Gay Catholics Denied Communion Found Guilty: Church `Homophobia' Decried from the Bench. (Nation)

Feuerherd, Joe, National Catholic Reporter

As she prepared to declare their guilt and sentence the three defendants, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Mildred Edwards told the dozen or so people gathered in the second floor courtroom what most of them already knew.

"This is not a difficult case on the facts."

Those facts: On the morning of Nov. 12, 2002, three gay Catholic activists--65-year-old Kara Speltz, 38-year-old Ken Einhaus, and 57-year-old Mike Perez--refused requests from hotel management and the D.C. Metropolitan Police to leave the lobby of Capitol Hill's Grand Hyatt Hotel, site of the 2002 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Speltz, Einhaus and Perez had been denied Communion the previous evening during Mass at Washington's National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. That annual Mass, held to coincide with the bishops' meeting, had previously been the site of protests. (A Washington archdiocesan spokesperson would say later the denial of Communion was a "case of mistaken identity"--that shrine officials mistook Speltz, Einhaus and Perez for activists from "Rainbow Sash," another gay rights group whose objective was to politicize the faith's most sacred ritual.)

Speltz, Einhaus and Perez went to the Hyatt lobby the next morning to "engage" the bishops and, they emphasized, to find one who would give them Communion. They positioned themselves--the two men kneeling, each with hands out-stretched …

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Publication information: Article title: Gay Catholics Denied Communion Found Guilty: Church `Homophobia' Decried from the Bench. (Nation). Contributors: Feuerherd, Joe - Author. Magazine title: National Catholic Reporter. Volume: 39. Issue: 15 Publication date: February 14, 2003. Page number: 5. © 2009 National Catholic Reporter. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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