In a major attack on religious freedom rights, Massachusetts Governor William Weld’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth has issued recommendations that would empower homosexual activists with the authority to set professional standards for social service providers in the state, including Catholic Charities. The Commission wants to mandate training in homosexual issues as a condition of licensure for social service agencies and certification for individuals working in that field. Catholic and other religious-based charitable organizations could be prevented from counseling abstinence and chastity.
Catholic League Operations Director C. J. Doyle stated: “This is a shameless effort by an aggressive special interest with an extremist agenda to advance its ideology at the expense of the needy and vulnerable. Catholic, and other religious based social service providers, could be required to compromise their religious beliefs as a condition of receiving state assistance, or for that matter, even as a condition of their continued operation. The Commission is endeavoring to coerce institutions and individuals into changing, or at least silencing, their moral and religious convictions about homosexual behavior. The certification requirement will result in both limitations on free speech and discrimination against Catholics and other religious believers.”
The Chairman of the Commission is homosexual militant David LaFontaine. He co-sponsored a 1990 assault on Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston where priests were pelted with condoms and worshippers were showered with taunts, obscenities, and blasphemies. Doyle called LaFontaine’s proposal “another sordid attempt to use government, at taxpayer expense, to affirm the homosexual lifestyle.” The Catholic League’s warnings about the threat to Catholic institutions received extensive coverage in the New England media.
