Comments

1
Well written. I heard a rumor that hate begets hate... Maybe the Catholic Church would be more relevant if it stopped hating.
2
What? A bunch of people who were raised on a steady diet of anti-gay bigotry in the form of official church and school policy turn out to be gay bashers? Who could have predicted that?
4
@3, you sure did.
5
Oh, and the hate crime law in PA doesn't apply to sexual orientation. I wonder who campaigned against that?
6
Pretty sure "You reap what you sew" would be the right phrase here. The Catholic Church is going to bleed members, and the ones who are left are going to be very bigoted and negative toward acceptance of any kind. Sad.
7
"You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught"
South Pacific
8
We don't want to go all Victoria Liss on anyone, but do we have to wait till people are charged before names are named? These thugs need to be exposed and shunned.
9
@8: Yes, we should wait. For all we know, one of the people could have turned back to the restaurant to find his or her keys and was not present at the attack. Don't be impatient. The cops know who they are and they'll be identified in due course. It doesn't hurt to wait a week or more to make sure everything is known. It isn't like they are going to get away or that people will forget this crime. Let the rage boil slow, not fast.
10
If the teacher's contract with the school prohibited "public support of the homosexual lifestyle," and the teacher was fired for violating that language, then I question whether the teacher actually violated that language. In supporting civil marriage for same-sex couples, she was supporting the ability for a particular class of persons to gain access to civil marriage. The governmental act of conferring the status civil marriage status on a couple is a legal event and has nothing to do with the ambiguous concept of lifestyle. "Homosexual lifestyle" is a nullity; it doesn't exist. Therefore, she couldn't have supported it and shouldn't have been fired for doing so.

That "homosexual lifestyle" was used within their contract speaks to the Cincinnati diocese's misunderstanding of sexuality and identity. One wonders if her contract contained other, broader, language that allowed the diocese to fire at will for having the temerity to publicly express an opinion that conflicts with current dogma.
11
Sad to say, but after the COE, it's still the most rational Christian cult there is. it's hard to see it from our unchurched west coast bubble, but in places like The 'Nati, it is still vital and powerful. It's not about to shrink into irrelevancy.

This pope needs to start cleaning house. Time for Vatican 3.
12
I love the offhand dig at "increasingly secular, materialistic culture". As if Catholicism is an antidote to materialism. Churches are the materialistic manifestation of faith. Catholics worship in monumental cathedrals with fancy outfits, elaborate rituals, and requirements for generous donations.

Gay people have sadly become a common enemy which the Catholic church, much like the conservative movement, can use to sow fear in their followers. Part of this is due to internalized homophobia and self hatred on the part of the priesthood and part of it is calculated strategy to make the church relevant to its predominately white congregations.
13
Bigotry always leads to a body count.

Always.

14
@6 -- Actually, it's "You rip what you sew". (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

@9 -- There's no point in naming them at all, since the police seem to be in no hurry for these people to saunter into the station and turn themselves over to the law. How many days does it take for a group like that to get their stories all straight? One? Two? Three? Once that part's taken care of, the rest should be a snap. It's not as though there were going to be any real outcry locally.
16
@14 The police aren't stupid. No made up story is going to cut it with all those people. Some one will break.
17
And before anyone bothers-

These people should pay, within the law and their personal lives, for their contemptible behavior.

Nor, as the Catholic church says and the thing called Savage wordily rejects, was their behavior condoned or sponsored by the church or church dogma.

Not because the victims were gay, but because the public peace is part of the social contract, those who threaten it threaten the value we place on that contract.
18
Correct. Beating up homosexuals is not an accurate reflection of Catholic values. Catholicism says to accept and forgive. (The Church's position is that those who engage in homosexual acts need to be forgiven.) It does not condone this kind of brutality.
19
@10

Parse it all you like- a person whose values and beliefs are fundamentally at odds with their employer needs to find other employment.

