SUMMARY: The firing of a gay music director for refusing to abandon his partner of 10 years has left the largest Roman Catholic parish in the city of Rockford, Ill., bitterly divided.

The firing of a gay music director for refusing to abandon his partner of 10 years has left the Holy Family, the largest Roman Catholic parish in the industrial city of Rockford, Ill., bitterly divided, the Associated Press reported.

Bill Stein, who had been the church music director and organist for five years and who performed with the church choir for the pope in Austria and Italy, was fired on June 17 after he refused the church leaders' demand that he promise to lead a "chaste" life, implying that he should end his relationship with his partner, Manny Ahorrio.

Stein had always treated his relationship as something normal, neither flaunting nor hiding it among the church congregation, but his sexual orientation became cause for concern when some straight parents learned he was planning to adopt a child.

"I was fired based on church law. There was no mention of Gospel. There was no mention of what Jesus taught us: compassion, love, forgiveness and charity," the A.P. cited Stein as saying.

Patrick McArron, national president of Dignity USA, told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network from San Diego, "We abhor the firing of the music director." McArron, who leads the nation's largest GLBT Catholic group, said the danger arising out of such a firing was that it would continue to push the gay and lesbian people away from the church.

"It also continues to create an uncharitable conflict in the minds of many," McArron said.

He regretted that it was unlikely any other church would hire Stein, whose track record included doubling the choir's membership.

"If the bishops continue to follow the official position of the church, no pastor would be in a position to hire an openly gay person without risking his own job," McArron said.

Linda McCullough, associated director at New Ways Ministry, which serves GLBT Catholics, said the Catholic Church was not a monolith. "At any parish or any church you may find both progressive people who are supportive of the LGBT community and others who are not," she told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network.

She cited a document entitled "Always Our Children," issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that implored Catholics "to welcome homosexual persons into the faith community and seek out those on the margin and to avoid stereotyping and condemning."

Penny Wiegert, a spokeswoman for the Rockford Diocese, was unwilling to comment on personnel matters, but she explained to the A.P., "We are simply talking about what the Catholic Church and Catholic teachings expect of its leaders as well as the people in the pews."