“The corrupt political process in New York State”
The Catholic bishops of New York state are upset. They are displeased about this pesky new same-sex marriage bill. They think it’s most unfair to them, the Catholic bishops of New York state.
“The passage by the Legislature of a bill to alter radically and forever humanity’s historic understanding of marriage leaves us deeply disappointed and troubled,” the state’s bishops said. “We strongly uphold the Catholic Church’s clear teaching that we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But
Ah yes “but.” Good old “but.” You saw that “but” coming a mile away, didn’t you. The instant they produce the bit about “we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love,” you know for a certainty what will immediately follow. But. But we won’t have it. But it’s an outrage. But God said. But we strongly affirm. But one man and one woman (and never, by golly, the other way around). But lifelong loving union that is open to children. But but but.
This definition cannot change, though we realize that our beliefs about the nature of marriage will continue to be ridiculed, and that some will even now attempt to enact government sanctions against churches and religious organizations that preach these timeless truths.
Self-pity much? Complain about inability to impose your church’s “teachings” and its “timeless truths” on unwilling other people much?
“We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization,” the bishops added.
No, you don’t. You worry that your power and authority and privilege will be undermined by this unremarkable good sense of government in passing legislation that benefits some people and harms none.
“Our society must regain what it appears to have lost – a true understanding of the meaning and the place of marriage, as revealed by God, grounded in nature, and respected by America’s foundational principles.”
No, it mustn’t. That’s the very thing it must not do. There is no “God” to do this revealing; Catholic bishops don’t know a damn thing about this “God,” any more than anyone else does. It’s all “church teachings” all the way down, and we don’t have to buy into it, much less obey it.
A Brooklyn bishop played the populist card.
“Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature have deconstructed the single most important institution in human history,” Bishop DiMarzio said. “Republicans and Democrats alike succumbed to powerful political elites and have passed legislation that will undermine our families and as a consequence, our society.”
The shit. That’s Nazi-talk, that “elites” shit. What does he think he is? What does he think bishops are? They’re an elite if you like. They have masses of illegitimate power and authority; they’re wholly unaccountable; they rigorously exclude women from power and ferociously punish anyone who tries to get a woman admitted; they shield each other from the law and the police; they tell governments what to do. They wear special elite clothes; they perform magical elite ceremonies; they have special elite knowledge. Teh gaze have nothing to match that.
And he didn’t stop there.
At a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling to stay in their homes and find jobs, we should be working together to solve these problems. However, the politicians have curried favor with wealthy donors who are proponents of a divisive agenda in order to advance their own careers and futures.
Right; this is all about rich people trampling on the faces of the poor.
I have asked all Catholic schools to refuse any distinction or honors bestowed upon them this year by the governor or any member of the legislature who voted to support this legislation. Furthermore, I have asked all pastors and principals to not invite any state legislator to speak or be present at any parish or school celebration.
The above request is intended as a protest of the corrupt political process in New York State. More than half of all New Yorkers oppose this legislation. Yet, the governor and the state legislature have demonized people of faith, whether they be Muslims, Jews, or Christians, and identified them as bigots and prejudiced…
Ugly, ugly stuff.
Look, if the Catholic bishops think it is unfair, they can go to the Vatican and convince the Pope to let them get married to each other…
Let’s look at what is “unfair” about this: the Catholic dictates have been ignored, church “authority” over the love and sex lives of non-Catholics has been “undermined”, the spoiled little baby-raping shits didn’t get their way so that means the government is “corrupt”, and ignoring their bigotry when making legal decisions makes them victims. Worst people in the world, aren’t they?
The issue is absolute divisive. It divides decent people from bigoted scumbags.
They’re also planning on denying the governor of New York his communion (Cuomo is Catholic as is NY state senator Grasanti). Apparently Catholics often don’t give a rat’s ass what the Catholic Church thinks.
I spent a little time thinking about how this law would affect me, if I lived in New York. I concluded that there would be a negative effect – my radio listening would become polluted by all sorts of declarations of gloom and doom coming from the religious right.
Apart from that airwave pollution, I can’t think of any way in which it would affect me at all. So all of this complaining is much ado about nothing.
“asked all Catholic schools to refuse any distinction or honors bestowed upon them this year by the governor ”
Maybe they don’t want any state funds for mandated testing then. Or for teacher training.
And they can forget about education tax credits for their parents, students, and instructors too, eh?
“…a bill to alter radically and forever…”
I’m glad that he realizes that they’re fighting a rearguard action, and they’re never going to turn back the clock on gay equality.
