This photo was widely shared on Facebook yesterday after it was posted in a group called “Wipe Out Homophobia.” According to the initial posting, Vanessa Raymond, one of the group’s members, spotted an awful sign in front of a church on her way to work yesterday that read, “Two Men are Friends, Not Spouses.” She was so upset that she made a sign of her own with a pro-LGBT message, bought a rainbow balloon, and affixed both the sign and the balloon to a fence in front of the anti-gay message. Raymond’s handwritten sign reads:
You may not be welcome in this church, but ALL people are welcome in this community! Spread LOVE, not hate!!!
I wasn’t able to get in touch with Ms. Raymond to confirm the location or denomination of the offending church (although I assumed it was a Catholic parish, as Francis Xavier is a Catholic saint), so I held off on posting about it at that time.
Today, Andy Belonsky over at Towleroad was kind enough to fill in the gaps: the church in question is St. Francis Xavier Catholic Parish in Acushnet, Massachusetts, and malicious message was written and posted by the parish’s pastoral services director, Steven Guillotte, who insisted that it wasn’t really anti-gay at all. Said Guillotte, ““We don’t feel that there’s anything hateful in it.”
Two local women protesting outside St. Francis Xavier disagreed. One of them, Kim Miska, told the paper: ““I think it was bigoted … very ignorant. You can believe in what you want to believe in, but there’s no reason to shove it down everybody’s throat.”
Of course, the church removed Raymond’s balloon and sign, but interestingly, it also replaced the patronizing anti-gay quip with an inane reminder about tomorrow’s daily Mass. The pastor of St. Francis Xavier, Monsignor Gerard O’Connor, denies that the uproar over Guillotte’s divisive message factored into that decision.
This sign might not be remarkable except for the fact that it unmasks, in my opinion, the deep contempt that Catholic leaders have for the loving marriages of same-sex couples like my husband and me. Slick, media-savvy personalities like New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan can talk about how much they love LGBT people until they’re blue in the face, and church employees like Guillotte can pretend they’re not haters all they wish, but it’s all a lie. The sign in Massachusetts speaks to an ugly truth: Catholic leaders don’t simply oppose the recognition of our marriages, they deny even the fact that our marriages exist.
Enjoy that denial while you can, dudes. That whizzing sound you’re hearing is the sound of society blowing past you, discarding your Stone-Age views about LGBT people in the landfill of history where they belong. Or is it the sound of pro-equality Catholics scrambling for the doors?
I don’t know why any self-respecting LGBT person or woman would continue to be part of the Catholic church any more. They’re megalomaniacal, hate-filled control-freaks.
gocsfx@gmail.com, sngsfx@gmail.com
To Francis Xavier’s Monsignor O’Connor + Steve Guilotte
Hey Mr. O’Connor and Mr. Guilotte:
In view of the gay-bashing sign you had outside of your church, I’m wondering if you can assist me with some historical research I need to do.
What political arrangements were agreed to between the Vatican and Mussolini, how did the two powers talk about gay human beings at that time, and how many Italian homosexuals wound up imprisoned, tortured and murdered in WWII-era concentration camps as a direct result of the Vatican’s gay-bashing bigotry?
Also, why don’t the two of you just eat s**t and die, rather than to again post public gay-bashing hate speech on your church’s sign?
I wish I could spit in your faces, not only because you had the gall to post your gay-bashing hate speech in public in a first instance, but because you then had the added nerve to claim that it was not hate speech.
There is no worse form of condescending bigotry than “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
You both need to drink long tall glasses of Shut Up juice.
Have you no shame, to be perpetuating Holocaust-era bigotry?
Scott Rose
Beautiful wedding band John. You know what they say John, “Living well is the best revenge” :) So screw them, go home and be nice to your husband and live happily ever after for the next 75 years.
The photo is fantastic. The color co-ordination of your wedding ring, shirt, and eyes is the perfect touch.
Cop of letter to church:
I know … I’ll put up an anti-gay sign and, if anyone says anything, I’ll just say I don’t feel there was anything hateful in it. That way people will know that I and the church I represent are clear thinking people with integrity.
Or are you really just so out of touch?
You should be ashamed.
Thank you, Jane!
Right up there with white folks thinking there wasn’t anything wrong with Jim Crow, and why blacks should be so upset by it.
If they’d just known ‘their place’, they wouldn’t have to be upset!
Sure, nothing hateful in that sign in front of that church. Nothing at all.
This was covered by the local Boston news affiliates & the priest (with an Irish accent)pretended to be all hurt & bewildered by people’s reactions to his sign. He was particularly offended by an ‘obscenity-laced’ phone call. But when the reporter stopped passers-by for their views, even the guy in the pickup truck with his dog said something to the effect that was the 21st century so grow up!
The number of heterosexual priests in the roman christianist church is infinitesimally small. These self-loathing Quislings for Wojtyla and Ratzinger disgust me.
I would have included a sign asking WHAT ABOUT TWO WOMEN??? By obsessing over two men rather then two women, they reveal what religion is really all about. Perpetuating patriarchy, male (strength) over female (weak), oppressing nonconformists, women, and minorities in order to solidify the social dominion and privileges that they fear they are losing. Two men being intimate attacks the foundations of all they believe about power structures. Come into the 21st century, indeed. Love the catholic church BUILDINGS… beautiful cathedrals and stained glass…but will NEVER support such bigotry and medieval, sexual hangups the church continues to espouse. Anyway the priest at this parish probably jacks off with men all over the local community on the DL!!
” Monsignor Gerard O’Connor, denies that the uproar over Guillotte’s divisive message factored into that decision.” — Liars too!
DaveTheWave — It could also suggest that female sexuality (lesbian or otherwise) is invisible to the Catholic church. They seem to see women as breeders, not sexual or romatic beings. Then again, what do you expect from a patriarchal organization run by single men?