Another appalling action
In a recent post, I faulted the Catholic Church for an “instruction” which would bar even celibate men from the priesthood. Well, the Catholic Church isn’t the only Christian group excluding someone because of something they can’t control. Dirty Harry reports that a Christian school in Ontario, California is expelling a girl because her parents are lesbians. Anyway, I agree with Dirty Harry’s point that this is “indefensible,” so read his post!
UPDATE–The Anchoress offers a perspective on the Catholic Church’s proposed policy which, I believe, anyone who wants to talk (or blog) about this issue must read. In my initial post, on the Catholic Church’s policy, I updated it to link this post and now she has another where she writes:
My own gut feeling: Rome will not ban gay priests – but the men who DO enter our seminaries-both gay and straight – are going to really, really have to convince that they put their faith and their vows before their inclinations. In other words…they’re going to have to win back the trust of a church and a people grievously harmed. The church will not be able to withstand a second round of scandal or another lavender mafia, moving predator priests from one job to another. And if that means a little bit of difficulty and suffering while we work this all out, I would hope our gay priests would be men enough to deal with it.
Now, please read both posts, here and here.
UP-UPDATE: PrismWarden weighs in here and offers some recollections of experiences with gay seminarians.
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Damn!
That sure is an empty lead-in. 😀
GoParrot
Comment by GOParrot — September 23, 2005 @ 9:14 pm - September 23, 2005
Guess, I’m too tired today to think of titillating titles.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 23, 2005 @ 9:32 pm - September 23, 2005
The Catholic Church is in a damned if they do/don’t situation. If they allow gay men to enter seminaries and altar boys are molested (face it, they will be), there will be all sorts of lawsuits alleging that the church did not do everything it could (i.e., exclude gays from seminaries). The “easier” way is for the Church to put a ban in place in order to not make the trial lawyers wealthy. The gay guys can’t sue to get into the priesthood. The reality is that the expression that you’re “doing it for the children” is the paramount war cry that trumps all others.
Comment by JT — September 23, 2005 @ 11:37 pm - September 23, 2005
Wasn’t it the Boy Scout decision that gave people the right to discriminate against us on religious grounds?
Comment by chandler in hollywood — September 24, 2005 @ 12:02 am - September 24, 2005
That’s so disgusting. Expelling a teenage girl for the ‘sin’ of having two moms? I can’t even imagine what the school could have been thinking.
Comment by Dina Felice — September 24, 2005 @ 12:31 am - September 24, 2005
I’ll just point out that the catholic church is a ridiculous institution on the whole anyway…I mean, c’mon, you’d think after 2000 years of ‘practicing’ their faith, EVENTUALLY they’d get it right!
Comment by Froyd — September 24, 2005 @ 12:40 am - September 24, 2005
“…you’d think after 2000 years of ‘practicing’ their faith, EVENTUALLY they’d get it right!”
Hehe. 😉
Ayhow, I don’t think that the Boy Scout decision *gave* anyone the right to discriminate. That’s not how the law works. It doesn’t give rights, it confirms rights according to the Constitution. The thing about the Boy Scouts was deciding if the existing rights of freedom of religion applied or not.
Just as freedom of speech gives people the right to be offensive jerks and otherwise be publically and loudly ignorant about anything they please (with very few limitations and those have to pass strict tests concerning public safety), freedom of religion isn’t possible unless religions are… free. Other than limitations concerning public safety… sacrificing babies is right out… we need to err on the side of freedom of religion.
Strict adherence to the principle of placing the right to freedom of religion above anything other than extreme public interest is why I can homeschool my children today without being thrown in jail. A few very brave families claimed a religious conviction that required them to homeschool and at that point it was up to the State to prove that 1. They had a compelling public interest and 2. That compelling interest could not be met in another way. Because of those religious fanatics who pushed the issue, the same freedoms are available to secular homeschoolers.
Yes, freedom of religion means that stupid preachers are going to be able to teach stupid things, but that is a small price to pay, considering the alternative.
Comment by Synova — September 24, 2005 @ 1:04 am - September 24, 2005
I should add… it’s like the assumption of innocence in criminal court, religious conviction is a gimme. The burden of proof falls on the state and not on the person making the claim.
Comment by Synova — September 24, 2005 @ 1:07 am - September 24, 2005
#3 – The Catholic Church now allows altar girls as well. At least, I think they do. I’ve been to three funerals this year, and each time there was one altar boy and one altar girl.
