Jane Levikow from the Tides Center posted this call for active response to the Vatican's reprehensible attempt to shift blame for sexual abuse onto the LGBT community.  We too hope you will speak up!

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The recent comments from a Vatican official deflecting attention from the Church’s complicity in child sexual abuse by linking homosexuality to pedophilia has us on a bit of a rampage. A homophobic institution that failed to protect children from sexual abuse is under fire and is turning around and blaming LGBT people. The Vatican leadership is not examining the Church’s hypocritical and outdated views of sex. They’re not opening up dialogue about changing their view about celibacy. They’re not demanding that the Pope resign. What are they doing? They’re using their bully pulpit to unleash fear of gay people.

And sadly, even the LGBT movement is largely silent on the issue. Yesterday, as the Vatican statement hit the news, among major US-based LGBT organizations, only the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) had any statement on the issue. The headline on their website: “HRC Refutes Vatican Official’s Statement on Pedophilia and Sexual Orientation.” This statement fails on several levels. First, they broke a cardinal rule of communication – don’t repeat your opponent’s offending statement. Second, they fail to express outrage or to characterize the Vatican’s statement as homophobic and offensive. And third, their statement is not linked to a concrete call to action. That said, at least HRC was paying attention enough to issue a “refutation.” Surprisingly, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights were all silent. (Today, responded with a tame request for journalists to “scrutinize the Vatican’s comments.”)GLAAD

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Jane Levikow is the Director of External Relations for the Tides Center. She has over twenty years of experience in providing strategic vision, leadership, and management to all aspects of nonprofit organizations. Before joining Tides Center she was a Sister of Social Service, a religious community of women dedicated to social justice, where she served as the social justice director. Jane has served on the board of directors and steering committees of the Peace and Justice Center of Southern California, Building Bridges/Out and Equal, and the Interfaith Task Force on Central America and Health Access, to name a few, and also volunteers for various AIDS charities and gay and lesbian organizations. Jane holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Lone Mountain University of San Francisco and an MA in Ethics from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology.

The Beatitudes Soceity is a project of The Tides Center