Homosexual man says he is the "Rosa Park's" of the Catholic Church

A recent poll from Decision Research shows that a majority of Catholics in Massachusetts -- 53 percent -- favor same-sex civil marriage.

Raised in an orphanage by priests and nuns, as well as by a Catholic family, Gregory Maguire attended parochial schools in upstate New York. "The fact that I grew up as a Catholic, part of my system of thinking -- the grammar of how I frame the moral questions is Catholic grammar," Maguire said. "I have the great blessing and good fortune of finding myself during formative years in a very progressive church that was always eager to ask the next question rather than provide the next answer." And Maguire explained, "A parent's first obligation is to speak to his children with the most authentic language he has. For me, that is Catholicism."

His "intellectual and spiritual training" to "question, but not necessarily conclude," he considers a "birthright" and "inheritance."

"So I don't feel as much of a disjuncture as many people do," he said, "because when I sit in the pew and hear a letter from a bishop, or an injunction even from the pope about gay parents doing damage to children, I just say: Well, he has not asked the right question -- hasn't asked Andy and me, 'Why are you making so many sacrifices to take care of these orphans?' "

At New Ways Ministry's national symposium, Maguire plans to tell his story, leading a focused discussion on gay parenting in a sacramental church. "It means far less to them [his children] that they have two dads than two parents who are there when they go off to school and when they return," he said.
The tangible benefits and social status of marriage -- its legal, public and moral commitments -- also helps, Maguire explained. "We are able to say to our children honorably that we are married." Among all the differences they embody, "being brown-skinned, adopted and from foreign countries, at least they don't have to deal with that difference. Their parents are as married as any others."

Nonetheless, remaining in the church, Maguire acknowledges, is a struggle. "I run the great risk of being misunderstood or dismissed," he said. A declaration from the Vatican in 2003 that gay parents do "violence" by raising children caused us "grave distress," Maguire added.

But he explained, to "leave the church over what it's saying, I would have to pluck out my eyes because I don't like what I am seeing." For Maguire, that action would be tantamount to spiritual suicide, he said. "I would far rather be brave and sit in the pew" and "with a fair amount of respect, be the Rosa Parks of the situation. I am not moving. I didn't move before, and I'm not moving now. I am going to be buried from this church."