Image from ChurchOuting.org

If the Archdiocese of Washington thought it was under pressure as a consequence of its strong stance during the D.C. same-sex marriage debate, it may have something else coming.

Over the weekend local gay rights activist Phill Attey launched ChurchOuting.org, a website devoted less to religious field trips as the name might imply and more to collecting information on closeted gay Catholic priests who have spoken out against same-sex marriage — and possibly out them.

The website argues that the Catholic Church has inflicted emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse on generations of LGBT youth who have been told that they should be “ashamed of who they are and that they should lead loveless lives as social and religious abominations.” This abuse, it states, “is being supported by men, who are gay themselves, leading closeted lives of self-persecution and quiet desperation. Even more shameful, is that many of these priests, while remaining silent, actually lead duplicitous lives rich with romantic and sexual relationships — both homosexual and heterosexual. This hypocrisy must end.”

While this seems to imply that Attey is looking to out allegedly gay priests, he said in an interview with the D.C. Agenda that it isn’t just for revenge, but rather to help them. “The goal of this campaign is not to hurt any of these Catholic priests. The goal of this campaign is to create an environment where priests will be able to come out safely to their parishes.” And if priests don’t want to come out? Attey doesn’t say, but he doesn’t rule out forcefully outing them himself.

Controversial as this tactic might be, it’s not new — local blogger Michael Rogers has long attracted attention for outing gay politicians. Some gay activists have expressed concerns with the practice, while the Archdiocese responded simply by asking that any information about priests be relayed directly to the Church. “If anyone has a concern about whether a priest is violating their ministry in any way, we would encourage them to let the archdiocese know rather than some Web site. We will follow through and investigate. It’s too easy on the Internet to gossip and violate someone’s good name on rumors,” said spokeswoman Susan Gibbs in the Post.

Since I’m still torn on whether this is a good idea, I’ll leave it to the wisdom of the commentariat. Is this justified political activism, or simply vicious personal attacks? Is this likely to put more pressure on the Church from within or only harden its resolve that the gay rights movement seeks to attack “traditional” society?