Implicit Endorsement of "Homosexual Marriage"?

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Burning_Sapling

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Hi all,

So, at my workplace I am being asked to write a profile (for publication) of two donors who have contributed generously to our organization. The issue is that they are gay “spouses”, and the money comes from their shared marital funds. I worry that in writing about this gift I will be endorsing their shared possession of money through “gay marriage”. Am I being scrupulous? On the other hand, I have also considered that this might be irrelevant, and that all that I need to be concerned with is that the two men are mutually making a generous gift. This is consistent with the possibility that they are making the joint gift as friends. And maybe this is true even if they are gay partners.

In any case, the issue keeps bothering me. Any insight or advice will be much appreciated.

I need to turn in a draft very soon, so I would be especially thankful for timely replies.

Thank you,

Sapling
 
Burning_Sapling said:
Hi all,

So, at my workplace I am being asked to write a profile (for publication) of two donors who have contributed generously to our organization. The issue is that they are gay “spouses”, and the money comes from their shared marital funds. I worry that in writing about this gift I will be endorsing their shared possession of money through “gay marriage”. Am I being scrupulous? On the other hand, I have also considered that this might be irrelevant, and that all that I need to be concerned with is that the two men are mutually making a generous gift. This is consistent with the possibility that they are making the joint gift as friends. And maybe this is true even if they are gay partners.

In any case, the issue keeps bothering me. Any insight or advice will be much appreciated.

I need to turn in a draft very soon, so I would be especially thankful for timely replies.

Thank you,

Sapling
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Yes, it would be implicit endorsement. That is how things creep in. Don’t support it- if anyone asks you why- tell them.

It is good for Christians to take a moral stance, especially when it goes against the flow.
 
Nihilist said:
Yes, it would be implicit endorsement. That is how things creep in. Don’t support it- if anyone asks you why- tell them.

It is good for Christians to take a moral stance, especially when it goes against the flow.
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I am so torn about this. I would likely have to give up my job if I refused to write. So I have to think very carefully about it.

Thus, I have to ask, why don’t you think it works just to say that perhaps the two men are making the gift as friends, and that in charity I should assume this and write in a way that is consistent its being true?
 
I would talk to your Priest about this.

Part of me feels like you can just write a basic profile. “Joe Smith and Bob Jones contributed $xxx,xxx. We would like the thank them. Joe is an attorney and Bob is an accountant. They met in Massachusetts on a blind date and the rest they say is history”

Just my thoughts.
 
Nihilist said:
Yes, it would be implicit endorsement. That is how things creep in. Don’t support it- if anyone asks you why- tell them.

It is good for Christians to take a moral stance, especially when it goes against the flow.
Click to expand...
I disagree that it would necessarily be an implicit endorsement. It is not as though their gay “marriage” is the source of their funds, even if it does relate to how they store them. As a point of comparison, if a Catholic divorced and attempted remarriage outside of the Church and wanted to donate money from their new shared account, I do not think thanking them would be implicit support for their marriage outside the Church.

Even people who are (gravely) wrong in one area can do legitimate good in another, and I do not think recognizing this is supporting the area where they are wrong.

In fact, I think recognizing this is important, not least because rejecting even the legitimate good done by people that people who are in grave error in some other area is likely to lead towards a feeling of ostracization, which will in turn make it less likely that they will consider the (correct) views on their immoral behavior that is done by those they view as ostracizing them.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
I disagree that it would necessarily be an implicit endorsement. It is not as though their gay “marriage” is the source of their funds, just how they hold it. As a point of comparison, if a Catholic divorced and attempted remarriage outside of the Church and wanted to donate money from their new shared account, I do not think thanking them would be implicit support for their marriage outside the Church.

Even people who are (gravely) wrong in one area can do legitimate good in another, and I do not think recognizing this is supporting the area where they are wrong.
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Right, this is what I am leaning towards. Thank you for your helpful reply.
 
Burning_Sapling said:
Hi all,

So, at my workplace I am being asked to write a profile (for publication) of two donors who have contributed generously to our organization. The issue is that they are gay “spouses”, and the money comes from their shared marital funds. I worry that in writing about this gift I will be endorsing their shared possession of money through “gay marriage”. Am I being scrupulous? On the other hand, I have also considered that this might be irrelevant, and that all that I need to be concerned with is that the two men are mutually making a generous gift. This is consistent with the possibility that they are making the joint gift as friends. And maybe this is true even if they are gay partners.

In any case, the issue keeps bothering me. Any insight or advice will be much appreciated.

I need to turn in a draft very soon, so I would be especially thankful for timely replies.

Thank you,

Sapling
Click to expand...
Why do you need to mention that they are gay, spouses, and that the money comes from “shared” marital funds?

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an announcement anywhere mentioning that “Mr. and Mrs Jones are not gay, are married, and the source of the donation is from their shared marital funds.”

How about “Mr. X and Mr. Y have made a donation of $$ to our foundation…”
 
Iron_Donkey said:
As a point of comparison, if a Catholic divorced and attempted remarriage outside of the Church and wanted to donate money from their new shared account, I do not think thanking them would be implicit support for their marriage outside the Church.
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A thankful note is one thing, a profile for publicly honoring them would be condoning with their publicly sinful situation.

There’s no way that their situation can be softened through verbal acrobatics, which is the same as saying half a dozen for six; it just doesn’t fool anyone, except the author.

Pax Christi
 
Iron_Donkey said:
Depends on the profile.
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No, it doesn’t Their attempted marriage is a public matter, obfuscated writing notwithstanding. Again, it fools only the author. Isn’t it thus how accommodation and compromise begins?

