Court rejects suit over S.F.'s blast at Vatican

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(10-22) 15:27 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A splintered federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday by Catholics who objected when San Francisco supervisors condemned the Vatican for prohibiting Catholic Charities from placing adoptive children with gay and lesbian couples.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied requests by a Catholic organization and two local residents to order the city to repeal the supervisors' 2006 resolution.

But the 8-3 ruling failed to decide whether the city had expressed official hostility toward Catholicism, in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

The supervisors' resolution denounced a decree by Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now heads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada said allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to these children."

--snip--

Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, joined by Judges Sandra Ikuta and Jay Bybee, said the resolution was anti-Catholic, portrayed the church as a "hateful foreign meddler in San Francisco's affairs," and entangled the city in "church governance" by urging the local archbishop to defy the Vatican.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/22/BAA51G0OFS.DTL

[EFerrari]

1. Then again, Jay Bybee should be in jail. n/t

[TacticalPeek]

2. Right on.

:kick:

[saigon68]

3. Where is Cardinal Law?

Answer: counseling young men.

[defendandprotect]

4. The Vatican can't control its own priests who have sexually-abused children ....

and they want a voice in the decisions of San Francisco's government?

HETEREOSEXUAL MALES are 100X more likely to sexually abuse children than

homosexual males --

From "same-sex -- marriage in the United States
Focus on the Facts" -- Sean Cahill, PH.D
Lexington Books -- 2004
See: Footnote

A 1998 Study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of pedophiles are men, and 95% of these individuals are hetereosexual.

Research has indicated that gay men and lesbians are less likely than hetereosexual to sexually abuse children.

Perhaps the most egregious and damaging claim promulgaed by anti-gay groups is the claim that homosexuality is intrinisically linked to pedophiia and child sexual abuse.
The social science research on sexual orientation and child sexual abuse clearly disproves the claim that homosexuals are more likely to molest children. A 1998 study in the Journal of the American Medical Assocation found that 90% of pedophiles are men, and 95% of these individuals are hetereosexual. One researcher explained this statistic by noting, "Gay men desire consensual sexual relations with other adult men. Pedophiles are usually adult men who are sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. They are rarely sexually attracted to other adults. In fact, research has indicated that gay men and lesbians are LESS likely than heterosexuals to sexually abuse children. Two studies that examined the sexual orientation of convicted child molesters found that less than 1% in one study and 0% in the other were lesbian or gay. One psychologist reviewed the existing social science literature on the relationship between sexuality and child sexual abuse and found that "a gay man is no more likely than a straight man to perpetrate sexual activity with children." Further, "cases of perpetration of sexual behavior with a pre-pubescent child by an adult lesbian are virtually nonexistent."

Gay rights activists, like all advocates for children's welfare, oppose child sexual abuse and support equitable age of consent laws that help prevent and punish such abuse.

At least 110,000 children are waiting to be adopted in the US. Approximately 588,000 children are currently in foster care. Barring gay men and lebians from adopting or foster parenting decreases the number of potential suitable homes for children in need.
Children who remain in foster care for much of their childhood, as do tens of thousands of American children, are more likely to have emotional problems. Some children in foster care live in 20 or more homes by the time they reach the age of 18. Barring gay men and lesbians from adopting or foster parenting is not simply unjust and unethical; it also decreases the number of potential suitable homes for children in need.
Research shows that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are not disadvantaged vis-a-vis their peers raised by hetereosexual parents.

Footnote 65 -- p.123
A review of 352 medical records of children evaluated for sexual abuse during a 12-month period at a Denver chidlren's hospital found that less than 1% had been abused by a gay man or a lesbian. Of 269 adult perpetrators of child abuse identified among the 352 cases of abuse, only two were gay or lesbian. The vast majority of the children in the study (82%) "were suspected of being abused by a man or a woman who was, or had been, in a hetereosexual relationship with a relative of the child." And the review concluded that in this sample, " a child's risk of being molested by his or her relative's heterosexual partner is over 100X greater by someone who might be identifiable as being homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual."
Jenny, C., and Roesler, T.A. (1994)
Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics. 94(1).p.44.
In an earlierstudy of convicted male child molesters in Massachusetts, none of the 175 men were found to have an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation orto be primarily attracted to other adult men.
Groth, A.N., and Birnbaum, H.J. (1978).
Adult sexual orientation and attraction to underage persons.
Archives of Sexual Behavior.7(3).pp.175-181.

Also : The right-wing "Family Research Council" notes/confirms findings that "almost all child sexual abuse is committed by men."