Comments

1
Punish the kids! That will teach those damn lesbians!
2
Why send them to Catholic School in the first place? I wouldn't feel very safe sending them there...
3
I really don't get it. The only way their son can be taught compassion and empathy is at a Catholic school that doesn't recognize his parents relationship? Why do people keep putting themselves and their kids in these situations?
4
The Church hasn't been accepting of my kid either (e.g. no church faith formation coordinators have returned messages inquiring about registration), and I'm a mostly straight, confirmed and married Catholic. I fail to see how this behaviour is congruent with growing the laity.
5
I have pretty much the same response to these stories as I do about the ones regarding gays in the military: Why would you want to be part of an organization that doesn't want anything to do with you? Fuck 'em.
6
@5 Indeed & agreed, 5280. Just keep diggin' Catholic Church.
7
what fucking lesbians send their kids to catholic shool
8
Perhaps, they are more interested in making a point, then actually welcoming a lamb into the fold. They are known for selective attention to only the arguments and Scriptures that support their beliefs, which one could argue leads to a level of "moral numbness". So, they're shooting themselves in the foot and it is their right to do so. And, when they lament that the church is no longer viewed as relevant, honest, or healthy and is dying, that the flock is shrinking in North America, then we all can look on them with pity. The consequences of our actions can be tough to accept.
9
We'll be more than happy to rape your kids but not if you're gay.
10
Hopefully this experience will imprint on the kid a healthy sense of disrespect for the Catholic church. It's good to learn these sorts of things while you're still young.
11

Why would they WANT their kid to go to Catholic School?
12
Weird as it sounds, at least the church is being true its beliefs for a change.

They should get credit for being honest.

That feels contorted to write that...

I hate religion anymore.
13
@ 7 - Well, it sort of depends on what public schools are like in the parents' district. Catholic schools tend to be more affordable than other private schools, so if the local public school isn't very good, it's perfectly reasonable for a parent to want to send their kid to the nearest Catholic school.

@5 - Similar issue. Sure, I'm more than happy to have nothing to do with the US military - I have no desire to get a limb blown off in Iraq or Afghanistan, really - but there are many people out there for whom the military offers their best shot at an upward social/economic/educational trajectory, whose lives would be made a lot easier by DADT's repeal. (And I know you know this - I imagine your comment was for rhetorical value more than anything else - but it bears repeating.)
14
The church really needs to fire its PR guy. Who is that again? oh right...

@7 @11,
In a lot of areas, the local catholic schools can be significantly better than the public school. That said it's pretty hit or miss; I went to catholic gradeschool and highschool and the former was piss-poor. The highschool was amazing, but it was Jesuit and they're pretty liberal (we had a group for gay students that wasn't about praying it away or how they were evil but dealing with growing up different and hearing other perspectives/stories)
15
But of course! The Catholic Church being a veritable paradigm of sexual morality and chastity (some would say they are dripping, nay-spooging with it)- so why would they pollute themselves by allowing a child with a couple of Lezbo’s for parents into their sacred hallowed halls? After all, being Christ’s infallible representation on earth they have an image to uphold! Clearly the standard they cleave to for everyone else could never be less high than the one they hold for themselves!

Glory, glory how-he-blew-ya! Amen...
16
@12, the church is being selectively true to its beliefs. If it were consistent, it would also ban children of divorced parents, children of parents who've had an abortion, who use the pill, who cheat on each other, who are not Catholic, etc, etc, etc.

But they don't. Kids of all those parents are perfectly acceptable. It is only the kids of gay parents who are rejected.

And that's fucked up.
17
The word mindfuck come to mind when I read about Catholic marriage: http://www.archatl.com/offices/tribunal/…

I know some people say that the Catholic Church is more than just the current scandal or more than its homophobia. I call bullshit on that.
Why would any self respecting lesbain want to associate with that institution? Their policies and crimes do reflect what the Church is all about. I happen to not believe in an invisible all powerful being in the sky, but if you do why not at least find a church that accepts you? Yes it is stupid for that school to reject their child, but it also not that smart to want to subject your child to the abusive attitudes that defines the Catholic Church.
18
Stop sending your kids to Catholic school! Lesbian or not, it perverts their minds. The school did the kid a favor.
19
@16 - You are right on. That kind of hypocracy is the biggest reason I left.

