Same-sex marriage leads Catholic Charities to adjust benefits

Via The Washington Post:

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."

Catholic Charities, which receives $22 million from the city for social service programs, protested in the run-up to the council's December vote to allow same-sex marriage, saying that it might not be able to continue its contracts with the city, including operating homeless shelters and facilitating city-sponsored adoptions. Being forced to recognize same-sex marriage, church officials said, could make it impossible for the church to be a city contractor because Catholic teaching opposes such unions.

How are they avoiding providing benefits to same-sex partners?

The second choice was to do what the Washington Archdiocese has done: eliminate benefits for all spouses.

"For decades, the church has been at the forefront of worker benefits, so this move cuts against their understanding of social justice and health benefits to all possible," Tuttle said. "But obviously, you can see they felt there was a real conflict between those values. They feel they weren't left with much of a choice."

Staff members at the charity were not given advance notice of the new policy and will not be able to add a spouse now because the most recent open enrollment period ended in November.

So, if a Catholic Charities' worker's own spouse were to lose their coverage through their own employer, oh well. Blame the last battle in the culture war. It's not a great solution for the employees, and I will give the Catholic Church credit for often being a leader in social justice issues--and that's precisely why this move surprises me. Because providing health care coverage isn't the same thing as condoning or encouraging sin. (Couples can certainly "live in sin" together whether they have medical benefits or not.) It's just materially providing for the physical well-being of their workers and their workers' families, which I would have understood to be worthwhile aims that the Church is otherwise interested in.

It doesn't affect a great number of people. But because I've been following how this particular relationship of church and state is playing out, I added the update.