With Ms. Amy Johnson (Jan. 25 issue), I also decry the violence, bullying and discrimination done against those who have a homosexual orientation. We are all God’s children and loved by God.

However, Johnson quotes Pope Francis out of context to support her call to protest church teaching. Journalists asked the pope about a gay man who was working at the Vatican. Francis responded: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” The context of his remark was concern that gay people should not be marginalized, saying “they must be integrated into society.”

He went on to say: “The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem.”

The problem is not whether Mark Zmuda was fired or resigned from Eastside Catholic High School due to his same sex civil marriage.

The worst problem is the encouragement (possibly manipulation) of students and others to become lobbyists who want the church to be false to its own values and adopt the standards of the culture – the very thing the Pope decries.

We need dialogue and discussion. Washington state now defines marriage as a committed adult relationship with the focus on personal fulfillment. The Catholic Church understands marriage as an institution that unites a man and a woman with each other and with any children born from that union. Everyone – gay, straight or in between – deserves to love and be loved. However, children have fundamental rights as well to have a mother and a father.

When the president is inaugurated, he or she swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. A Catholic school teacher promises to uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church by word and example.

This is not unusual for any institution. It should be unsurprising that Mr. Zmuda’s employment would end when, by his example, he teaches the state’s, not the church’s understanding of marriage.

I hope dialogue, and not misquoting, name-calling or unfounded accusations, will continue as to the rights of all people.

William McKee, pastor