Particularly in this case where a contract and rational review of Catholic doctrine would tell someone who had chosen the homosexual lifestyle or supported that choice in others that this just may not be the job for them.
20
@16: Indeed. As I pointed out before, someone is going to have done something stupid like deleting Facebook or Twitter posts to try to cover their tracks. Doing that gives the police the ability to charge you with obstruction of justice or destruction of evidence. That person will crack and start naming names. Then everybody else will get into the game. These are Catholic high school alumni. They aren't hardened gang members. They won't be willing to sacrifice themselves and potentially face the penalties for lying just to protect the group.
21
@19: No true Scotsman.
22
Er, @19 should be @18.
23
@19: Tell us, when did you choose the heterosexual lifestyle? How old were you? How did you make the choice?
24
@19

Correction- I should have noted that in this case the entire mission of the employer is passing a set of values and beliefs, together with a generally first rare education, on to the children entrusted to them.

And in that case a fundamental discord with those values and beliefs is valid grounds for employment termination.

I do not, of course, in general terms think an accountant or carpenter must share my beliefs to work quite happily for me, or that failure to do so gives me a right to fire them.
25
@18 I suppose you are agreeing with @17? Yes, it may be the values of the Church to love, accept and forgive, but you have to agree they have a history of straying from the charter here. There is a phrase for it - 'Talking out of both sides of your mouth.' They subscribe to ideals and preach intolerance. It is a well crafted message with a solid alibi... Like the fallacy of tough love. If higher ups in the church still do not understand what they say has consequences, they must be incompetent, in denial or manipulating people. But time and time again, no action is taken and the cycle is repeated. Just like in the case of pedophilia, the church needs to be held accountable, not just punish the individuals on a case by case basis. It is sad to see an institution end like this, but these are people's lives we are talking about...
26
Anyone who outwardly hates gays, is gay. If you gay bash, you're gayer than you can handle. If you're a priest, you're gay. If you're a "preacher" and you work with "Christian youth," at some point you're going to try to fuck one of the kids you "work" with.

As soon as someone applies to work with youth at any kind of a church, they need to just start registering that person with sex offender data bases. It should be part of the hiring process. Because chances you are going to have some kind of sexual contact with the kids you want to work with are very high.

Dan, one of these days I'd like to see follow up on some of your older "Pastor Watch" posts to see what became of all those dudes.
27
@14, Yes, I always mix that one up. Probably because whenever I spell sow, I think of a mama pig. That changes everything.
28
@ 24,

I do not, of course, in general terms think an accountant or carpenter must share my beliefs to work quite happily for me, or that failure to do so gives me a right to fire them.


Or rent from you, unless you need to lash out because they're gay and just won the right to marry.
29
Get these papists back to Europe.
http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/ss264…
30
Sure, beating gay people is against the Church's values, this decade. It was in the past, and if they gain power again probably not in the future, but not for today.

Unfortunately hurting gay people in other ways is not only within the Church's values, but pretty much part of their doctrine.

Fuck the Church and their hate filled policies and stances.
31
@12: Your confusion stems from the fact that "materialistic" in casual conversation doesn't often mean the same thing to religious folk as it does the secular crowd. To us, when we hear "materialistic" we think it means "greedy." To them, it means "atheistic." That's because it derives from the word "materialism," the philosophy that the world operates purely on physical laws without any need for supernatural recourse.

Religious individuals frequently conflate such a mechanistic worldview with corruption, decadence, sin, thinking for yourself, considering your life your own and not the property of your deity or church, converting to other religions, actually enjoying sex, wearing wool with linen, awkwardness on public transportation, women who are not presently inside a kitchen, and other things they might disdain.

Such thoughts stem from the naïve concept that our feelings must be supernatural in nature, that our feelings are our truest self, and that if the supernatural doesn't exist then we don't actually exist, either. This sort of thinking conveniently supports and reinforces the authority of their religion of choice.
32
Dan can frequently go to the very edge on his writing, but I'm going to give him credit here: He is dead on. Well written piece.
33
@24: What Matt from Denver said, criminal scum.
34
"One can point to an increasingly secular, materialistic culture as a factor in this exodus."

Yes Mr Cahill. That's because secular, materialistic culture is morally superior to the catholic church. Human beings, with moral sensibilities will choose the path that isn't strewn with hatred and violence.

The argument that the catholic church doesn't condone violence against the people it relentlessly persecutes? Pull the other one!
35
SB is a disordered person. As are Popes and bishops. Jesus kills. So do his lambs/sheep. Hey SB, fuck off. And die. Now, please.
36
This makes me pretty sad

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