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17.2002
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Dignity/USA president Mary Louise Cervone addresses the media after the St. Patrick’s
Cathedral demonstration April 28 in New York City
N EW Y O R K
ore than 150 people gathered April 28 in
front of St. Patricks Cathedral in New
York City to respond to the Roman Catholic
Church’s recent attacks on gay priests.
Several leaders have publicly blamed homo
sexuality for the current child sex abuse scandal.
Monsignor Eugene Clark, substituting in the
pulpit for Cardinal Edward Egan at St. Patrick’s,
said, “It is a disorder and, as a disorder, should
prevent a person from being ordained a priest.”
During a press conference after the demon
stration, speakers denounced Catholic Church
leaders and expressed outrage that they have
scapegoated gay priests.
“Threatening to purge the priesthood of gay
men is a way for church leaders to deflect atten
tion from the real moral crisis in the church—
that is, a culture of secrecy, conspiracy and lies
by priests, bishops and cardinals that has dis
graced the very institution of Catholicism,” said
Mary
Louise
Cervone,
president
of
Dignity/USA, the largest national gay and les
bian Catholic organization. “We demand that
Cardinal Egan, Cardinal [Anthony] Bevilaqua
[archbishop of Philadelphia] and all of their
brother bishops stop, once and for all, the spiri
tual violence against G LBT people."
M
❖
X.
7 ithout debate, the New York Legislature
\ V unanimously passed a joint program bill
May 6 to help ensure surviving family members,
including same-sex partners, of Sept. 11 victims
receive the benefits they are owed.
The act does a number of technical things,
including making federal fund awards exempt
from state taxes and clarifying the relationship of
federal fund awards and workers’ compensation
payments. Significantly for same-sex partners, it
includes language specifying the Legislature’s
desire that they he eligible for federal fund awards.
The language is the result of extensive negoti
ations between the attorney general’s and gover
nor’s offices and the Empire State Pride Agenda.
The civil rights advocacy organization hopes this
provision will help give Special Master Kenneth
Feinberg an additional basis in law to distribute
federal fund awards to surviving same-sex partners.
“We commend our elected officials for trying
to make New York a model for how victims of
Sept. 11 and their surviving families, including
same-sex partners, should be treated in the eyes
of the law,” said Joe Grabarz, Empire State Pride
Agenda executive director. “From the very
beginning, they have tried to be supportive of all
victim family survivors, regardless of any defin
ing characteristic including sexual orientation.”
After a long campaign by gay rights organi
zations for language explicitly recognizing the
eligibility of same-sex partners for the federal
compensation fund, the U.S. Justice Depart
ment did not do so when it issued its final regu
lations March 7. Instead, it let state law where
gay survivors live make the determination.
Gina Smith and Heidi Norton
M ASSACH USETTS
r I he Massachusetts trial court ruled May 8
against seven same-sex couples who chal
lenged state laws denying them the fundamental
right to marry.
The case was filed in April 2001 by Gay &
Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and was argued
March 12 before Suffolk Superior Court Judge
Thomas E. Connolly. The couples plan to appeal.
“T his is just the beginning,” attorney Jen
nifer Levi remarked. “We have always known
that there will be no final resolution in this
case until it is heard by the Supreme Judicial
Court. Our objective in this round was pri
marily to begin the process of making our
case for equal treatment of all families in the
comm onwealth.”
Reaction from the couples was immediate.
“We arc deeply disappointed that the court did
not recognize that we seek simply the same legal
protections for our family that other committed
couples throughout the commonwealth enjoy,”
said Hillary Goodridge, who has been in a rela
tionship of 14 years with Julie Goodridge.
The court based its denial of marriage licens
es on a legal conclusion that having and raising
children is central to the purpose of marriage,
despite acknowledging that four of the seven
couples in the case have kids and that state law
allows same-sex couples to adopt jointly.
G ina Smith, who sought to marry her part
ner, Heidi Norton, partially to ensure their
sons would grow up in a world where their par
ents’ relationship is legally and communally
respected, commented: “The decision is partic
ularly troubling because Heidi and 1, like many
of our gay and lesbian neighbors, have chil
dren. We feel strongly that our sons deserve
the same level o f protection that other chil
dren in the state enjoy.”