Whether it’s New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan comparing the passage of New York’s marriage equality law with North Korean-style communist dictatorship, Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt ordering priests in his diocese who disagree with marriage discrimination to keep their mouths shut, Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien characterizing marriage equality as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right,” or Pope Benedict XVI ominously warning that allowing same-sex couples the freedom to marry leads to “grave social problems bearing an immense human and economic cost,” the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is obsessively focused these days on perpetuating the oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons — and on stopping the spread of marriage equality in particular — by any possible means, even if it entails stoking the fires of bigotry and spreading malicious lies about LGBT people.

The latest Catholic prelate to lend his voice to this terrible chorus is Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain (above), who in a video recently posted on the archdiocesan website rejected the fact that marriage is a civil contract, asserted that God is the “author of marriage,” and warned that society “would be harmed beyond repair” if voters in Washington upheld that state’s marriage equality law in the November election. (Watch Sartain’s video message below, or on YouTube courtesy of On Top Magazine.)

Of course, Sartain’s remarks are nothing but hysterical anti-LGBT fear mongering. I don’t think I’ll ever cease to be astonished that members of the Catholic hierarchy — who systematically sheltered, protected, and defended predatory priests for decades — still think that they have any moral authority whatsoever to attack and demonize loving, committed marriages and families like mine.

Here’s hoping that a majority of the voters in Washington State feel similarly, reject Sartain’s homophobic beliefs, and uphold their marriage equality law by voting “yes” on Referendum 74 on November 6.

(By the way, if you’d like to help the fight for marriage equality in Washington, click here to donate to Washington United for Marriage.)

h/t: On Top Magazine