Dear Editor,
The recent maneuvers of the Catholic Conference in Illinois only highlight its diminishing importance in the marriage-equality debate. One confused bishop in Illinois (Daniel Jenky of Peoria) even compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Stalin in the marriage-equality/HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] debate. He exposed the most basic rule of debate, when you bring in Hitler to the scenario you have obviously lost the debate.
Recently, a coalition was formed to oppose marriage-equality legislation which will be introduced in January. These far-right organizations (absent the Illinois Catholic Conference) represent, in my opinion, the Looney Tunes mentality of Cardinal Francis George, whose paw prints are all over this move. Such stealth maneuvering may have worked a decade ago, but today the marriage-equality debate has entered the arena of reason. All the Catholic Conference of Illinois has done has shone the spotlight on its impotency in this debate. Their threats of gloom and doom under the banner of promoting marriage in our society do not seem reasonable given its present reality.
Joe Murray
Chicago