Taking a very brief break from painting the wall-ceiling seam (ugh)... jcoates, disagreeing with gay marriage does not constitute hate speech. Do you allow any space for disagreement on this issue or are all opponents hateful? What do you expect the Pope to do, abandon two centuries of church teaching on natural law (the difference and attraction between man and woman engraved in nature and given by God, that is the foundation of the church, family, and society) because a new generation of gay rights activists decides to push for the redefinition of marriage? (I'm old enough to remember when gay people scoffed at marriage and "breeders" and saw homosexual relationships as revolutionary and different.)
I assume when you call yourself a Catholic you mean you're a cultural rather than a believing Catholic? I had the impression you pretty much rejected Christianity, maybe I'm mistaken. But if I'm correct, then of course you're capable of anti-Catholic bias.
On another note: an orthodox temple on my street was firebombed today. : ( The news story said the rabbi (who lives there with his five children) had to put the fire out with his bare hands.) They don't know who did it yet.
First, let me also state that the firebombing at the temple is awful and wrong and I too am glad no major damage or injury came of it.
To address your specific questions, no I do not think disagreeing with gay marriage on its own constitutes hate speech. It may surprise you to read this, but a great many of my friends are conservatives as are their parents. Strong conservatives in fact. They are not shy about sharing their opinions with me and vice versa. We vigorously discuss our points of view and listen to each other That does not mean we end up agreeing, but at least we understand where the other is coming from. We eat in each other's homes, help each other bury relatives, attend baptisms and weddings, visit each other in hospitals, go to the movies and take trips together. All regardless of political ideology. As for gay marriage specifically, they do not support it by and large. But they also care about me and want to see me be happy as I do for them. As a result, they understand my position and hope I can achieve some measure of satisfaction with it. That does not mean they endorse it. But they are certainly not claiming that I am somehow to blame for high divorce rates, absent fathers or mothers, or the possible end of humanity itself.
Similarly I do think disagreeing with feminism establishes a person as being against the rights of women. However, that was not the point I made. If you re-read what I wrote I stated on multiple occasions that Rev. Court has every right to have and the state her point of view. But if she does choose to present that position in the public square, she should expect those who disagree to respond. Instead she and frankly you and Bluebonnet are choosing to drop into the public square, make your statement, retreat back to the sidelines and then to claim bias or bullying when the response to your position is counter to what you want to hear. While it may be self-satisfying to make strong one off statements about one's beliefs, that is only part of the process of freedom of speech. I and anyone else has the freedom to respond, to make a counter argument, to support it with facts and to use my argument to persuade the wider populace to come around to my side that is also taking part in the public square. That is the dynamic that shapes up when someone
chooses to express an opinion in public.
Still what is at the heart of things is that I took exception with
how Rev. Court
chose to express her point of view. I already knew she had it and had no problem with her having it given my prior knowledge of her history on the subject. Margaret is stubborn and old fashioned and not given to change. Margaret chose to act not in her capacity as a minister at her church by delivering a sermon to her congregation. She chose to write a public op-ed as a private citizen commenting on a major legislative issue from a religious perspective which was printed in a major newspaper in her country ad then recirculated around the work via press wires and the internet. She should have know the chances of its increased circulation would be high given that she is a massive sports icon in her own country and also in the wider international tennis world. Even so, that was not my issue. She's still entitled to her opinion. But what inflamed me and many other people was the words she chose to use to get her point across. Perhaps you did not read the article about her to which I linked above. So here is the text of her most inflammatory passages.
"They are not perfect, often dysfunctional and despite the fact the role models may be distorted and even severely flawed, there is no reason to put forward alternative, unhealthy, unnatural unions as some form of substitute," she said. "No amount of legislation or political point-scoring can ever take out of the human heart the knowledge that in the beginning God created them male and female and provided each with a unique sexual function to bring forth new life.
"To dismantle this sole definition of marriage and try to legitimise what God calls abominable sexual practices that include sodomy, reveals our ignorance as to the ills that come when society is forced to accept law that violates their very own God-given nature of what is right and what is wrong."
