Priest suspended after speaking against gay marriage ban

Fr. Geoffrey FarrowFr. Geoffrey Farrow, a diocesan priest who criticized church leadership for supporting California Proposition 8, a ballot measure that would make it unconstitutional for same-sex couples to marry, was suspended by Bishop John Steinbock of Fresno, Calif.

Farrow said that his attorney, who is both a civil and canon lawyer, received a letter from the bishop Oct. 10 indicating Farrow’s suspension from “governance and faculties as a priest.”

Five days earlier, Farrow -- then pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center in Fresno -- had delivered a homily at Sunday Mass sharply critical of church teaching on homosexuality and of the California bishops’ foray into the politics of the marriage ban.

“In directing the faithful to vote Yes on Proposition 8, the California bishops are not only entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology, and the very statements by the church itself that homosexuality is [an] innate [orientation],” Farrow told his congregation Oct. 5.

In May, the California Supreme Court ruled that a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman was unconstitutional and that same-sex couples have the right to designate their unions as marriages.

The California bishops climbed aboard a movement to reverse the ruling by getting Proposition 8 onto the state ballot in November. And they encouraged “Catholics to provide both the financial support and the volunteer efforts needed” to pass the measure.

In a statement to Catholics issued in August, the bishops wrote that the court ruling is a “radical change in public policy” insofar as it “discounts the biological and organic reality of marriage,” what they consider “the ideal relationship between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation and the continuation of the human race.”

The ruling also “diminishes the word marriage to mean only a partnership, a purely adult contractual arrangement for individuals over the age of 18,” according to the bishops.

Farrow told worshipers: “The statement made by the bishops reaffirms the feelings of exclusion and alienation that are suffered by individuals and their loved ones who have left the church over this very issue. ...

“How exactly is society helped by singling out a minority and excluding them from the union of love and life, which is marriage? How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives? ...

“This theology, which is parroted by clerics in polished tones from pulpits, produces the very prejudice and hatred in our society which they claim to abhor. ...

“I do not presume to tell you how to vote, but I do ask that you pray to the Creator of us all. Think and consider the effects of your vote on others, especially minorities in our society who are sitting next to you in church, and at work. ... Personally, I am morally compelled to vote No on Proposition 8.”

Farrow also told local media that he is a gay man. “It’s a secondary issue. But, yes, I am,” he said.

Farrow told NCR, “I realized that saying what I said would cost me my priesthood, obviously, and to say that to a congregation, I knew -- and was told -- [that] people will be on their cell phones before you get out of the sanctuary, calling the bishop. But I felt it had to be said.”

For the time being, Farrow is staying with friends and family in Southern California, “living out of a suitcase” and not “knowing how I will pay next month’s bills.”

Until Election Day, Farrow said, he will be working with statewide organizations to defeat the ballot measure.

“If Proposition 8 wins, it won’t stop in California,” Farrow said. “The opposition will target weaker states, going after domestic partnership laws, and adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples, and nondiscrimination employment laws.”

The bishops’ overreaching rhetoric prompted Farrow to speak out, he said. “I am flabbergasted by some of the sweeping statements bishops make that have no foundation in history or fact.”

Equally bothersome, Farrow said, is the bishops’ mobilizing people to vote yes on Proposition 8, specifically organizing the Knights of Columbus and the Hispanic women’s group Guadalupanas.

“There’s a difference,” Farrow said, “between entering the political arena to make moral statements and offer guidance” and “operating like a political action committee.”

Chuck Colbert, a frequent contributor to NCR, writes from Boston.

Online resources
Read an extended interview with Farrow on NCRonline.org. Do a search on "Farrow."

National Catholic Reporter October 31, 2008