Anne Rice: Catholic bishops’ efforts to stop gay marriage was a “last straw”
”I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw.”
”I certainly knew that the Catholic Church was not going to marry gay people, or accept gay clergy, or sanctify same-sex marriages. But that they would go into the secular culture to defeat same-sex marriage in Maine, or in California, that was something that I simply had not foreseen.”
”And when that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a person who grew up with the saying that ‘All that is needed for evil to prevail, is for good people to do nothing.’ And I believed that statement….”
”Well, Christopher wasn’t really instrumental in what I did — ever. I mean, Christopher is a very tolerant person, and he accepted my return to Chrisitianity, and really never argued with me or opposed me in any way on it. So, I can’t say that that played a role.”
Anne Rice, famed author of supernatural and Christian novels and mother of gay writer Christopher Rice. Here, she is elaborating for NPR about her declared move out of Christianity, or more specifically the Roman Catholic Church, which she had reembraced with much media fanfare about a decade ago. Rice says that her decision had nothing to do with her son, Christopher, being gay. She says she had written gay stories, had acquired gay fans and friends, and had lived in the Castro before Christopher was born and before he came out to her as being gay. She adds that she has finished all of her pessimistic, atheist work (found in bestselling books like the Vampire Chronicles), and that her upbeat belief in God remains strong, but she does not feel the same about organized religion. (NPR)
Anne Rice also appeared on the Joy Behar Show to repeat and elaborate on her reasons for breaking away from Christians while remaining close to Christ:
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