War is being waged, and it isn’t overseas extremists, but rather
Roman Catholic bishops who perpetrate the assault, according to the
new head of a religious left group that fights for abortion on
demand.
“We can’t let religious bullies silence us,” argues Harry Knox,
the former head of the Episcopal Church’s LGBT caucus, and now the
new President of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
(RCRC), formerly the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. Knox
describes as “holy work” his efforts to counter a “war on women in
the name of religion,” a conflict “so vicious that it’s hurting all
of us.”
RCRC’s opponents, Knox assesses, want to “send women back to the
dark ages” and “strip women of fundamental human rights.”
“I’ve been called to lead a religious movement for reproductive
justice,” Knox summarized in a video introducing himself to RCRC
supporters, which counts 15 Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and
liberal Mainline Protestant caucuses and church agencies among its
affiliates.
Knox was announced as RCRC’s new head during the United
Methodist Church’s governing General Conference in April-May, where
a legislative committee, for the first time across 40 years, voted
to withdraw church agencies from RCRC. A legislative logjam
prevented the likely vote to quit RCRC, which United Methodist
agencies helped found in 1973 in the wake of Roe versus
Wade.
RCRC is best known for its past Chairman Katherine Ragsdale, an
Episcopal clergywoman who infamously led chants that “abortion is a
blessing” at a Birmingham abortion clinic. If Ragsdale was the
“high priestess of abortion,” as her detractors asserted, then Knox
is abortion’s gentle southern pastor, smiling and soothing that
abortion is always a moral option.
Knox has solid Religious Left credentials, but heading RCRC
completes a trifecta of same-sex marriage advocacy, Obama
Administration Faith-based Advisory Council membership, and now
opposing any restriction on abortion, including for the purposes of
gender-selection.
Knox can point to Georgia Equality, Freedom to Marry, and the
Religion and Faith Program of the homosexual advocacy group Human
Rights Campaign (HRC) among the groups he has helped lead. In the
latter position, Knox convened HRC’s bi-annual “clergy call” to
bring pro-LGBT pastors to Capitol Hill, where they lobbied in favor
of gay and transgender policy changes.
“My life’s work has been about equality,” Knox recently
explained, touting how he has gone up against “staunch opponents of
human rights in the United States Congress and the Catholic
hierarchy.”
Knox began his tenure this month, completing his work as Interim
Executive Director of Integrity USA, the unofficial LGBT caucus
within the Episcopal Church, which recently enacted a policy of
blessing same-sex unions.
As a pastor in the majority-gay Metropolitan Community Church
(MCC), Knox led a Houston-area MCC congregation, and is also a
former licensed United Methodist pastor.
After megachurch pastor Joel Osteen responded to prompting from
CNN’s Piers Morgan and revealed his belief that scripture regards
homosexual practices as sinful, Knox went on-air to challenge his
fellow Houston pastor.
“When people hear in church that God doesn’t love homosexuals,
it authorizes people who are hateful in their hearts or who are
fearful in their hearts to go our sometime and to commit violence
against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, particularly
young people,” Knox told a Houston TV reporter. That Osteen named
homosexual practices as “outside of God’s ideal” (and never said
anything about God not loving homosexual persons) did not prevent
Knox from seeking to smilingly tar-and-feather his fellow Houston
area pastor.
Roman Catholics have frequently been a target of Knox, who
claims the church sends a message that violence against homosexuals
is acceptable. Knox once referred to the Knights of Columbus as
“the foot soldiers in the discredited army of oppression.” In
February of 2010, Knox said the Pope’s position against condom
usage (lining up with a Harvard study that inconsistent condom use
increased HIV transmission in Africa) was “hurting people in the
name of Jesus.” Following the comments, leaders of Catholic groups
called upon President Obama to fire Knox from his faith advisory
council.
Abortion, however, is Knox’s new mainstay. While RCRC cites
programs having to do with sex education and contraception, the
group’s origins — and most of its activities — closely orbit a
fervent insistence that God wants abortion on demand.
“I believe that — as a matter of social justice — religious
people should support the rights of women to make decisions about
bearing children, including about abortion and birth control,” Knox
wrote in the Huffington Post this May. “In my view, it is
sinful to turn away from women who are struggling to make the best
decision for themselves, their families and perhaps their future
children. There is nothing holy about silence in the face of human
struggle and there is certainly nothing religious about shaming a
woman who has an abortion.”
Recently Knox implored: “I ask for your prayers and the prayers
of all who care about women’s health.” He can be assured that many
of his opponents are among those most fervently praying for
him.
