San Fran Mayor: "Arrivederci, Roma!"

Now this... this is interesting.

Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco -- you know him, some of you hate him -- has cancelled his plans to attend next week's public consistory at which The City's former shepherd will get his red hat in protest over Cardinal-designate William Levada's recent e.mail statement on adoptions by same-sex couples.

(On a side note, that Grand Inquisitor has really taken to e.mail like a fish to water.)

A practicing Roman Catholic, Newsom termed the policy divisive and wrong-headed.

"It's divisive. It's wrong-headed," Newsom stated.

"The idea, the principle that two loving parents of the same sex can't be great parents and that this church is now going to start attacking gay adoptions in this country and around the world was really disconcerting.

"I was just flabbergasted by a statement coming on the eve of this Ascension. I was just so disappointed."

San Francisco Catholic Charities place adoptions in LGBT homes and is concerned by Rome's aggressive teaching, Newsom pointed out.

"It's a cause of some serious concern in San Francisco through Catholic Charities which has placed a lot of children into really very, very loving homes and the notion that they should be precluded from doing that is beyond me....

"I'm coming to grips with my position on almost every big issue which the church says. It's not like it's some new alarming thing for me - obviously on gay marriage, on stem cells, on issues of choice.

"Obviously we have a difference on birth control so there are a lot areas on which we don't agree and I just thought that this is an unnecessary place for the church to go.

"Particularly when the church has demonstrated success in adopting a strategy where they helped, as conduits, through Catholic Charities of San Francisco alone established great foundations for future child development through adoptions by same sex partners.

Newsom suggested the Vatican should move beyond "stale and questionable documents."

"This is just corroding and divisive," Newsom told the Sentinel.

Word is he's freshly divorced, to boot.

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