Our celebration of the Nativity of our Lord continues with the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. When God the Son shows his love for Mary, he does so by calling her to love. In a similar way, God calls us to love in and through our very being. We look forward to spending 2021 promoting this vision of the human person in the face of cultural opposition, and sharing news with you as it happens. Together, we can spread the truth that each person is made for love as close as that between God and his own mother. |
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In the past year, the USCCB redesigned its website to be more user-friendly across all platforms. Check out the new home of our parent committee for Laity, Marriage, Family Life & Youth. There you can find resources, church teaching, and news impacting various aspects of the laity's calling to live in Christ. This includes a hub of documents relating to the promotion and defense of marriage, such as the relevant sections of Gaudium et Spes, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the letters of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.
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Made for Love is returning!
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Made for Love will be returning soon! Our podcast on living out the call to love has a lot of highlights already, so be sure to catch up with some of them here. We've already aired episodes related to both of the above stories.
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Catholic Stuff You Should Know
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Other (tell us which one by replying to this email!)
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Legal/Policy Updates
Disappointment at the Supreme Court - The Supreme Court rejected appeals in two cases, one by parents seeking to overturn an Oregon school district's "gender identity"-based restroom policy on December 7th, and another by Indiana in attempt to not have to list both members of a same-sex couple as the "parents" on a child's birth certificate.
Religious Freedom for Federal Contractors - The Dept. of Labor finalized a regulation on December 14th, clarifying that religious exemptions from employment rules for faith-based organizations that are federal contractors are not limited to their preferring employees of the same religion, leaving room for that to include adherence to expectations of conduct in line with the employer's faith.
Faith-based Housing at Risk - A faith-based retirement community that had been previously sued for not allowing a same-sex couple to cohabitate was subjected to an unfavorable new settlement on December 8th, as courts begin to extend the Supreme Court's June Bostock decision to other areas such as housing law.
Ceasefire Expired - On December 1st, North Carolina's state law forbidding local governments from enacting their own nondiscrimination ordinances, which was passed at the culmination of the state's restroom controversies of 2016-2017, expired, opening the stage for a new round of conflict.
Division over Prisons - On December 3rd, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a rehearing to a plaintiff inmate who is seeking hormone treatment and housing relocation in accord with "gender identity." On December 8th on the other hand, a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that a "transgender" sex offender in prison must be provided his requested “gender confirmation” surgery.
School Restroom Assault - In mid-December, former student Julie Kays sued Seattle Public Schools for not protecting her from, nor supporting her after, a sexual assault perpetrated by a male in an "all-gender" school restroom.
Elementary Curriculum - New Jersey was reported in mid-December to be seriously considering a bill that would require teaching schoolchildren as early as kindergarten about "sexual orientation" and "gender identity."
Across America - "Transgender"-friendly school restroom and pronoun policies continued to sweep through school boards in December (in Flager County, FL; Plymouth-Canton, MI; Wake County, NC; and likely soon Concord, NH and Christina, DE), as did SOGI ordinances (in Topeka, KS, and Gettysburg, PA) and the creation of "LGBTQ" city commissions (in Duluth, MN, and Kansas City, MO).
Abroad - A UK court delivered a major initial victory in the case against the country's leading gender institution on December 1st, saying that minors are unlikely to be able to provide legally valid informed consent to gender reassignment procedures. Meanwhile, in the face of international opposition, Hungary prohibited adoption by same-sex couples and protected children from gender transition. Elsewhere this month however, Switzerland redefined "marriage" and made legal "gender" changes easier, Bolivia recognized its first same-sex "marriage," Bhutan decriminalized same-sex conduct, Nepal ordered local adoption of "LGBTI" "inclusion" policies, Norway outlawed "hate speech" against "transgender" people, Latvia granted parental leave to both members of a same-sex couple for the first time, and a Canadian province ordered anyone appearing in court to state their preferred pronouns.
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