When I taught in a Catholic school, though, we had a clause in our contract that said that not only would we not "engage in any behaviors that are inconsistent with church teaching," but that we were to turn in any other church employees who we knew were doing so. When a friend who taught music in a Catholic school and was director of liturgy at a Catholic church came out to me when I caught him in a lie, he was convinced his career was over. I assured him that I wouldn't turn him in, because I thought the clause itself was immoral. Sadly, although he no longer works directly for the church, he is still mostly closeted because he does do a lot of gigs with Catholic churches, and he doesn't want to risk that extra income. And he is still devoutly and actively Catholic. That's the part I don't understand.
20
@16 True.

Selectivity and inconsistency are part of the deal and that's what I mean.

I am still tired of the whole lot of them -- religionists, I mean. (Sorry Kim et al.)

Hypocrisy seems built in.
21
@ 14 - Yeah, Jesuit schools tend to have a pretty dramatically different culture from straight-up Catholic schools. I know it's different at the university level, but just comparing Georgetown to Catholic University - which are only a few miles away from each other - speaks volumes.
22
Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the public schools suck so badly because everyone who gives a shit about their kids' education sends them to private schools? If those parents put their kids in public schools instead, and got involved in working to make the public schools as good as they can be, this might not be as much of a problem. As it is, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
23
Can gay people stop giving money to Catholics plz.
24
It really does freak me out. Just doesn't make sense. I guarantee you, back when I was a sprout, every Catholic school of any size had more than one JEWISH kid. (Because Catholic schools are often the best schools in the area and South Carolina with its fine tradition of Public Education is mostly for people darker than the Jews)

And this is like way back before, almost fifteen years before, JP the II started cracking down on the whole Christ-killing BS.

In the strict monotheistic model, everything is a sin. There are so fucking many fucking sins that even the best of us are faced with the choice of sinning if you do, but sinning if you don't, but God loves and forgives us all, so that's all okay.

I mean, specific to fucking sins, assuming fucking people of your same gender is in fucking fact a fucking sin, if you're gay, you're faced with the fucking sin of ass-fucking-piracy, or the non-fucking fucking sin of bearing-false-fucking witness. So you do the best you can, God loves you, and it's all good.

But NOOOOOOoooOOOO! For some reason, teh gay is some SPECIAL sort of fucking sin, that you have to choose the sin of bearing false fucking witness or else!

It really truly just does not make sense.

Just like the so-called non-deophagistic-miracle of transubstantiation.
25
What @13 said. In many places the Catholic schools have the best balance of educational quality vs. cost, and also there are Catholic schools and even entire dioceses that quietly ignore pretty large portions of official doctrine. Not only are there liberal Catholics, there are liberal Catholic schools that would never dream of teaching homophobia to children. In the previous case with Colorado it was actually the church higher-ups that forced the girl out over the opinions of the very irate school staff that wanted to let her stay.

Now personally I would look for any other viable option that didn't involve giving money to the Church, but if push came to shove and it was the only option for a decent education of my kid, I'd do it. Of course I'd buy plenty of "priest off" first (Youtube it).
26
Hartiepie,

No worries. I'm tired of them as well.
27
@22 - You are right on that account. Here in South Louisiana, especially in Baton Rouge, the public schools are horrible, partially because education is one of only two places where the legislature can cut the budget (the other is healthcare), and partially because...well...it is the deep south. Everyone who can afford it sends their kids to private school, mostly to Catholic schools. Not coincidentally, those are also the people who have enough power, influence, and money to make a difference for public education, but they don't really care what happens to the public schools because it doesn't affect their kids. And they really don't care now because this state gives parents who send their kids to private school a tax credit. You want to talk about lack of justice?
28
@19 and others: Believe me, I am no apologist for the Catholic church, but the funny thing is that at the very bedrock of church beliefs is the idea that, ultimately, one's own conscience must take precedence over all the pronouncements of the clergy (who might, after all, be the devil in disguise). Here's a pretty concise summation from a Frontline overview:
...Yet, while a person can be excommunicated for talking about women's ordination, a gay or lesbian person can remain a faithful Catholic and have a homosexual relationship. This is because the Catholic Church teaches the primacy of conscience. As it says in a recent Dignity press release: "The Church teaches right and wrong, but never says who is a sinner. Only God knows our hearts. Many homosexual people simply cannot believe gay sex as such is wrong. So they do what for them is 'the best they can do,' though Church teaching says that homogenital acts are wrong. Still, according to the same Church's teaching on conscience, they do not sin in their hearts nor before God. Then they need not confess what is not sin, and they may participate in the Sacraments of the Church..."
It's kind of like Heather @17's annulment link in that the verbal/mental contortions are unbelievable, but the primacy-of-conscience thing does seem to be pretty well suppressed by the church as far as public acknowledgements or mention in print.
29
Shorter @28, courtesy of Debbie Boone (snerk):

"It can't be wrong, when it feels soooo right..."
30
Motherfuckers. The whole thing is unBiblical, anyway. Show me anywhere, one single solitary passage, in the Bible, that condemns sex between women.

