ARCUS Funded Poll Finds 43% of Catholics Support Counterfeit Marriage

Last week, Thomas Peters at CatholicVote.org published an article called "Who is funding the coordinated attempt to subvert the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage?" The article began:

"Pro-gay-marriage billionaires and foundations are behind an organized effort to sow dissent and confusion among Catholics on the issues of homosexuality, marriage and family. And the first step to stopping them is knowing what we’re up against."

Peters then listed a number of groups receiving funding from the Arcus Foundation. The public mission of the Arcus Foundation is “to advance LGBT equality.” Funded groups included New Ways Ministry ($93,345), Dignity USA ($256,000), and the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce ($152,625), all of whom received funding from the Arcus Foundation. The programs receiving these grants all involved undercutting the Church's teaching on natural marriage.

This week the Public Religion Research Institute released a poll showing, as their press release said "Catholics are more supportive of gay and lesbian rights than the general public and other Christians, according to a new report released today." The first text, right after the title, is the "Acknowledgements" which says:

"PRRI would like to express our deep gratitude to the foundations who made this report possible. Major funding for this report comes from the Arcus Foundation..."

Of course, a poll's findings are not necessarily invalidated because of who the funder is. But a writer named Timothy Kincaid, writing in the homosexualist website Box Turtle Bulletin, felt compelled to offer a disclaimer before offering his analysis of a similar PRRI poll published in July of 2010. Mr. Kincaid wrote "PRRI is a progressive organization and the survey was funded by strong supporters of our community, so we must be cautious to look for bias." That's fair enough.

In fact the July, 2010 poll, which analyzed voting patterns among California Catholics, and this week's PRRI poll, which examines attitudes in other states as well, show the same thing: Protestants are opposed to same-sex "marriage" at higher rates than Catholics.

PRRI's 2010 California poll was covered in California Catholic Daily:

"What the poll showed is that Protestants are much more in line with Church teaching on the issue of marriage than are Catholics themselves. Those disturbing results beg the question: What is the Church in California teaching its flock?

While there are some unambiguous hierarchical voices on the issue, such as Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, effective Church teaching happens at the parish level. The poll reported: 'The messages about homosexuality that Californians hear at their place of worship are correlated with their views on same-sex marriage. Among Californians who report hearing negative messages from their clergy, few (19%) support same-sex marriage. In striking contrast, among Californians who report hearing positive messages from their clergy, fully 6 in 10 say gay and lesbian people should be allowed to marry…'

In other words, when the pastor speaks out for or against same-sex 'marriage,' the congregation listens. So why do Protestants support Catholic teaching on marriage at higher rates than Catholics themselves? The poll found: 'Protestants are significantly more likely to hear about the issue than Catholics; this is true both for white Catholics and Latino Catholics.'”

This week's poll shows the same thing. From the Executive Summary of the poll:

"Compared to the general church-going public, Catholics are significantly less likely to hear about the issue of homosexuality from their clergy, but those who do are much more likely to hear negative messages. Only about 1-in-4 (27%) Catholics who attend church services regularly say their clergy speak about the issue of homosexuality, but nearly two-thirds (63%) of this group say the messages they hear are negative."

Emphasis in original. That 27% number contrasts with 41% of all Americans who attend church regularly and who report hearing the issue of homosexuality discussed from the pulpit. And since the 41% number is skewed by the mere 27% of Catholics hearing about the issue, the percentage of members of other denominations hearing about homosexuality when they go to church will be considerably higher than 41%.

Three things jump out at me from this story.

First, many of our Catholic pastors are not doing their jobs.

Second, any poll about same-sex "marriage" will be unreliable. Elections have shown that there is always a far higher number opposed to counterfeit "marriage" than polls show, due to the unfortunate habit of homosexualist activists of labelling those who oppose same sex marriage as bigots.

And third, remember that $93,345 grant given by the Arcus Foundation to New Ways Ministry ? It's purpose was to "educate Maryland’s Catholic laity and lawmakers about marriage equality." Well, on March 11, against all expectation, Maryland's overwhelmingly Democratic House repudiated the bill which would have legalized same-sex "marriage" in the state. Money cannot buy everything.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney