Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Again from the New York Daily News:
The head of the Catholic Church in Brooklyn offered a $5,000 bribe to an Albany politician in exchange for dropping her support for the reform of a state law preventing victims of child sexual abuse from seeking justice, the pol claimed Monday.
Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, who has for a decade advocated for an overhaul of the state’s statute of limitations on claims of child sexual abuse, said she turned down the unholy hush money from Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio in 2007.
“I’m not a billionaire, but I don’t need $5,000 to buy me off,” Markey told the Daily News. The offer came across as a payoff, not a campaign donation, she added.
Markey (D-Queens) said DiMarzio, who as head of the Brooklyn Diocese presides over 1.5 million Catholics, invited her into his chancery at the now-shuttered Bishop Ford High School on Prospect Park West in early 2007.
A nun was present when he offered the money, she recalled. Markey’s spokesman Michael Armstrong said that DiMarzio suggested to Markey that the money would go toward therapy for one of her family members who had been sexually abused as a child.
A spokesman for DiMarzio has denounced Markey’s claims as “patently false” and has demanded to know why she didn’t contact authorities at the time of the alleged bribe attempt. In 2008 DiMarzio ran robocalls against Markey’s reelection, telling voters that she “doesn’t have Catholic values.” Today Markey tells the Daily News that her Catholic values “don’t include raping children.” BOOM.
There’s also this:
In 2008, DiMarzio reportedly threatened lawmakers who supported Markey’s Child Victims Act, telling them he would close parishes in their districts — and say they were to blame. The diocese denied that threat was ever made.
RELATED: In 2011 Bishop DiMarzio called for banning pro-gay marriage lawmakers from attending Catholic churches or parochial school events.