By banning celibate gay priests, they’re basically saying homosexuality is intrinsically disordered with a predilection towards pedophilia not present in heterosexual orientation.
Which is pretty loathsome.
Comment by Robbie — September 24, 2005 @ 2:36 am - September 24, 2005
So, riddle me this. A Jewish couple, married, send their son to a Conservative Jewish school. But the couple are unconventional Jews and along with worshipping the God of Israel, they also worship his consort, the Goddess Asherah. In Jewish terms, they are polytheists and idolators. So here’s a Conservative Jewish community, committed to Torah, with a child in their school whose home life violates their basic values. This is not a mall or a business. It’s a school for a specific community. If you keep children in the school whose home life consciously and structurally violates what the community is about, how do you handle that? Make believe it’s not happening? Then why not have the children of polygamists or Christians? How long will your community last? What happened to freedom of association? I feel sorry for the kid, but what were her parents thinking?
Comment by EssEm — September 24, 2005 @ 1:22 pm - September 24, 2005
#9 – Most of the molestation involves boys and not girls, and there is plenty of access to females regardless of whether they are allowed to assist with comunion.
Regardless, the archdioceses have been able to settle most of these cases out of Court. Sooner or later, one of these are going to head to a jury. The jurors will factor in the surplusage of boys vs. girls in the molestation figures and ask what the Church has done to address the problem. This is one more thing that can be used to insulate from liability and also use to lower settlement numbers.
The calculation here is purely financial and, regardless of how you feel about the Church’s position, you can’t argue about the institution taking all lawful measures to protect itself from lawsuits.
Comment by JT — September 24, 2005 @ 2:06 pm - September 24, 2005
#7
I’m sorry, it CONFIRMED their rights to discriminate against us.
Comment by chandler in hollywood — September 24, 2005 @ 2:14 pm - September 24, 2005
They’re a religious organization. They can discriminate any way they like.
It’s called freedom of association.
Comment by rightwingprof — September 24, 2005 @ 4:48 pm - September 24, 2005
JT, check on the Anchoress’ post on this topic. She comes to a conclusion not much different from your own.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 24, 2005 @ 5:17 pm - September 24, 2005
Indefensible? Its a private religious institution. As a conservative, you should support their stance — just as GayPatriot supported the Boy Scouts. Its the same thing.
You know, its funny. You defend Arnold Schwarzenegger from his veto of a religious freedom bill, and you attack religious freedom here.
Comment by Gregg — September 24, 2005 @ 5:51 pm - September 24, 2005
I am sorry but i can’t undersand why would anybody want to be part of any religious institution that has never been too shy about expressing their disaproval of homosexuality. People know the rules going in and when the church in question decides to assert them, the wounded party screams prejudice.
Come on, they are all types of churches to accomodate all types of beliefs. Some are gay friendly and some are not. Nobody forced those mothers to send their kid to a fundie school anymore than any body forced gay men to join the Catholic Church. A little common sense goes a long way.
Comment by republichick — September 24, 2005 @ 6:22 pm - September 24, 2005
The “rules”? Oh…now it’s a club, is it? 🙂
I thought it was tenets of faith. Silly me.
Quote republichick:
I am sorry but i can’t undersand why would anybody want to be part of any religious institution that has never been too shy about expressing their disaproval of homosexuality.
_____________________________
Please replace “religious institution” with “political party” and ask again.
Comment by GOParrot — September 24, 2005 @ 6:43 pm - September 24, 2005
Hey, Gregg, glad you’re here. joe and I are still waiting for your evidence of Jonah Goldberg’s “personal homophobia.”
Comment by V the K — September 24, 2005 @ 7:44 pm - September 24, 2005
Gregg,
I do not think GPW was attacking thier religious freedom. He was attacking their decision, not the right to make it. Just as this institution has the freedom to do this (I am reluctant to call it a church), Dan has the freedom to call their actions appalling.
I have that freedom too … and I do call their actions unexcussable and detrimental to the faith as a whole. But I understand this institution has the right to be bone-heads, and eventually will have to answer for it on the last day.
Comment by Wendy — September 24, 2005 @ 8:56 pm - September 24, 2005
This action by the Catholic Church is only somewhat more reprehensible than their long, consistent pattern of anti-gay bigotry. And can we call it that here without arousing the typical condemnation of Gay Patriots of any spotting of bigotry related to gay issues? i.e., do we all finally agree on something?