As a child reared Catholic by closeted lesbians, this story makes me want to spit nails.
31
What the hell is up with gay parents wanting to send their children to superstition(catholic) schools?!

Why would you want to legitimize nonsensical superstition by sending your kids to schools named after a superstition brand.

This is getting bizarre....being irrational in a jew-nazi sense of the word.
32
@30 agreed- however, the bible does mention something about women cross-dressers and them needing to be executed or something of the like...

Funny anecdote: When Queen Victoria was presented with a Bill that outlawed all variations of Homo$exuality- In her mind Lesbianism did not exist so all references to girl on girl $ex was removed from the Bill before it was made into law. So in effect It was legal to be a dyke in 19th C England but against the law to be a poofter....
33
Funny yes - but not even remotely true.

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/…

34
Geni@ 30,

This is the only one I hear referenced with regard to women.

Romans 1:26-27: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence [sic] of their error which was meet." (King James Version)

I understand from my reading that these verses are contentious amongst scholars, because in ancient Greek it reads as referencing condemnation of a form of Pagan religious worship that was practiced by heterosexuals. You are aware that there are some Christians who believe the Bible to be both literal and factual, so, to them Romans 1: 26-27 condemns sex between women.

By the way, I don't believe that is what it says. I'm a fan of the Greek, then again I don't tend to see the Bible as either literal or factual, but as a human response to God and a communities way of defining itself. Hence, there are agendas written in.
35
This is how they taught the Germans to hate and look where that got them. Death camps!
36
@33 Mybad- something I remember reading in High School.

Actually the truth is funnier than the myth:
Some historians suggest that the male establishment avoided legislating on lesbianism, for fear of drawing women’s attention to its existence...

37
Just for the sake of repetition: Why in the hell do these ladies want to send their kid to Catholic school in the first place?

I say this is a blessing in disguise. Didn't Dan post a story last week about a girl being harassed by her teacher because of her two moms? This sort of rejection is probably sparing this little boy a world of pain.
38
Hmm well speaking of the Bible and lesbians I always thought this was one of the better passages:
“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” (Ruth 1:16-17)

Ruth makes that beautiful pledge to Naomi. I'm a straight girl, and I can only hope to find a guy some day that feels that way about me.
39
@ 37,

Sheesh, you're right! It's just like that couple in Rio Rancho, New Mexico who sent their daughter back to school because she'd face bigots all her life and should develop a thicker skin. Sorry, ladies but that's shitty parenting. Your kid will experience bigotry, discrimination, and gay-bashing as an adult. Their childhood should be safe and peaceful.
40
@ 22 - Of course that's occurred to me, which is why I'm generally not in favor of voucher programs. I was lucky enough to grow up in an area with good public schools, so I know how important a robust public education system is. But even under the very best circumstances, improving public schools takes more than just throwing money at the problem - it takes time. If your kid is starting school in a month, well, as a parent, you might not be willing to sacrifice a couple of years of your kid's education in the name of the admittedly laudable goal of improving public schools. And that's putting aside the whole collective-action problem, which is a huge issue here.

But you're right - that situation does disincentivize improving the public school system. So, we have a bit of a quandary. I think that's why improving public schools tends to be more of a top-down enterprise. In any event, I was addressing your point about why someone would even want to send their kid to a Catholic school to begin with - not whether that's a great idea from a policy perspective.
41
Obviously this is bad, and the issue isn't with a family wanting to be part of something and they aren't allowed, it's that people are still being judged based on very personal lifestyle choices. It surprises people sometimes.

Brett
42
@40: Right on.
43
Perhaps the school thinks that if anything happens to the kid he is far more likely to tell his lesbian parents who they precieve to be more open.
44
Very Biblical. Someone in that book said "the sins of the fathers", right? Hmmmm What would jesus do? Probably home-school.
45
@ 44 - Enh, there's contradictory stuff on that matter. From Exodus 34:7 - "He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."

When you think about it, the whole idea of "original sin" is a big glaring sin of the father being visited upon the son.

So, the text is rather self-contradictory. Shocking.

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