Summary: When Jim Cox and Tom Aubrey got married yesterday, and embattled Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa officiated at the wedding, that smacking sound you heard was DeRosa’s open hand slapping the face of Cathedral City’s thousands of queer residents. While it might be gauche not to wish the newlyweds a long and happy wedded life together, or to rain on their parade, DeRosa’s participation in the ceremony was itself stupefyingly gauche, and merits being held up to critical analysis. Having opposed marriage equality on the basis of her Roman Catholic religion, DeRosa now needs to explain her light-speed, politically-motivated “evolution” on the issue. At the same time, should she ever desire to receive the grace of the Sacraments again, she might want to explain to her church why she apostasized and accepted a form of ordination from a so-called online ministry. At all events, her conduct was, in the words of Mayor pro tem. Chuck Vasquez, in poor taste. Unbelievably cynical, and clearly intended as part of her 2014 reelection bid, DeRosa’s conduct gives cynical politicians everywhere a bad name.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Yesterday, Jim Cox and Tom Aubrey of Cathedral City got married. That, in and of itself, comes as no surprise. Since the Ninth Circuit lifted its stay on same-sex marriages last Friday afternoon, queer couples have been lining up to get licensed and wed throughout California.
The identity of the officiant came to many in Cathedral City’s substantial queer community as a surprise, and an offensive one at that. The officiant was not an LGBT person, but rather Cathedral City’s embattled mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, whose publicly stated religiously-based opposition to marriage equality became an issue in last fall’s mayoral campaign.
It would be gauche not to wish the newlyweds all of the companionable joy that ought to be the incident of a truly happy marriage, and indeed one does wish them great joy. Nonetheless, DeRosa’s officiating the ceremony comes across as a bit of a slap in the face to Cathedral City’s queer community. It was stupefyingly gauche.
Indeed, as much as it might be gauche to rain on the newlyweds’ parade, it is emphatically not gauche to question the motives of the politician who officiated at the ceremony. The community may properly ask DeRosa a number of fairly serious questions she may be unable or unwilling to answer.
First, in the run-up to the fall, 2012 municipal election, DeRosa declared that “as a Catholic” she could not support marriage equality.
How can she now reconcile her astonishingly rapid volte-face with her earlier position?
While it took Barack Obama a number of years to “evolve” on the issue of same-sex marriage, even the President’s evolution has not gone so far as to have the President of the United States mugging for the cameras in the White House Rose Garden after solemnizing a same-sex marriage, turning what should be a solemn moment in the lives of the newlyweds into nothing more than an act of political theater.
Second, news reports indicate that DeRosa perform the ceremony after receiving some sort of ostensible “ordination” from a so-called online ministry. Has Ms. DeRosa --- who professed her Roman Catholic faith as justification for her prior opposition to marriage equality --- forgotten the plain blackletter of Canon 1364 of the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law? In pertinent part, Canon 1364 provides that “... an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latæ sententiæ excommunication;...”
Arguably, by accepting some kind of ostensible status as a “minister” from some “online ministry,” Kathleen Joan DeRosa has apostasized from the Roman Catholic Church, thus incurring that latæ sententiæ, automatic excommunication provided for in Canon 1364. As an open and notorious apostate, DeRosa will have a lot of explaining to do to her church, particularly if she finds herself repelled from the grace of the Sacraments.
Obviously, DeRosa’s faith sits very lightly upon her apostate shoulders, and means rather less to her then being able to exploit the advent of same-gender marriage for her own political purposes. It is no secret that DeRosa regularly seeks -- with disturbing success -- to bamboozle low information voters, particularly in Cathedral City’s substantial queer and Latino communities. Nonetheless, Scripture reminds us that it profits one nothing to gain the whole world, but lose one’s soul. (See, e.g., Matt. 16:26). Indeed, if it profits one nothing to gain the whole world, but lose one’s soul, what may we say if DeRosa gains only Cathedral City, but loses her own soul in the process?
Cathedral City Mayor pro tem. Chuck Vasquez was quite correct to characterize DeRosa’s actions as having been “in poor taste.” Not only were DeRosa’s actions in poor taste, but they also certainly telegraphed her intention to try to rebrand herself as some kind of friend of the queer nation as she seeks in 2014 to add two more to the nine bitter winters she has been mayor. If she succeeds, Cathedral City’s queer community will have only itself to blame for being so easily bamboozled by so blatantly cynical and opportunistic a political operator.
DeRosa should have had the basic decency to decline to officiate.
Unfortunately, she is nothing more than a political operator who gives political operators a bad name.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council. He remembers DeRosa’s narcissistic behavior and her routine taking of credit for the work of others. The views expressed herein are his own, and are not intended as legal advice.
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