Well said, Ophelia. I get so fed up with these guys that I could scream. I mean, literally, scream!!! These are men accustomed to getting their own way, and suddenly they’re not getting it anymore. About time, is all I can say. What I cannot understand is why there are any nonbelievers think we should cozy up to people like this. The problem is, as you see so clearly, that they give themselves high titles, dress in fancy dress, perform magic ceremonies. These guys play for keeps.
But they are leaders of a very large constituency in the US, and yet they are slightly to right of Goebbels. They always predict the most terrible consequences from the undermining of their principles. I think I quoted here at B&W an Irish cardinal who said, basically: ‘If you start with contraception, you go on to abortion, and if you have abortion, then euthanasia will follow, and very soon no one will be safe.’ It’s the most awful tosh. Where on earth did they get this catastrophic way of thinking?
After you addressed the question yesterday of the complaints about teachers at US catholic universities and other institutes of higher learning actually opposing Vatican declarations and strictures, I read John Paul II’s — now get this — “Address to the Participants in the International Congress on ‘Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas'” which was organised jointly by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations. What a vile piece of work this is, full of apparent humanity about inhumanity. It’s quite shocking really, quite shocking, much like the New York bishops’ response to the gay marriage law, with faux words of love and peace and understanding, but hatred and reproach seething in their hearts.
This is religion. Why can’t people see that, despite all the words about compassion and understanding, love and concern, it really comes down to simple power in the end? Power, power and more power. Religions always want more. They can never have enough. And we must oppose them, oppose them and oppose them, refuse them, refuse them and then refuse them again. No quarter with these people. They are not to be trusted.
I very much doubt whether “the governor and the state legislature have demonized people of faith, whether they be Muslims, Jews, or Christians, and identified them as bigots and prejudiced”, but from the tenor of the above, they might have had a point.
People I’ve talked to have suggested that my disgust with the Catholic Church’s retrograde attitude and practices regarding women and gays should be diminished by the Church’s allegedly progressive and generous views on public policy for caring for the poor. My reply is always that I won’t begin to believe that the Church takes caring for the poor nearly as seriously as it does imposing its benighted views on abortion, contraception, women in positions of power, and gays until the bishops start talking about denying communion and other Catholic sacraments to Catholic politicians like John Boehner, who are doing their level best to screw the disadvantaged for the benefit of their wealthy and powerful patrons.
We’ve had SSM for five years and counting up here. I’m still waiting for the catastrophic disintegration of Canadian society (in fact, about the worst that’s happened is we gave Harper a parliamentary majority — but even he doesn’t dare touch SSM or abortion, or there’ll be marching in the streets and next time round we might just elect the NDP!)
Darron,
My respsonse to that sort of reasoning is this: who is more evil, someone who donates a million dollars to an orphanage and murders one of the orphans, or someone who does neither?
Wo, that’s a good one.
The reality is clear, these hypocrites who left their family so they mustn’t support their parents, or help their brothers and sisters, don’t love any women and want no children, all for working in the “vineyard of the lord” has never done anything than safeguard themselves from the misfortunes of marriage. So when others in a marriage tried to minimize their setbacks they are furious and jealous because they hate people who tried to avoid suffering. Avoiding suffering is the most normal action people can do. Everyone does it , only sick minds don’t. Preaching suffering comes only from sick minds but especially from hypocrites, because they have avoid suffering by disconnect themselves from anybody.
I think the Bishop has just kindly illustrated why I am predisposed to respond poorly to calls to set aside controversial issues to fix ‘bigger’ problems. The people calling for it are invariably removed enough from the issues they never have to worry about them and have no intention of ever dealing with them.
ps Fuck the RCC.
“It’s the JEWS dammit, do we have to spell it out???!!!”
Fuck me, religion sucks and sucks and…. anyway, well done New York
Approximately 13k went to Knock Marian Shrine Co Mayo, last week-end. 25k attended a Gay-Pride festival. It’s rather telling in a very Roman Catholic country.
Do you note how the church always likes to use the victim-card whenever it feels it’s under threat from those whom it oppresses?! So utterly typical. Exactly, Eric, the church quite reminds one of a spoilt sibling, who kicks and screams when it doesn’t its own way. The Church has lost a lot of moral authority.
But one man and one woman (and never, by golly, the other way around).
Now that (despite our brief conflict elsewhere :) is why you are my second favourite female atheist blogger..(ducks!)
Steve…what was the brief conflict elsewhere? I’ve forgotten…
Meh, Where? Daylight Atheism and what? the “bitch” debate :))
Please tell me you didn’t argue with Ophelia that “bitch” was OK despite her objections (and I know what they are so I know she’s right). Please. But if you did, please tell me you changed your mind and apologized.
