So on the one hand, we have a church (Catholic) that says they can deny giving communion to whoever they think shouldn't have it. On the other hand, you have other churches claiming that they will be forced to perform gay weddings unless we pass the FMA.

While I don't agree with the Catholic position, I think it's their ultimate right to conduct their religion how they want.

Gay marriage laws don't force any religion to perform gay marriage. No relgion or church has been forced to conduct gay marriages in Massachusetts. I don't get the point...

My point is that they are trying to have it both ways.

Many opponents of gay marriage claim that churches will be forced to marry gays, because we will start suing churches who decline to marry us. (Someone reading BOR even started an email debate with me on this before I gave up and decided arguing was pointless.) Of course I disagree with this argument, although I wouldn't guarantee that some gay couple out there wouldn't try to sue their church. I just don't think it would go anywhere, for good reason.

Although they are separate topics, I wouldn't doubt for a second that the some of the same people who would argue the above point, would at the same time say they don't have to give communion to gays either.

So to me it is a paradox. How can churches be both forced to perform gay weddings, yet at the same time be allowed to deny communion to gays? That's a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer is they can't be forced to do either. Although I'm sure someone out there will try to argue that they can.

Ok. Well I'll clarify my position. I don't think that churches should be required to give communion to any group of people they don't want to. If a church doesn't want to give communion to gay people or people who are pro-choice, or what not, that's they're choice. The government can't force them to give people communion just like they can't force any church to perform a gay marriage, or any marriage for that matter. The point of my post is that denying communion to anyone just comes across as tacky and juvenile to me.

Oh I agree completely, it is tacky and juvenile. Sorry for getting offtopic.

The Cardinal of Chicago has ordered his diocese not to serve communion...

There is no such office as "Cardinal of Chicago". Francis George is the Archbishop of Chicago. "Cardinal" is a personal title bestowed upon an individual. However it has become customary for archbishops of the largest Catholic cities in the US to be made part of the College of Cardinals not long after taking up their posts.

The honorific "cardinal" is normally placed after the individual's first name.
Hence: Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago.

BTW, Chicago is an archdiocese and that is why it has an archbishop.
In a diocese, a mere bishop would be in charge.

This is one of the few things I remember from 13 years of Catholic education. lol

But whatever you call him, the policy sucks.

I am a Gay Catholic... living in Los Angeles. I go to a regular Catholic church that has an outstanding Gay and Lesbian Ministry. I must say that I have serious issues with recent Bishops' calls to deny communion to people of different political opinions.

However, I have greater sympathy for the Bishop in this case. These churchgoers chose to use the holiest of sacarments--the Eucharist--as a political tool. Unfortunately for them, the Bishop himself was willing to play the game. I do not believe that the Mass is a the appropriate place for a political demonstration.

The Mass exists to demonstrate our individual role within the global community. By attending Mass and seperating yourself from this community--by wearing the rainbow sash, holding a sign or doing other actions to demonstrate that you are not part of the communion--you make youself inelligble for receiving the Eucharist--or "communion". It's just like why Protestants and non-christians are denied communion in Catholic churches...

Just my two cents.

This is why we installed the first amendment and grant tax exemptions to religious organizations . . . to prevent the leveraging of religious groups by goverenment, and to prevent politicization by religious sects to force compliance with all church doctrine, even in secular matters.

Back in the 1970s, Paul VI forced Catholic clergy to stop holding public office (we even had a priest in congress), in part to stop the activism of the marxist priests of latin america. it appears that political action by the church is fine now, if it promotes the rigid, conservative perspective of the current Bishop of Rome.