Catholic Cemetery Rejects Supreme Court Plaintiffs' Headstone Design Celebrating Marriage Equality
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/greg-bourke-michael-de-leon-headstone_us_573b5b26e4b0aee7b8e7ee3a
The Supreme Court is a special place for Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon. The two men were among the plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case that struck down state bans on marriage equality. Thanks to that 2015 decision, marriages like Bourke and De Leon's are now legal everywhere in the United States.
Bourke and De Leon, a Kentucky couple who married in Canada in 2004, want to celebrate that historic case forever by putting an image of the Supreme Court on their headstone when they're buried in a joint plot at St. Michael Cemetery in Louisville. But the Louisville Archdiocese is rejecting their request, saying it goes against Catholic teachings.
Bourke and De Leon's proposed design features their names, a cross, the Supreme Court and an image of wedding rings. It's the courthouse and the rings that the Archdiocese refuses to accommodate.
"Inscriptions on grave markers are permitted so long as they do not conflict with any teachings of the Church," Javier Fajardo, executive director of the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Louisville, wrote in a March 30 letter to the couple posted by WDRB-TV this week. "Your proposed markings are not in keeping with this requirement."
The RCC: bigoted to the end, and beyond...