Archdiocese Of San Francisco Responds To Flap About Anti-Gay Facebook Avatar

During last month's Supreme Court hearings on Prop 8 and DOMA, the Archdiocese of San Francisco changed their Facebook avatar to a division symbol with a scriptural reference beneath.   The avatar was later deleted along with hundreds of furious comments.  Yesterday the Archdiocese finally responded to media inquiries about the incident. Via San Francisco's KQED:

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has been outspoken in his opposition to same-sex marriage. So the archdiocese social media expert, Edison Tapalla, re-posted a couple of symbols playing on the "+" symbol. Those went over without huge criticism. But when he tried "÷," on March 26 he ignited a firestorm. Same-sex advocates posted about 320 comments in a tone so harsh that Tapalla took down the post a couple of days later. [snip] So what was all this meant to communicate? Tapalla said it was a comment on the sharp divisions around the issue of same-sex marriage. "It was more commenting on how people are separated," he said. "I wish that people could talk. I think we live in a world where mere disagreement is taken as hate. When you have such strong feelings on both sides, it's hard to come together and have a conversation."

A spokesman for the Archdiocese added: "We were slammed with some very ugly messages. It was obviously an organized attack. It's probably the same group that's been attacking us. They are very anti-Catholic and very bigoted." The Human Rights Campaign denies having responded to the incident. I wonder who could have sent all those angry commenters? (Tipped by JMG reader Don)