The confusion and casualties of the Gay Civil War in the Catholic Church
In the 1990s, I attended a gay wedding ceremony at a Catholic Church in San Francisco – performed by a Catholic priest . Friends and acquaintances had similar marriage "blessings" in San Francisco. As of a few years ago, when I spoke with another priest involved in these ceremonies, this practice continued. When I left the Castro in 1999, I thought my experiences with facilitating and lecherous priests were endemic to a relatively small section of the world ranging from the Castro to USF . Ten years later, when I started writing about the topic, I heard stories from Catholics (primarily mothers with "gay" sons) who lived in every part of the U.S. They told a similar tragic tale – how a concerned parent sent a confused kid to an officially sanctioned LGBT ministry in his diocese, and the boy later emerged as a gay rights advocate. They also usually picked up a boyfriend at these ministries. When I began my outreach in San Francisco to the LGBT community,...