And the duty of Catholic organizations not to cooperate with this is also quite clear:Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality... As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood... This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case. (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 7)
Becket, the stalwart defenders of religious liberty, has filed suit against the City of Philadelphia. This should be a fairly easy case, considering that just last year the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government cannot deny generally-available public benefits to a religious organization purely because of their religious beliefs. In that case, the Court said plainly, “[A] law targeting religious beliefs as such is never permissible.” This is not a new doctrine. Fifty years ago, the Court said "The State may not adopt programs or practices . . . which 'aid or oppose' any religion. . . . This prohibition is absolute." Apparently these decisions were not read by the government of the City of Philadelphia.In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection. (5)
How far we have come from those days, when the "inalienable right" of freedom of religion was assured by such generous and liberal words – and by a man who was not a religious believer himself. Too bad that the city government of Philadelphia hasn't learned that lesson.I have received, holy sisters, the letter you have written me wherein you express anxiety for the property vested in your institution by the former governments of Louisiana. The principles of the constitution and government of the United States are a sure guarantee to you that it will be preserved to you sacred and inviolate, and that your institution will be permitted to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority. Whatever diversity of shade may appear in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens, the charitable objects of your institution cannot be indifferent to any; and its furtherance of the wholesome purposes of society, by training up its younger members in the way they should go, cannot fail to ensure it the patronage of the government it is under. Be assured it will meet all the protection which my office can give it.