If you haven’t read this yet, you should definitely do so. It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile.

It’s the resolution passed by the city council of San Francisco two years ago, venting their spleen against the Vatican and Cardinal Levada in particular. It’s being reviewed by the ninth circuit this week to see whether it violates the Establishment clause in virtue of being “hostile” towards religion. I hadn’t heard anything about it until a few days ago, but I couldn’t stop laughing as I read through it.

Yes, okay, I know these are serious matters, that the Church has been publicly insulted, and that this is just another sign of a coming war that’s likely to be ugly. Trust me, I understand all that. Given how my family is enmeshed in the Academy, we’re in a particularly vulnerable position. Academics these days are unlikely to get in trouble merely for believing the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. But we’re already to the point where publicly espousing those views (even, sometimes, if it’s done very politely and compassionately) can be dangerous. Given the direction things are going, it’s certainly conceivable that secular universities could start taking more aggressive steps to weed out “homophobes” within the span of our careers. So really, I don’t take this stuff lightly. But still, we might as well enjoy a little humor where we can, no? And this one really is hysterical. So angry and juvenile! It’s like something you’d see published in a high school newspaper! When I got to the Inquisition reference at the end… well, that is truly priceless. It’s like the liberal equivalent of calling Cardinal Levada a poopyhead.

Apparently the original complaint was filed by the Catholic league, together with two Catholic residents of San Francisco, who accused the council of conveying “a message of religious hatred, intolerance and bigotry toward Catholics.” The district court ruled in favor of the city in another pretty ridiculous piece of rhetoric that was obviously fully in sympathy with the bigotry of the original resolution. For those who don’t have time to wade through pages of legalspeak, I’ll pull out a few of the juicy bits for you.

Defendants assert that the purposes of Resolution 168-06 were “to denounce discrimination against same-sex couples, and to try to preserve for San Francisco children the opportunity to be placed for adoption with qualified families without regard to sexual orientation.” These purposes are

evident from the wording of the resolution. The preamble to the Resolution identifies it as urging Cardinal Levada “to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.” Compl. ¶ 29. The Resolution condemns the Vatican’s attempt to “meddl[e] and . . . negatively influence” the City’s established customs and traditions regarding adoption by same-sex couples, and claims that “[s]ame-sex couples are just as qualified to be parents as are heterosexual couples.” Id. The Resolution urges the Archbishop and Catholic Charities serving San Francisco to “defy all discriminatory directives of Cardinal Levada,” and the operative clause repeats the urge to Cardinal Levada from the preamble. Id. While the Resolution also contains direct attacks on Cardinal Levada’s statements in the Considerations document, calling them “hateful and discriminatory,” “absolutely unacceptable,” “insulting and callous,” and showing “insensitivity and ignorance,” these provisions regarding the Congregation’s statement of religious doctrines are secondary to the Resolution’s main purpose of promoting adoption by same-sex couples and equality for homosexuals.

It’s delightful, isn’t it, to see such a forgiving, generous attitude towards the angry liberals and their spiteful rhetoric? Such fair-minded attention Judge Patel shows to the spirit of the resolution! I mean, sure, the city council devoted a large portion of their resolution to gratuitous name-calling of a top Vatican official, but we can see what they were trying to do, right? They only care about the children!

Now, I should say here that I’m not necessarily thrilled that this resolution turned into a legal battle. I don’t blame the Catholic league for bringing it to court — certainly they had reason to be offended! — and I commend the Thomas More Society, a generally admirable organization, for taking up the fight. But it probably wouldn’t have been all bad just to let the thing die. City councils pass ridiculous resolutions pretty often, actually. I suppose it’s their way of making themselves feel important, and filling their excess free time. Most such silliness gets filed away somewhere and never looked at again, and it does seem a bit of a shame to give them the satisfaction of noticing or caring what they say. Petty officials of that sort like nothing more than to feel influential.

Still, now that it’s gotten into the courts, it’s news, and what the courts say about it is much more interesting than the childish ranting of the San Francisco City Council per se. This is, of course, a test of how the courts will deal with what might reasonably be classified as hate speech against the Church. You might even say, it’s a test of whether they think it’s possible for words directed against the Church to qualify as hate speech. That’s a somewhat more interesting question.

The problem with talk of “hate speech” is that it leaves an ocean of interpretive license to the judge. Hate is a kind of motivation. Motivations are not the sort of things that can be clearly measured and quantified. Thus, it’s up to the judge to decide whether an action was inspired by “hatred”, and unsurprisingly, people are usually more inclined to attribute hateful motives to others when they 1) disagree with them, and 2) don’t understand their position well enough to see what their motives might be. I’m put in mind of an article on this subject that was published a few years ago by that venerable and insightful scholar, Steven D. Smith. “Hate” becomes a nice word to pull out when your real position is, “I don’t understand what these people are trying to do, but I don’t like it.”

In this case, the judge did like the city council’s positive agenda, and so, despite the fact that these positive sentiments got only the barest mention within the resolution itself, she concludes that it is not hateful. How could anyone be hateful when they like gays so much?

Just another delicious tidbit from Judge Patel’s ruling:

Plaintiffs assert that the actual purpose of Resolution 168-06 is “to criticize and condemn the Catholic Church, Catholic religious leaders, and Catholic religious beliefs,” and to “meddle in Church affairs.” Plaintiffs further point to the Resolution’s reference to the Vatican as a “foreign country” and describing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as the former “Holy Office of the Inquisition” as evincing anti-Catholic bigotry. Plaintiffs’ generalized characterizations of the Resolution’s language are unconvincing. It is clear from the text of the statute that any criticism of Catholic leaders or policies are presented in the context of same-sex adoption—a secular dimension of the City’s culture and tradition that the City believes is threatened by the specific directive issued to the Archdiocese. Furthermore, the reference to the Vatican as a “foreign country” can reasonably be interpreted as an explicit attempt by the Board of Supervisors to characterize the City’s dissent as one against a political entity rather than a religious organization, thereby seeking to avoid a religious conflict. While reference to the Holy Office of Inquisition may have been unnecessary to the substance of the Resolution and may be perceived as pejorative, it does not change the primary purpose or gist of the Resolution. It also is not historically inaccurate.

By all means, change the name back, so it’s clear that we’re not ashamed of it! But once again, this is a clear, seemingly willful misreading of the intent of the resolution. The reference to the Vatican as a “foreign country” was obviously not designed to avoid implicating the Vatican as a religious body. It was designed to bring up that long-popular claim that Catholics are un-American. They have loyalty to, and take direction from, a foreign body. It is patently obvious that that was the intended significance of the phrase. It is an insult to all San Franciscans when the Vatican exercises its authority over those people who have freely given it their allegiance? The implication is obvious. Catholics cannot be San Franciscans. Papists not welcome here.