by Kathleen Gilbert
March 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Top ‘gay-rights’ groups claiming to represent Christians and Catholics, and at least one Jesuit-run college, are being funded by a major homosexualist business magnate with the aim of stirring up dissent within the ranks of the church.
In a recent article Thomas Peters, Cultural Director for the National Organization for Marriage and founder of the American Papist blog, revealed the funding sources of various groups that promote acceptance of homosexuality under the guise of representing concerned members of the Judaeo-Christian community.
Groups such as New Ways Ministry, a top group recently condemned by the U.S. Catholic bishops, have received large sums from the Arcus Foundation for the purpose of promoting same-sex “marriage” specifically among Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Jews.
The Arcus Foundation was begun by Jon Stryker, an openly gay billionaire stockholder and a leading supporter of homosexualist initiatives. A 2006 Salon article points to the influence of gay software millionaire and activist Tom Gill on Stryker.
“Lisa Turner, political director for Jon Stryker, confirms that Stryker was motivated by the generous and precedent-setting giving of Tim Gill, the openly gay founder of Quark Inc., in 2004,” says the article.
“Proponents of gay marriage are smart – they create organizations to funnel their wealth to the causes they want to see succeed,” wrote Peters, who pointed to the degrees of separation obscuring the relationship between New Ways Ministry and Stryker’s foundation.
The Arcus Foundation’s website also lists several other “Catholic” projects under the heading “Religion and Values.” The listings specifically describe plans to undermine Catholic Church teaching on sexuality from the inside.
For example, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force received $152,625 from the foundation for “a collaborative strategic planning process focused on building a pro-LGBT movement within the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.” On the Catholic education front, the Jesuit Fairfield University was granted $100,000 to “expand the current discussion on homosexuality within Roman Catholicism to include the diverse opinions of progressive Catholic thought leaders and theologians.”
Pushing acceptance of birth control or abortion among Catholics is also part of the mission of the foundation: the Woman’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual was entrusted with $70,000 to create “a cadre of Catholic lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and their allies that would assume a leadership role within the Catholic community on issues related to gender, sexuality, [and] reproductive health.”
Other funding includes $93,345 to New Ways Ministry, $200,000 to New Ways Dignity USA, and $23,000 for a campaign to attack Catholic teaching on sexuality in tandem with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States in 2008. (Click here for a full list of Arcus grants.)
According to Peters, if “you add up Arcus giving to other ‘Christian’ outfits, the total since 2007 is a staggering $6,500,000.”
Catholics for Equality is another budding front group aimed at undermining Catholic teaching on homosexuality. In this case, the organization has clear ties to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the country’s most prominent pro-homosexual organizations.
HRC employs or formerly employed three of the five board members of Catholics for Equality. Even gay activist blogger Michael Petrelis noted that the group, launched last year, is “riddled with support from other HRCers” and that the close connection upset the Rainbow Sash Campaign, another homosexualist ‘Catholic’ group.
“Catholics should be outraged that an outside group – which also funds anti-Catholic groups – is funding dissident organizations within the Church to confuse fellow Catholics and undermine our bishops and the teachings they articulate,” said Peters.
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