Public sinners must not be honored, period.

Pax Christi
 
Augustine said:
No, it doesn’t Their attempted marriage is a public matter, obfuscated writing notwithstanding. Again, it fools only the author. Isn’t it thus how accommodation and compromise begins?

Public sinners must not be honored, period.

Pax Christi
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No, problematic accommodation and compromise begin when goods done in one area are used to excuse evils in another, not when they are merely recognized for what they are.

Public sinners must not be said to be without fault, because they aren’t, but neither is anyone else. Neither can they be honored in a way that calls the evil that they do good. But to say that they cannot be honored in any way whatsoever is over the top.
 
Answer me this: was Notre Dame wrong in conferring an honorary degree to Barack Obama? Would you personally confer such a degree to him?

Pax Christi
 
But surely the focus of what’s being “honored” is their contribution / generosity – not their “marital” status. Does a civic / charitable organization thus “honor divorce” by accepting a contribution from someone who is divorced and remarried? “Scarlet letters” were once big in my neighborhood, but I thought we’d gone beyond that.
 
Augustine said:
No, it doesn’t Their attempted marriage is a public matter, obfuscated writing notwithstanding. Again, it fools only the author. Isn’t it thus how accommodation and compromise begins?

Public sinners must not be honored, period.

Pax Christi
Click to expand...
But can’t public sinners, or private ones (which is all of us), be thanked when they do something good and worthwhile? There is no need to mention their personal relationship.
 
Augustine said:
No, it doesn’t Their attempted marriage is a public matter, obfuscated writing notwithstanding. Again, it fools only the author. Isn’t it thus how accommodation and compromise begins?

Public sinners must not be honored, period.

Pax Christi
Click to expand...
How is their attempted marriage any different from a remarried Catholic? Both aren’t recognized by the church, both are sinful. But it’s OK for Mr. and Mrs. Jones to be recognized, but not Mr. and Mr. Smith? Both attempts at marriage are a public matter.

This is where people start calling us bigots because both examples aren’t condoned by the church, but only one of them do people refuse to even acknowledge the good they do.
 
OP, if you cannot pass up this assignment, there is no need to leave your job over this. You should be able to thank these donors without mentioning homosexuality or marriage. You are not cooperating with evil simply by thanking them for a donation.
 
Augustine said:
Answer me this: was Notre Dame wrong in conferring an honorary degree to Barack Obama? Would you personally confer such a degree to him?

Pax Christi
Click to expand...
Notre Dame was wrong in conferring an honorary degree on Barack Obama, but an honorary degree from a Catholic university is a very particular kind of honor. The degree said, essentially, that the overarching themes of Obama’s presidency were good, and many of them are not.

Now, if Obama personally donated a large amount of money to Catholic Charities’ anti-human trafficking efforts (as opposed to trying to stomp them out because they don’t involve giving out abortions), and Catholic Charities wanted to issue an award saying something along the lines of “We would like to honor President Obama for his shared commitment to ending the evil that is human trafficking,” then that would be fine. If a diocese or Catholic university, wanted to honor him for such a hypothetical contribution, then you might expect that diocese/university to append the phrase “despite our disagreements on other maters” on to the end, so as to make it crystal clear that they were not saying that everything or even most things that Obama does are in line with the mission of that diocese/university.

If Obama donated to the American Cancer Society, and they wanted to honor him for his donation, I wouldn’t even blink - because such an honor does not, in the same way that an honorary degree from Notre Dame does, imply that Obama is generally Catholic friendly in his goals and actions.

Again, honors for good things become bad when they either try to use those good things to excuse other evils, or call evil things good; not just when they recognize that some of the things done by people who also do bad things (i.e. everybody) are sometimes good.
 
Thanks to all for the very helpful discussion and replies. I am strongly leaning towards thinking that it is acceptable for me to go forward with the article at this point.

My worry was not that it is wrong to honor public sinners, since, as others have noticed above, a public sinner can be honored in respect of something good that he or she has done. My worry was that in endorsing the gift I would be implicitly endorsing the “couple’s” “gay marriage”, because the gift comes from their shared “marital funds”. But thanks to the helpful replies given above I am now inclined to think that I was over- stressing this point.

I really appreciate this forum very much! God bless.
 
Burning_Sapling said:
Hi all,

So, at my workplace I am being asked to write a profile (for publication) of two donors who have contributed generously to our organization. The issue is that they are gay “spouses”, and the money comes from their shared marital funds. I worry that in writing about this gift I will be endorsing their shared possession of money through “gay marriage”. Am I being scrupulous? On the other hand, I have also considered that this might be irrelevant, and that all that I need to be concerned with is that the two men are mutually making a generous gift. This is consistent with the possibility that they are making the joint gift as friends. And maybe this is true even if they are gay partners.

In any case, the issue keeps bothering me. Any insight or advice will be much appreciated.

I need to turn in a draft very soon, so I would be especially thankful for timely replies.

Thank you,

Sapling
Click to expand...
Just a clarification. Is this a catholic organization receiving this donation and you have to write a bio on the donors? This I could see a problem with, since I am sure your boss would then be aware of you being hesitant to do so.
Or is it a non-catholic/non-religious company?
 
QuestLove said:
Just a clarification. Is this a catholic organization receiving this donation and you have to write a bio on the donors? This I could see a problem with, since I am sure your boss would then be aware of you being hesitant to do so.
Or is it a non-catholic/non-religious company?
Click to expand...
It is not Catholic, but all Catholics would agree that it supports a truly great cause.
 
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