OY, THOSE WACKY ORTHODOX JEWS

We'll get there, but first:

Boston's ultra-putz Archbishop O'Malley is continuing his Jihad against family values, security for children, stable relationships, and love.

First, on Sunday he urged Catholic lawyers on Sunday to oppose gay marriage, saying the institution of marriage and the family are under assault and attorneys need to help protect them.

"The social cost of the breakdown of family life has already been enormous," O'Malley said at the annual Red Mass, which is dedicated to judges, lawyers and others in the legal system.

"It's not a question of live and let live, it's a question of right and wrong," O'Malley said.

He didn't give specifics on what the lawyers could do to protect marriage and the family.

But later, in an interview, he said: "We hope that they will use their profession and their understanding of the law to defend marriage. They're in a better position than any of us to understand what needs to be done to correct a very complicated situation that the court has put us in."

Not that complicated. Rational, caring, compassionate human beings, including the Catholic Rainbow Sash Movement, support same sex marriage and oppose these Jihads. Here's what Rainbow Sash has to say:

"Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley of Boston urged Catholic lawyers to oppose gay marriage. We will ask the Archbishop to explain in plain English how gay marriage will under mind the marriage of heterosexuals. What is troubling about the archbishop call to arms are religious figures dictating public policy. Will Archbishop O'Malley go as far as Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse, Wisconsin who is refusing Holy Communion to Pro Choice elected officials, Bishop Burke cited Vatican doctrine, canon law and teachings by the U.S. bishops in an announcement telling diocesan priests to withhold communion from such lawmakers until they 'publicly renounce' their support of abortion rights. Will the Archbishop impose the same standard on those catholic lawyers and judges who do not agree with his opinion on matter of Gay Marriage which is also contrary to Church Law?

"The Rainbow Sash Movement would remind the Archbishop misrepresenting the facts and stereotyping a whole community of people is also a sin, we in the gay and lesbian Catholic Community recognize it as 'homophobia.' He further states 'The social cost of the breakdown of family life has already been enormous,' and just what does that have to do with legally affirming gay and lesbian families? Another question the Archbishop appears to be tap dancing around.

"Another question posed by the Archbishop was, 'What do we want to teach our young people about marriage?' The Rainbow Sash Movement would hope that he would want children to be taught to affirm the love between two adults, regardless of sexual orientation, race, or gender who have entered into loving committed relationship. The Archbishop apparently finds the children of gay and lesbian families, not as worthy of the protection of law, and must see them in a lesser light than he sees the children of heterosexual families, or he would support equal rights.

"We respect the teaching authority of the Church. Because of this, we find particularly troubling the increase in the use of violent and abusive language directed at members of the gay and lesbian community. Such language is inappropriate. Certainly the Archbishop must be aware that his language is divisive and exclusionary which is contrary to sound pastoral practice.

"Archbishop O'Malley should be preaching Recognition of the inalienable dignity of the human person is the only path toward justice and reconciliation. Instead he seeks to divide the Catholic Community.

"The RSM would remind the Archbishop we are most Catholic when we are inclusive and embracing, when we are exclusionary we do not reflect the Gospel Values of Jesus Christ.

"We call on the Archbishop Boston to apologize to those faithful gay and lesbian Catholics and their children who have been harmed by his words. Further to enter into dialogue with the gay and lesbian community of Boston to understand who your gay and lesbian neighbors are, gay baiting should have no place at the Eucharistic table."

To find out more about the Rainbow Sash Movement visit our web site at http://www.rainbowsashmovement.org.

But O'Malley is not likely to respond or care about all that, because he answers to a higher authority--not God, not Christ, but the uber-putz Pope. That's about as far as you can get from God. If these two were Muslim, they'd be Khomeini & Sons. Let's say it again--anyone with that authority and audience who tells the world not to use condoms to prevent AIDS because the virus leaks through them, well, that's far more than unacceptable ignorance or faithful adherence to dogma (what's the difference?)--it's tantamount to murder.

The only good news is that this miscreant is ready to kick the bucket any minute. And, brothers and sisters, when that happens, he's going to find a warm reception in his final destination. Extremely warm.

O'Malley, on the other hand, will be with us for the time it takes for, oh, a couple of hundred gay-bashings, a couple thousand kids being emotionally damaged because their same-sex parents won't have the protection of legal (and subsequently cultural) legitimacy, thousands or other LGBT youth tormented by guilt, and more than a few loving people dying alone and in misery because their partners are not allowed to visit them in their hospital deathbeds.

Next on the Jihad to-do list, today the Boston Globe reports that "the state's four Roman Catholic bishops will mail a flier to more than a million Catholic households in Massachusetts, urging the faithful to support a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The initiative, a partnership between the state's four Catholic dioceses and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the church's political advocacy arm, was announced Friday . The state's highest court ruled in November that it is unconstitutional to bar gay couples from civil marriage. Since then, O'Malley has called on priests and other Catholics to defend traditional marriage."

Traditional marriage?

"Marriage as we understand it - voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only - is a pretty recent phenomenon. For much of human history, polygyny was the rule - read your Old Testament - and in much of Africa and the Muslim world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women - gay marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the history of wedlock."
- Katha Pollitt writing in The Nation, Nov. 26.]


And oh, that headline? Well, it turns out the Catholic leadership isn't the only bastion of medieval religious ignorance and savagery.

Today's Globe also reports that "The Jewish Community Relations Council, the major public policy voice of the Jewish community in Greater Boston, has voted overwhelmingly to endorse same-sex marriage.

The endorsement, by an umbrella organization representing 42 Jewish groups, is part of a growing effort by liberal religious voices to counter the strong opposition to same-sex marriage voiced by the state's Catholic bishops."

So far, so good.

But my landtsmen are not all of one mind. Some don't seem to be of any mind at all. As if wearing full beards and heavy black robes and hats in blistery summer heat, or voting Republican, weren't evidence enough, this'll do:

"The leader of the Orthodox opposition to the Jewish Community Relations Council vote, Rabbi Gershon C. Gewirtz of Young Israel synagogue in Brookline, declined to comment. The Coalition for Marriage referred calls to Rabbi Chaim Schwartz of Agudath Israel of New England, an Orthodox advocacy organization, who said, "This is an issue we believe is bringing about decadence in society." "It's not that we do not believe in the civil rights of gay couples -- we believe each person should be able to live in this great country -- but we don't believe in calling it marriage," Schwartz said. "It's morally incorrect, and what's next? Bestiality? Marrying a dog? Marrying your cat?"

Well, maybe. If my choice were Rabbi Schwartz or a dog, I'm going with the one who understands unconditional love.