ARTICLES

What Did We Agree To?

ARCHBISHOP LEVADA REPLIES TO CRISIS MAGAZINE ARTICLE

In March, Crisis magazine ran a column by contributing editor, Michael M. Uhlmann, entitled "The Bishop Blinks," criticizing Archbishop William Levada for his compromise with Mayor Willie Brown over San Francisco's domestic partners ordinance. The compromise measure, which safeguards city tax dollars for Catholic Charities, extends marriage benefits to any legally domiciled person in an employee's household. Following is Archbishop Levada's letter objecting to the original column. Uhlmann's reply can be found here.

By Archbishop William Levada

Michael Uhlmann's "The Bishop Blinks" (Crisis, March, 1997) deserves a thorough reply both for its misinformation about the issues and for its tendentious judgment about my exercise of my responsibilities as bishop. A senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center like Uhlmann should check his facts before rushing into print. I received not even the courtesy of an inquiry.

What are the facts in the case at hand? Did I "blink" or "cave in" to political pressure, as Uhlmann suggests? I believe quite the contrary is true. But the case is complex and does involve local intricacies. For this reason, a commentator should have the patience and the prudence to investigate before leaping to conclusions.

Here is the situation that faced me in my first year as archbishop of San Francisco: During the busy weeks before the 1996 general election, the Board of Supervisors/City Council quietly adopted a new law (unanimously) requiring any business or agency contracting with the city of San Francisco to extend the same benefits they give to spouses (e.g. health, bereavement leave, et cetera) to "domestic partners," a new category adopted by city referendum in 1990 to recognize the
commitment of unmarried persons (heterosexual or homosexual) as equivalent to marriage.

Until the 1996 legislation, the fact of being a "domestic partner" affected only those who registered as such. With this new law, the city officials sought to provide groundbreaking "model" legislation, in their words, to end "discrimination" against gays and lesbians who are denied benefits equal to those enjoyed by married couples.

My request for delay in adoption of the new ordinance was refused. Indeed, I was told by the only one of the eleven supervisors to respond to my letter that he already knew what my objections would be (this clairvoyance based on sixteen years of Catholic education!), and refused to let me "discriminate."

I subsequently wrote to Mayor Brown, asking his assistance in securing an exemption from an ordinance that would require our Church agencies to violate our conscientious position regarding the sanctity of marriage by forcing us to create a new category in our internal benefits polices for "domestic partners," a category based on a sexual partnership defined as equivalent to marriage. I was resolutely unwilling to comply with this law when it took effect in June, and I made my views known publicly.

Uhlmann's grasp of the facts in the case seems to fade from this point on. Uhlmann's error seems based on his idea that Mayor Brown sensed "weakness and offered the diocese a fig leaf." The facts lead to a contrary conclusion. I was condemned repeatedly for not playing by the city's rules if I wanted the city's money for Catholic Charities, and for trying to breach the wall of separation between Church and state. My public response received considerable attention in both local and national media. I challenged the right of a city government to place burdens that would violate religious principles on the appropriate use of public funds. After all, these funds are used by Catholic Charities entirely for the public benefit to aid the poor; and these funds are the people's money -- including Catholics.

I further objected to the argument that the exclusion of domestic partners from spousal equivalent benefits was any more discriminatory against them than it was against any two persons -- relatives or friends, for example -- who share a domicile. In other words, if city government was interested in broadening benefits to help more people gain health insurance, etc., they could count on my support. If, on the other hand, they insisted on forcing the Church agencies to comply with an ordinance aimed at furthering a homosexual agenda to make us recognize domestic partnership as equivalent to marriage, I would take them to court.

No doubt many hoped we would take the city to court. Uhlmann seems peeved that I ignored "multiple offers of free legal assistance." In fact, I received two, only one of which hinted at being free. But I saw such a lengthy, expensive, and contentious process -- with such an uncertain outcome -- as a last resort. When Mayor Brown proposed to act as an intermediary with the supervisors who sponsored the legislation to find an acceptable alternative means of compliance with this new city law, I welcomed the opportunity.

What did we agree to? We agreed that agencies and businesses would be in compliance if their benefits packages allowed unmarried persons to designate another legally domiciled person in their household (including blood relatives) to receive benefits equivalent to those already provided for spouses (without reference to a partnership based on sexual identity or activity). In other words, we took a stand in favor of expanded benefits, which the city could hardly refuse, since its "model" legislation is named "Nondiscrimination in benefits." But the effect of this agreement is to move the discussion from "discrimination" against homosexuals to one in which the provision of greater benefits is the issue.

Since Catholic agencies now can comply with city law without being forced to recognize a category based on unacceptable sexual criteria, I think we have achieved a breakthrough that is in accord with Catholic moral principles on both marriage and family and social justice.

The value of such a position should not be underestimated. While Uhlmann suggests that my actions undercut the efforts of the Church and others in Hawaii seeking to stop the legalization of gay marriage by the courts, the opposite has proved to be the case. Hawaii is moving toward legislation that recognizes only marriage between a man and a woman, while at the same time seeking to address the fairness issues by providing expanded benefits for another household member, exactly as we have done here. While many businesses like Levi-Strauss and Disney have adopted "domestic partner" benefits provisions, our solution offers an alternative that, if adopted widely enough (Bank of America has chosen this course), will provide a broad group for insurers to offer these expanded benefits at a more reasonable cost.

Uhlmann appears to think that no benefits should be offered to live-in lovers. But surely he needs to rethink such a position. Is it really a matter for an employer to exclude a person from benefits on the basis of activities that are sinful? Even prostitutes, alcoholics, embezzlers -- I won't rehearse the whole catalogue -- need health insurance. The problem arises when we are asked to single out and recognize a category based on such activity as part of our employee benefits. This is what our agreement with the city of San Francisco has changed, and in a way that broadens the scope of health benefits for uninsured children, elderly persons, and so many others whose lack of health insurance is genuinely a national scandal.

Who has complained the loudest about the archdiocese's "win-win" solution with the city? Some homosexual groups (and individuals) who are unhappy about shifting the focus off the gay agenda. Some conservative media that are always ready to "bash the bishop" on the basis of any sketchy or biased report. Some supporters of "unfettered market" capitalism, because it would be cheaper to give benefits only to domestic partners.

The new law is bad legislation on many counts, and no doubt the many problems it has already caused for businesses large and small, not to mention religious agencies, will be compounded in the future. But we think we have done the best we could in these circumstances to ensure a morally acceptable solution, which may even prove valuable in "moving the goal post" on this issue when it arises elsewhere, as it surely will.

But the unkindest cut of all was Uhlmann's headlined banner that I "missed a golden opportunity to instruct my flock on why the Church believes what it does about homosexuality." The Catholics of San Francisco, who received my careful, thorough statement on this issue the following Sunday at Mass, would not support that judgment, I can confidently say. Neither should the readers of Crisis believe it.

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