Plenty of other arguments worth discussing have been made without reducing the debate to accusations of sexual deviancy and subtle implications that gay people are somehow damaged or broken and in need of fixing. Those sorts of arguments carry great social weight and can lead to damaging results. We discussed this in great depth in the bullying thread. They reinforce stereotypical notions that gay people need fixing or are deliberately choosing to foul up normal life for everyone else.
As for the Pope, of course I expect him to hold to his beliefs, but even the church is capable of incremental change (given a wealth of information, e.g. the earth revolving around the sun) and certainly of compassion. After all the centuries long belief that the earth was the center of the universe was also based on natural law sprinkled with religious interpretation. As with Court, he can express is disapproval of the subject clearly without such apocalyptic language. Not all church leaders choose to express the institution's views in such harmful terms. Also religion has been used to justify many extinct practices not just from a social perspective, but also from a legal one: slavery, segregation, war, torture, persecution, discrimination, executions, etc. Today we reject those things because their harm is apparent.
As for your veiled accusation that I am anti-religious, you are quite mistaken. Things may be very black and white for you when putting people into categories but they are not for me. It is very easy for me to see how people can have contradictory positions on certain topics or to associate with people who are different from them. Am I an actively practicing Catholic? No. Does that mean I disrespect the faith of those who are? Also, no. I primarily hold that position today because I became disillusioned by the regular and vicious public pronouncements against gays from the altar and more importantly by the sex abuse scandals and subsequent cover ups including a priest our family knew well. The Archdiocese in DC did not have the most glowing reputation for compassion when I was growing up. Still, my mother is an active and practicing Catholic with longstanding involvement in the church. She was the funeral coordinator in her parish for more than a decade, taught in the elementary school, was a lector and served in the eucharistic ministry. We went to midnight mass together last month as a matter of fact. My grandmother was as active as a lay person could be, leading the eucharistic minisitry and prison ministry at church and holding bible study classes in her living room. She pressured Cardinal O'Boyle in the 40s to push for racial desegregation of Washington Catholic schools. Something he did before public school integration ever took place. My mother was the second black child in Washington to be integrated into parochial schools. She and my grandfather paid out of their own pockets to send not only my mother by four nieces and nephews and a neighbor's two children to DC Catholic schools and even college in some cases. My family scraped even more money together to send me to the same schools even though the tuition had gone up significantly. I am forever grateful for that effort and for the education I received. Once my grandmother retired she took me to my parochial school in the mornings during 2nd and 3rd grade. We left early enough to make it to early morning mass at the church before I went to my classroom. Those are some of the most special memories of my life. When she died after a 20 year battle with Parkinsons's (during which we took care of her by hand rather than putting her away), I planned her funeral mass because my mom was too brokenhearted. Back in the days when airfare and bus travel were less safe, my grandfather would drive car loads of my mother's former order of nuns to their various convents and schools up and down the east coast. Those same nuns remain faithful family friends to this day. They still ask me if I plan to become a priest when I grow up (despite being in my mid 30s). What I question is the judgement of the leadership at times, not the people who make up the body of the church. Does that sound like bias to you?
As for me, I too served the church for many years. I was a lector during high school and college. I attended college on a faith and community service based scholarship. I started a community service group on campus dedicated to tutoring poor school children from the local rural town. We also organized donation drives for the poor. I also planned and ran an annual retreat for students to discuss and fellowship around topics of faith in daily life during my senior year. I've chosen to continue to express the faith with which I was raised by standing up for equal, just and fair treatment of those around me. I see that as an extension of the social justice teachings which were passed on to me through nearly 20 years of Catholic education. My schools were diligent in communicating the church's point of view (you don't get more religiously dedicated than monks walking around all day in long black robes with hoods), but they also encouraged critical and independent thought. Science, reason and secular ideals were not necessarily exclusive from faith. I put what I learned into practice all the time, I just don't feel the need to declare that in a church or as part of a congregation. Just because my disagreement with you has become quite strong does not mean I am a monster or that I am biased against the faithful. I have simply chosen a different path that fits better with who I am.
