National
U.S. Catholic theologians call for LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections
Joint statement says church teachings support equality
More than 750 of the nation’s leading Catholic theologians, church leaders, scholars, educators, and writers released a joint statement on Sept. 14 expressing strong support for nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people.
The six-page theological statement, “A Home for All: A Catholic Call for LGBTQ Non-Discrimination,” was scheduled to be published along with the names of its 759 signatories as a four-page advertisement on Sept. 17 in the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper widely read by Catholic clergy and laypeople.
The statement was initiated by New Ways Ministry, a Mount Rainier, Md., based Catholic group that advocates for equality for LGBTQ people within the church and society at large.
“As Catholic theologians, scholars, church leaders, writers, and ministers, we affirm that Catholic teaching presents a positive case for ending discrimination against LGBTQ people,” the statement says. “We affirm the Second Vatican Council’s demand that ‘any kind of social or cultural discrimination…must be curbed and eradicated,’” it says.
“We affirm that Catholic teaching should not be used to further oppress LGBTQ people by denying rights rooted in their inherent human dignity and in the church’s call for social equality,” the statement adds.
The statement notes that its signers recognize that a “great debate” is currently taking place within the Catholic Church about whether same-gender relationships and transgender identities should be condoned or supported.
“That is a vital discussion for the future of Catholicism, and one to which we are whole-heartedly committed,” the statement continues. “What we are saying in this statement, however, is relatively independent of that debate, and the endorsers of this statement may hold varied, and even opposing, opinions on sexual and gender matters,” it says.
Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministries executive director, said his organization and the signers of the statement feel the issue of nondiscrimination for LGBTQ people can and should be supported by Catholic leaders and the church itself even if some are not yet ready to support same-sex marriage and sexual and gender identity matters.
“LGBTQ non-discrimination is being debated at all levels in our society, and the Catholic perspective on this is often misrepresented, even by some church leaders,” DeBernardo said. “Catholics who have studied and reflected deeply on this topic agree that non-discrimination is the most authentic Catholic position,” he said.
DeBernardo said those who helped draft the statement decided it would be best to limit it to a theological appeal and argument for LGBTQ equality and non-discrimination and not to call for passage of specific legislation such as the Equality Act, the national LGBTQ civil rights bill pending in the U.S. Congress.
The Equality Act calls for amending existing federal civil rights laws to add nondiscrimination language protecting LGBTQ people in areas such as employment, housing, and public accommodations. The U.S. House approved the legislation, but the Senate has yet to act on it.
“We wanted this to be a theological statement, not a political statement,” DeBernardo said.
He said organizers of the project to prepare the statement plan to send it, among other places, to the Vatican in Rome and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has expressed opposition to the Equality Act.
Among the key signers of the statement were 242 administrators, faculty, and staff from Sacred Heart University, a Catholic college in Fairfield, Conn. New Ways Ministries says the statement was circulated by the school’s administration and eight of its top leaders, including President John Petillo, are among the signers.
Some of the prominent writers who signed the statement include Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking;” Richard Rodriquez, author of “Hunger of Memory;” Gary Wills, author of “Lincoln at Gettysburg;” and Gregory Maguire, author of “Wicked.”
The full text of the statement and its list of signatories can be accessed at the New Ways Ministry website.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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