Assuming we do, let’s deal with a much more interesting and ultimately far more impactful discussion going on in a lower thread (“Getting Gay Marriage The Old Fashioned Way – Earning It”), where one ardent Gay Patriot has revealed himself to be, not a homosexual — but a bi-sexual simply making a choice at this time to be homosexual — which implies what the bigots have always said openly, that it being a choice, any human rights accruing to homosexuals must be “special rights” granted to a single group — i.e., bad policy. For the time being, this particular Gay Patriot has chosen to be a homosexual and is rightly very proud of who he calls his current “husband”. What’s interesting about the conversation is that it sheds more light than I’ve seen in my two weeks here on at least one person proudly wearing the sash “Gay Patriot”, while also criticizing virtually every initiative of gay leadership in this country. What do we have here? A partisan operation designed to make Gay Americans feel they’re asking asking for too much, too soon?
Queer Patriot has seen much more skillful subversion in his day and is therefore a bit skeptical of what he’s reading here from the Gay Patriots.
Remember, the thread is: “Getting Gay Marriage The Old Fashioned Way – Earning It”. Thanks plenty to the site masters for having introduced the subject matter.
Comment by Queer Patriot — September 24, 2005 @ 10:03 pm - September 24, 2005
As I’ve been told here several times, it’s vital to provide a link to anything of possible interest to others, so here’s the link to the thread below in which we find a prominent Gay Patriot coming out as not a “gay” Patriot, but a “bi-sexual, really, just-gay-by-choice” Patriot.
Here’s the start of that most interesting reveal:
http://gaypatriot.net/?comments_popup=583#comment-4705
Comment by Queer Patriot — September 24, 2005 @ 10:16 pm - September 24, 2005
Old Andrianna Sullington (thank V the K for that moniker) has tits in a tangle about the Catholic Church so I’m tired of hearing about it. I was a Catholic and lived in a monastery for 2 years before realizing that it was not for me. (I recently went to Mass for the first time in 40 years and realized it was just as boring as it always was – and yes, they do have altar girls nowadays.)
There are plenty of gay-friendly churches. Why join one that is not? Why send your kids to some bible-thumping bigot school? As several commenters have written – they’re private clubs. Don’t join them if they don’t suit you.
BTW is Synova the same as “syn?” I just love reading syn’s comments.
Comment by PatC — September 24, 2005 @ 10:20 pm - September 24, 2005
Ah, no. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever shortened it to syn.
Comment by Synova — September 24, 2005 @ 11:33 pm - September 24, 2005
Gregg, I do favor religious freedom, but I also favor freedom of speech. The Catholic Church has every right to set their own policies, just as that school has the right to expel that student. And I have the right to say I think they’re wrong.
And even while I say they’re wrong, I oppose any (and all) legislation which would punish these institutions for (what I claim are) indefensible actions. That’s what freedom’s all about; letting the institutions be free to set their own policies without state coercion. And letting bloggers like Dirty Harry and me criticize them for it.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 25, 2005 @ 1:14 am - September 25, 2005
Queer Patriot,
Maybe I am not as blog savvy as you, but why are you advertising another thread that seems (at least by my observation) to have almost no relavance to this thread ? The thread you reference is still shown on the main page, so people interested can still go to it.
Are you looking to get create discussion in this thread’s topic, or create interest in yourself ? Of course I realize that by responding I am fulfilling the latter, but I think I am on to something here.
Comment by Wendy — September 25, 2005 @ 9:57 am - September 25, 2005
#24
Absolutely GPW. Just because I’d fight to the death for their right to control who attends their private school doesn’t mean I approve of their actions and that I should refrain from critizing them.
And to me, this seems so much worse than the banning of gay priests (as if that isn’t bad enough). Priests are representatives of the church, students are just kids.
Comment by Dina Felice — September 25, 2005 @ 10:51 am - September 25, 2005
#23 Thanks Synova. I enjoy your comments too.
