The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington
has backed down from threats that it was prepared to walk away from
providing thousands of people in the District of Columbia with social
services if lawmakers approve a gay marriage bill. The bill received
its second and final approval from city leaders on Tuesday, but
Congressional approval is still needed before the bill becomes law.
Under the bill, religious organizations
would not be required to perform gay weddings, but the church
advocated for a broader amendment that would have allowed
individuals, including private business owners, to refuse to provide
goods and services related to the nuptials of gay couples. The
amendment, proposed by Council member Yvette Alexander, was rejected
in committee.
The next day, the church threatened to
pull its support for all social services, including feeding the poor
and sheltering the homeless, unless lawmakers reintroduced the
amendment or made other accommodations.
“If the city requires this, we can't
do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, told the
Washington Post. “The city is saying in order to provide
social services, you need to be secular. For us that's really a
problem.”
But Gibbs was a bit more accommodating
Wednesday when she appeared on National
Public Radio, saying the church is “not threatening to walk
away.”
“We opposed the bill because of our
understanding of gender being intrinsic to the meaning of marriage,”
she said. “So it's something that was dealing with our theology,
our understanding and not discrimination. We serve everybody.
That's very important to us as a church.”
“We're committed to serving. That's
just what we do. We've been here since before there was a D.C.
We've been serving all the time. We're not walking away,” she
added.
Gibbs also suggested the church would
not join other opponents of gay marriage in looking to Congress,
which has final say on all laws approved in the District, to block
the bill from becoming law: “We have been very strong advocates
for a long time of D.C. Home Rule, which means D.C. needs to resolve
its own issues and we work very closely with the council and we have
on a lot of issues.”
When asked if there was a resolution,
Gibbs answered: “You know, we're in the business of faith. You've
got to have faith.”