Latest “rights” fight: the “right to bury”

Last updated on: May 21, 2016 at 8:35 am by Jane the Actuary

Latest “rights” fight: the “right to bury” 2016-05-21T08:35:31-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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From the National Catholic Reporter, “Kentucky archdiocese nixes Supreme Court design on gay couple’s gravestone“:

Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon were among the plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the historic 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled same-sex marriage is constitutional nationwide. As the two recently planned their funeral arrangements, they submitted in October a headstone design to Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Louisville that included a depiction of the U.S. Supreme Court Building, along with two linking rings and a cross. . . .

On Monday, a Louisville TV station reported that the rings and SCOTUS building inscriptions were rejected by Catholic Cemeteries. . . .

In a letter dated March 30, published by WDRB-TV, Javier Fajardo, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries, explained that gravestone inscriptions “are permitted so long as they do not conflict with any teachings of the Church. Your markings are not keeping with this requirement.” . . .

Bourke and De Leon have accused the archdiocese of discrimination. At a “Freedom to Bury” press conference Wednesday organized by Catholics for Fairness, an extension of the LGBT-focued Fairness Campaign, Bourke said the decision to reject their headstone design “feels like deliberate retaliation against our family.”

Now, so far as I can tell, they have not filed a lawsuit, nor have they claimed that the cemetery has violated the law, but are fighting this in the Court of Public Opinion. And likewise, how far they’ll take this is unknown.

But a “freedom to bury”? Sure, it’s cute to have a rhyming word for “marry,” but the cemetery is in no way preventing them from being buried there, only rejecting their use of the tombstone to express their church doctrine-contradicting beliefs.

Image: Trinity Church, New York. Own work.

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