Comment by PatC — September 25, 2005 @ 11:00 am - September 25, 2005
In the Name of Sex, Booze, and Celibacy
The fact of the matter is, there is a subculture within seminaries full of gay men who are not celibate. Furthermore, the pederasty incidents are overwhelming male-to-male in nature. To attempt to separate the two seems irresponsible at best. People …
Trackback by Prism Warden — September 25, 2005 @ 11:13 am - September 25, 2005
Wendy, a good question and seemingly an honest one. The answer is this: “Getting Gay Marriage The Old Fashioned Way – Earning It” is one of the richest threads some of us have ever seen at Gay Patriot. It included a discussion of the marriage issue that GayPatriotWest and others of us were applauding for its clarity and exceptional argument. Then it suddenly veered into an equally rich area (the nature-nuture debate) when one of our most notable Gay Patriots revealed that he is not really gay, but a bi-sexual who has chosen to be gay for the love of his husband — which went a long way toward explaining some anti-gay remarks that person made here recently. Gay marriage is a paramount issue among gay people, and the motivations of the pro and con sides of it are of interest to all of us. I simply did not want Gay Patriots to miss the opportunity to learn more about the two sides by doing what we’re all inclined to do at these blogs; that is, to forget about lower threads. The current topic was the lead post at the time and the subject matter being one none of us can affect (the anti-gay bigotry of the Catholic Church), I thought it the best place to remind others of the more salient and richer discussion in “Getting Gay Marriage The Old Fashioned Way – Earning It”.
Comment by Queer Patriot — September 25, 2005 @ 11:19 am - September 25, 2005
Quote from GOPParrot
“Please replace “religious institution” with “political party” and ask again.”
see parrot the thing is, that only the lefties try to peddle their sexual or personal preferences for political purposes, much like the race pimps try to do. The beauty of being a conservative is that you want and expect to be treated as an individual and not part of a movement or specific group. I mean they are so many groups for me to choose. Female, lesbian, hispanic, disable etc….I’d rather stick to conservative principles of freedom, less goverment and less taxes. These things benefits us all in spite of our particular sub category.
As far as churches having rules….well they do so join the one that agrees with your particular vision of God and the after life. Or better yet don’t join one at all. It’s your choice and one of the many perks of living in America. 🙂
Comment by republichick — September 25, 2005 @ 1:26 pm - September 25, 2005
GPW – Point taiken.
Now:
“I am sorry but i can’t undersand why would anybody want to be part of any religious institution that has never been too shy about expressing their disaproval of homosexuality.” – Republichick
Hmm, kind of like the Republican Party? I’m sure their arguments for why any gay person would be involved in either institution. 😉 Ask GP.
Comment by Gregg — September 26, 2005 @ 9:43 am - September 26, 2005
I never was (really) religious – tho raised catholic and 5 yrs of catholic school….but since Bush and his cronies (his Base – the Haves, the Have Mores and the Relious Nutjobs fundies) have forever turned me off to any kind of religion – I will continue to live by the rules that have guied me 1) Treat others as you yourself wish to be treated 2) Try to be generous where you can afford to be…..Organized religion has become a major disappointment in every aspect of life that I see.!!!!
Comment by JRC — September 26, 2005 @ 12:39 pm - September 26, 2005
Hey republichick Get a clue – Im still laughing! Republicans Please replace “religious institution” with “political party” and ask again.” NOTHING BUT HYPOCRITS!
see parrot the thing is, that only the lefties try to peddle their sexual or personal preferences for political purposes, EXCUSE ME??? IS BEING STRAIGHT YOUR PREFERENCE?? ARE YOU TREATED UN-EQUALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE STRAIGHT??? ARE YOU DEPRIVED OF MARRIAGE, RIGHTS THAT COME WITH MARRIAGE, EQUAL EMPLOYMENT, HOUSING, BECAUSE YOU ARE STRAIGHT? The beauty? THESE DAYS ITS UGLINESS of being a conservative is that you want and expect to be treated as an individual and not part of a movement ( RELIGIOUS NUTJOBS TRYING TO TELL EVERYONE ELSE HOW TO LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY!) I mean they are so many groups for me to choose. Female, lesbian, hispanic, disable etc….I’d rather stick to conservative principles of freedom? FOR ALL – UNLESS YOU ARE GAY… less goverment? THATS A JOKE AND A HALF! and less taxes…FOR THE RICH! These things benefits us all ( DO THEY NOW–HOW???) in spite of our particular sub category.
As far as churches having rules….well they do so join the one that agrees with your particular vision of God and the after life. Or better yet don’t join one at all. It’s your choice and one of the many perks of living in America. – THEY CAN STAY THE HELL OUT OF POLITICS OR BE TAXED!
Comment by JRC — September 26, 2005 @ 12:46 pm - September 26, 2005
I thought you might be interested with my brief, but actual experience with Ontario Christian School.
It was almost 20 years ago, but they were the same then as now.
Comment by Darleen — September 27, 2005 @ 2:58 am - September 27, 2005