Anti-Gay SF Archbishop Puts 'Morality Clauses' in Employee Handbook

One of the most anti-gay conservative church official in the country's most liberal city strikes again.

San Francisco's Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who drew fire last year over his participation in the National Organization for Marriage's "March for Marriage," has once again found himself in the hot seat over new "morality clauses" in the handbook given to teachers at four of the archdiocese's high schools, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Citing the Church's position on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, artificial insemination, cloning, same-sex marriage, masturbation, fornication and pornography, the 2,000-word morality section in Cordileone's new school staff handbook calls on staff members - in both their professional and personal lives - to live up to the Church's teachings.

Additionally, Cordileone has proposed changes to the teachers' union contract specifying that they would "have a professional obligation not to act publicly to 'contradict, undermine or deny' the religious message that the school exists to proclaim and which they are hired to advance."

Many believe that Cordileone's move runs counter to Pope Francis' message to church officials to focus on helping others rather than obsess over divisive moral issues like homosexuality and birth control.

"The new 'moral clauses' proposed in the contract by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone stand in stark relief to the message of inclusion being promoted by Pope Francis," said Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, director of Latina/o and Catholic Initiatives for Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Religion and Faith Program. "In imposing what amounts to an anti-LGBT purity test, the archbishop is closing the door on dedicated professionals, many of them faithful Catholics, gay and straight, whose moral codes do not embrace discrimination."�

HRC is not alone in their criticism of Cordileone.

"He does not have his finger up to the ecclesial wind. He has not changed direction," Rev. James Bretzke, professor of moral theology at Boston College, told The San Francisco Chronicle. "This is not the style of Pope Francis, this is not the language of Pope Francis, and it is not the priority of Pope Francis."

In June 2014, Cordileone made headlines when California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and more than 70 leaders called on him not to participate in the National Organization for Marriage's "March for Marriage" which was co-sponsored by the SPLC designated anti-gay hate group Family Research Council. That march, which promised half a million participants, barely drew 2,000.

Cordileone, whose active campaign against same-sex marriage earned him the nickname "Godfather of Proposition 8" has been a lightning rod figure in the American Catholic Church since his appointment to the San Francisco archdiocese in 2012.