Catholic Church Sanctions Maryland Referendum Drive     6/8/2001

Catholic Church Sanctions Maryland Referendum Drive
By Peter LaBarbera

The campaign to overturn Maryland’s new “gay rights” law received a huge boost Monday when the Maryland Catholic Conference cleared the way for the state’s Catholics to join the petition drive.

TakeBackMarylang.org, an interfaith coalition opposed to the “gay rights” law recently signed by Gov. Parris Glendening, turned in almost 20,000 signatures last week in an attempt to cross the first hurdle to qualify for the ballot under the state’s election law. Should 15,376 (one-third) of those signatures be deemed valid, TakeBackMaryland.org would need to gather a total of 46,128 valid signatures by June 30 to get on the ballot.

The Catholic Conference — representing the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Archdiocese of Washington, and Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware — posted a link that allows visitors to download the petition off its Web site. Until Monday, it had not endorsed the referendum, making it difficult for many Catholics to gather signatures at their local churches.

Should the petition drive succeed, the pro-homosexual law, which goes into effect October 1, would be voted on in a statewide ballot in November 2002.

Tres Kerns, co-founder of TakeBackMaryland.org, said the group has been inundated with pledges of support since it shocked the state’s media and politicians by turning in so many signatures. Kerns said since that day, several thousand petitions have been downloaded from the group’s Web site.

“The response has been tremendous,” he said. “We are shooting for 100,000 signatures by the end of June, and now, with the support of faithful Catholics, I feel confident we can reach that goal. We are thankful to God for helping us meet the first very tight deadline.”

Kerns forwarded to C&F Report copies of some hate-filled e-mails he has received since the media started taking his group seriously. One especially vicious letter accused Kerns of being a child molester, a cruel accusation since Kerns himself was sexually abused in his youth.

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