Washington State
archbishop files court brief against marriage equality

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Seattle has belatedly stepped into the same-sex marriage case before Washington State's highest court, filing a friend-of-the-court brief last week in opposition to marriage equality. Although the case has been active for some two years, Archbishop Alexander Brunett thought that now was the right time to make his views known, the Associated Press reports. "The state would be in the position of establishing socially acceptable public theology," his brief says, according to the AP. "Such an intrusion into religious practice should not be permitted." Brunett also wrote that he was concerned the church could lose its civil authority to perform marriages or become the target of discrimination lawsuits if it refused to marry gay couples. Other interested parties to the case filed briefs more than a year ago, but according to a spokesperson for Brunett, the archbishop felt compelled to act now because of recent court rulings against marriage equality, the AP reports. He also referred to what he considers the effect of legal same-sex marriage on the church in Massachusetts, where Catholic Charities decided to shut down its adoption services altogether earlier this year rather than consider gay couples as prospective adoptive parents, as required by state antidiscrimination laws. (The Advocate)