recently been the Archbishop of Salt Lake City. The SF Chronicle revealed earlier this week:

Months before the first ads would run on Proposition 8, San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer reached out to a group he knew well, Mormons.

Niederauer had made critical inroads into improving Catholic-Mormon relations while he was Bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years. And now he asked them for help on Prop. 8, the ballot measure that sought to ban same-sex marriages in California.

The June letter from Niederauer drew in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and proved to be a critical move in building a multi-religious coalition - the backbone of the fundraising, organizing and voting support for the successful ballot measure. By bringing together Mormons and Catholics, Niederauer would align the two most powerful religious institutions in the Prop. 8 battle.

They could use the power of their churches and their religious authority for a lot of good. They could have focused that money and will on fighting poverty. They could have united to stop our government from torturing people. They could have spoken out with one voice against domestic violence, which truly does destroy families. They could have combined their might to provide medical care for uninsured children. They could have brought their strength and resources to bear on so many things that would have saved lives and improved their communities.

Instead, they decided to pour tens of millions of dollars into an effort to deny same-sex couples the simple right to marry. They declared war not on poverty, starvation, disease or violence, but on two consenting adults' legal right to say, "I do."

So I don't want to hear about the moral superiority of Christianity. Not one single word about all the good the churches do. I do not want to hear a syllable about God's infinite love.

Not a sound.