As many of my blog followers know, Minnesota is one of four states facing a vote on same-sex marriage this NOvember.

In Washington state, they are voting to uphold a law that was passed earlier this year legalizing gay marriage. Similar to Minnesota, same-sex opponents have started to run commercials and they’re using similar scare tactics to what we’re seeing here.

The Seattle PI dug into the claims and found out that, like here in Minnesota, opponents are intentionally misleading voters.

In one of the anti-same sex marriage commercials running in Washington state, a narrator shares:

“Religious groups such as Catholic Charities, in Boston and Washington, D.C., have had to choose between fulfilling their social mission — based on their religious beliefs — or accepting this new definition of marriage.  As a result, they had to close their adoption program.”

However, that’s not really the truth. In fact, the chairman of the board of directors for Catholic Charities of Boston, Peter Mead, has this to say:

“Opponents of the freedom to marry ignore the truth and distort history when they talk about Catholic Charities of Boston and its decision to shut down its adoption services.  I’m shocked and amazed that so many years later, they are making the false claim that Catholic Charities’ decision had anything to do with allowing committed gay and lesbian couples to marry.”

As the Boston Globe has documented, Catholic Charities placed 13 children with gay couples BEFORE the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.  The children were largely from difficult backgrounds and among those “harder to place,” in Meade’s words.

Stopping the adoptions didn’t come about because of the fact that same-sex marriage was legal:

The orders came from above — and from across the Atlantic. ”In 2005, tragically and out of the blue, the Vatican ordered our diocese to cease using the single criteria of ‘best interest of the children,’” writes Meade.  ”They ordered us to stop facilitating adoptions to qualified gay and lesbian households. “I objected strenuously for two reasons.  First and foremost, the Church hierarchy was telling us to violate the best interests of the children who were in our care.  It was an arbitrary edict that, to many of us, had nothing to do with what was best for these kids and undermined our moral priority of helping vulnerable children find loving homes.”

Meade goes on to talk about how the 42 directors of the Catholic Charties of Boston voted unanimously not to exclude gay and lesbian couples as they believed the Vatican edict was wrong.

“When the hierarchy insisted, the organization had no choice but to end Catholic Charities’ adoption services.  To me, and seven other board members, that forced our hand.  We could no longer serve on the board so we resigned.”

Meade concludes with:

“As a Catholic, my faith continues to call me to treat every person as a child of God.  What happened in Massachusetts should not have happened.  “But what’s made it even worse is twisting a tough and sad outcome of one Catholic Charities into a fear-baiting talking point by opponents of the freedom to marry.  It’s not truthful and it only takes us further from loving our neighbor as God commands.

It is clear that certain organizations will do whatever it takes to ensure that same-sex couples cannot celebrate the love they have for one another. Hopefully, posts like this help provide additional education for those that may not be fully aware. 

Note: Excerpts above from SeattlePI.com. Read the article in it’s entirety here.