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Labor Group Stands Up To Catholic Church, Refuses To Cut Ties With LGBT Allies
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/07/17/3460983/voz-grant-catholic-charities/Religious, labor, and LGBT groups are speaking up in support of Voz, a Latino workers rights organization, after a funding body of the Catholic church denied it a $75,000 grant for refusing to distance itself from organizations that support marriage equality.
Voz, which primarily helps Latino immigrants find work in Portland, Oregon, announced on Tuesday that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) threatened to deny it a grant unless it cut ties with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a leading Latino rights group, because it supports same-sex marriage. Voz does not take a position on marriage equality as an organization, but when faced with the decision to either rebuke its allies or lose $75,000 of its $310,000 annual operating budget, the group’s leaders “self-disqualified” themselves from the grant by voting to continue their affiliation with the NCLR.
“Our board felt like what they were asking us to do was take a position on marriage equality,” Ranfis Villatoro, Voz’s development director, told the Oregonian. “By making this decision, we run the risk of decreasing staff size and decreasing hours.”
The CCHD is a project of the Catholic Church, making it subject to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a longtime opponent of marriage equality. The CCHD has given Voz 10 grants since 1994, but said they rescinded access to this year’s grant because Voz’s allies were “assisting in something that was contrary to the teachings of [Catholic] traditions.” Romeo Sosa, Executive Director of Voz, told ThinkProgress that unless they cobble together another $75,000, the funding dip could result in cuts to his staff’s health benefits.
Voz, which primarily helps Latino immigrants find work in Portland, Oregon, announced on Tuesday that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) threatened to deny it a grant unless it cut ties with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a leading Latino rights group, because it supports same-sex marriage. Voz does not take a position on marriage equality as an organization, but when faced with the decision to either rebuke its allies or lose $75,000 of its $310,000 annual operating budget, the group’s leaders “self-disqualified” themselves from the grant by voting to continue their affiliation with the NCLR.
“Our board felt like what they were asking us to do was take a position on marriage equality,” Ranfis Villatoro, Voz’s development director, told the Oregonian. “By making this decision, we run the risk of decreasing staff size and decreasing hours.”
The CCHD is a project of the Catholic Church, making it subject to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a longtime opponent of marriage equality. The CCHD has given Voz 10 grants since 1994, but said they rescinded access to this year’s grant because Voz’s allies were “assisting in something that was contrary to the teachings of [Catholic] traditions.” Romeo Sosa, Executive Director of Voz, told ThinkProgress that unless they cobble together another $75,000, the funding dip could result in cuts to his staff’s health benefits.
Standing up against the hate. Now that I can definitely support.
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