Call To Action Regarding Bishop Robert Morlino Denying Funeral Rites To Gay Men And Women

It takes a lot in this day and age to make me feel stunned.  But last week when it was reported that Bishop Robert Morlino was pushing the idea that gay men and women should not receive the church’s funeral rites I was simply shocked.   This is even more than a fiction writer would think possible in a plot creation.  But the fact is evil Bishop Morlino has plotted again and again all sorts of ways to allow for church-sponsored hatred of gay men and women to be sanctioned.

And it must end.  Once and for all.

Therefore there is an effort underway–and even spearheaded by one I most often very much disagree with–to send a clear message that Morlino has stepped far beyond the line with his latest actions.  

Please take these actions over the next 2 days.

1. EMAIL A LETTER TO THE EDITOR to the Madison Newspapers, the Catholic Herald and CC Catholic Leadership. Brief is fine. Email addresses are below. A few points we are trying to make:

– Canon law has evolved over time to suit the church’s needs
– the church needs to stop practicing unkindness and bigotry if it wishes to survive
– Bishops have discretion
– Bishop Morlino has a 14 year history of using his discretion to wield power and hatred against women, LGBTQI, and those who point out his excessiveness.
– Love and kindness must lead. He’s got to go. 

Newspaper Email Addresses:
wsjcity@madison.com
tctvoice@madison.com 
phands@madison.com 
wsjopine@madison.com 
news@madison365.org
info@madisoncatholicherald.org

Catholic Leadership Addresses:
ornet@ossrom.va 

2. READ AND SHARE ARTICLES in #3. Share on Facebook, twitter and email.  3. ARTICLES TO SHARE:
   LETTER TO THE EDITOR – 18 YEAR OLD MADDIE RAFFEL
   http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/letters/morlino-discourages-young-catholics—-maddie-raffel/article_3a626edb-ec0e-5a44-8fa5-c643d796aae1.html WKOW 27 – THOUSANDS SIGN PETITION
   http://www.wkow.com/story/36707003/2017/10/28/thousands-sign-online-petition-to-remove-madisons-bishop#.WfaKKxfmUSs.facebook WSJ – No surprise that Bishop Robert Morlino and Co. imperil Christianity’s good name, again
   http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/columnists/chris-rickert/chris-rickert-no-surprise-that-bishop-robert-morlino-and-co/article_acd645a3-4e8b-56c4-908d-2b8d66a6ebae.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

   NBC15 – Petition to Remove Madison Bishop
   http://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Petition-to-remove-Madison-Bishop-453753413.html

   National Catholic Online – Injustice and Unkindness Even In Death
   https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/injustice-and-unkindness-even-death

   Deke Rivers Catholic Hatred For Deceased Gay People Pumped By Bishop Morlino
   https://dekerivers.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/catholic-hatred-for-deceased-gay-people-pumped-by-bishop-morlino/

   4. HOW TO TWEET THEM – if you have a twitter account, please tweet the articles in #3 and be sure to include the twitter addresses below at the beginning of your message. The first address is the Pope, the second is Catholic Leadership, the third is Vatican News, the fourth is channel 27. 

   @pontifex @usccb @vatican en @wkow27 

   SAMPLE TWEET:
   @pontifex @usccb @vatican en @wkow27 18 year old writes youth is leaving the church over Bishop Morlinohttp://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/letters/morlino-discourages-young-catholics—-maddie-raffel/article_3a626edb-ec0e-5a44-8fa5-c643d796aae1.html

   5. SIGN AND SHARE A THIS PETITION TOO authored by DignityUSA.
   https://www.change.org/p/james-bartylla-madisondiocese-org-tell-bishop-morlino-gay-lesbian-catholics-deserve-funerals

Free Speech On College Campuses And Newsrooms

Every time there is a ‘fire-eater’ invited to a college campus in the nation there is another round of discussions about either the value of hearing ‘the other side’ or why shutting down ‘hate-speech’ is a necessity.  Paying for a white supremacist to disparage whole sections of a campus seems not only a real waste of money, but a loss for truly engaging conversation that might have taken place from that stage which was instead wasted on hate.  I have never quite figured out why college campuses would not invest in truly weighty thinkers, if you will, the modern-day William F. Buckley Jr. types from both sides of the divide, and let the issues flow.

I know I am over-simplifying matters with putting a white supremacist at one end and the erudite world of Buckley at the other.  But as one who does enjoy listening to speakers at UW-Madison I am not pulled in by the ‘hair on fire’ types but instead find the words from the likes of George McGovern or Robert Novak to have appeal.  (I was most fortunate to walk with the slow-moving Novak due to recovering from a hip operation down the length of Memorial Union and ask about how he actually wrote his columns–he did it with one take.)  I am surely not alone in wanting diverse thought presented in an adult fashion.   But that is no doubt what comes with some experience in life and my DNA.

Meanwhile much of the nation is embroiled with the topic of college speakers and those who wish to prevent certain views from being heard.

But what smacks me as most unfair, however, is how some of these stories about the most incendiary of speakers, and the reaction they get, always is cast as a ‘liberal’ attempt to stop free speech.  History of course shows that conservatives have had their share of stopping free speech and even threatening the peace to make their points.  That seems to never get as much attention.

Leading up to the Civil War there was a very concerted effort made to stop any independent thinking at Southern universities that did not meld with the pro-slavery rhetoric that had taken over the planter elites and their paid-for politicians.  When a chemist professor at Chapel Hill stated he would vote for the 1856 Republican presidential ticket if it should be run in North Carolina he was met with students burning him in effigy.  The Raleigh Standard called for his ilk to be “silenced or…be driven out.”

Time and again to shut down the ideas advanced by abolitionists the pro-slavery crowds would dismantle the printing presses and in some way destroy them.  Throwing them in a local waterway was a sure-fire way to stop pamphlets from being printed.

Over the past decades casting blame on the press has been an applause line for many a Republican candidate running for office.  But since the entry of Donald Trump onto a political platform that notion of attacking the press has only deepened.    And it is troubling for our nation.

But where are the conservatives who have no shortage of words when it comes to speakers on college campuses, but are left tight-lipped when the national press is under verbal attack in Stalin-like style?   By remaining quiet on this matter of reporters and the work they do in our democracy a most concerning development is taking place.  We simply must think these matters through with more attention paid to the larger notion of what our country is about and what we wish it to remain.

 

Voters Not Supporting Republican Tax Plan–Tax Repatriation One Reason

Over and over again the same emphasis is made by Republicans to the American public when it comes to their tax proposal in Congress–which should be released on Thursday.   In mantra style they state the plan is one based on a broad middle-class tax cut and not a package of tax breaks for wealthy Americans.   Think of the ones speaking the words sitting on warm rocks with their legs contorted and the image is complete.

One of the areas of contention will concern tax-repatriation and territoriality provisions.  In a nutshell this will reward tax avoidance by the big corporations across this nation.  While most taxpayers were doing the correct thing by paying their share and playing by the rules many of the largest business names in the land were doing the exact opposite.

Today global corporations are able to avoid paying US taxes by a legal loophole known as deferral. Taxes are deferred on an estimated $2.6 trillion in profits that corporations book as having been earned offshore. Republicans plan to allow “repatriation” of those funds at a deeply discounted tax rate (Trump has suggested 10 percent).

A recent study by US PIRG and the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy found that American multinational companies collectively reported 43 percent of their foreign earnings in five small tax haven countries: Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Yet these countries accounted for only 4 percent of the companies’ foreign workforces and just 7 percent of their foreign investments.

Is it any surprise then the citizens of this land do not believe the words spoke by Republicans when it comes to tax reform?