Interesting. If it’s so important, then why are you married, bishop? Could it be that “the single most important institution in human history” is in fact the RCC in your world. bishop? Are you upset, bishop, that you’ve lost this little grip on you fellow humans?
Such as the corn lobby? You do realise, bishop, that the extended session found it important to decide on a state vegetable, don’t you? I didn’t realise, bishop, that you favoured the onion.
I have one question for these whining arseclowns:
HOW?
How, exactly, will two blokes getting hitched undermine anyone else’s marriage? What kind of marriage is so insecure and so tenuously founded that the sight or even thought of two chaps or two lasses getting hooked up will do some sort of irreparable damage to it? It’s like saying allowing people to have pineapple on a pizza undermines the concept of pizza. But how? What do I care what strange things other people have on their pizza? How does their weirdness affect my enjoyment of my pizza?
Of course, my question’s rhetorical; I don’t believe for a second this petulance is about damage to individual marriages (as if Catholic priests have any right at all to preach to the laity or to non-Catholics about adult relationships) or to the institution itself. The authoritative branches of the Christian faith know full well that every social advancement chips away at their unearned authority and its monopolising of social traditions. Advances such as abolishing slavery, interracial marriage, votes for women & the indigenous, decriminalising homosexuality, secular ethics classes at schools, gay adoption rights, reproductive freedom, effective sex-ed for teens & state secular marriages without the need for a preacher have always been vehemently opposed by various shouty Christians in all nations where Christianity has dominated. All such advances have been decried as violating some vital Christian principle or taboo or some such thing – never mind that, contrary to Christian histrionics, nations that have allowed gay marriage (as well as the other advances on the list above) have categorically not descended into swirling vortices of amoral, chaotic lawlessness as a result. Never mind that Christian hysteria about anything – politics, art, education, sex, entertainment – is almost always proven to be baseless & their viewpoints shared by few in broader society and acted upon by even fewer. They have to keep up the appearance of being leaders of the sect that “invented” morality and whose “Judeo-Christian” principles underwrite modern democracy; the cassocked crusaders with the keys to the kingdom. They know if they don’t, people will stop listening to them at a more rapid rate than they already are. They can see the light at the end of the tunnel and they know it’s no freakin angel.
Aratina @ #2:
It’s telling that the hierarchy are threatening to deny communion to the governor. It’s so fucking childish – it’s like standing there with your arms folded, saying “No. You can (& will) to go Hell for all I care, YOU hurt MY god’s feelings!”
Prejudiced bigots identified as bigots with prejudices.
Josh @ #19
It was (in my opinion anyway) a more nuanced argument than that, but way too off topic to revisit here.
Wow, and I thought we Londoners had an inflated view about the global importance of our local issues.
I am a iiberal, tolerant, and broad minded lover of food. But that is beyond the pale, sir. Basta! Repent and partake of the One True Pizza of tomato, basil, and mozzarella. With sacramental Chianti, or Sangiovese, even a good red zin. Or a Birra Moretti. Then go and blaspheme no more.
I was born and raised in the Catholic church and spent most of my life living by their morals and standards. I was incredibly active in my church and (believe it or not) we had GLBT members who we embraced and loved just as any other member. Even once a year we had a “People Pride” day were we each wore a rainbow pin. Honestly I thought they were a decent community of people and I still to this day think that about that arch in particular. It took 22 years for me to realize that, outside of a very very few churches and religious institutions in general, these institutions weren’t about the people or even their “God” whom they told us loved everyone as their creator. Sadly, almost none of them practice what hey preach and I found religion a place of hypocrisy and hate, which is not how I want to live nor how I want my children to grow up believing. I rejected this junk and couldn’t be happier with my decision. I am raising a happy family who is taught to love everyone, regardless of what society tells them, and my children are encouraged to have free thought and decide what is best for them when it comes to religion, values, and thought, not what a church tells them to believe.
Oh that disagreement. Oh goody, a man giving a “nuanced” argument for why it’s ok to call women bitches.
These asshats really wish they could bring back the inquisition…because nobody expects the inquisition!
On the “more important issues” line, if the Catholic leadership thinks poverty is a more important issue than marriage equality, why did they waste so much time, money, and energy trying to block same-sex marriage, when they could have gotten out of the way, and spent their lobbying money and energy on expanding welfare or improving education for poor children or urging the state to build more housing? If an issue isn’t important, go work on something that is; don’t insist that it’s not important while you’re putting a lot of energy into supporting your position about it.
Aj–Yes, New Yorkers can exaggerate our importance too. The New York City Council has a foreign policy committee. But most of us realize that New York state isn’t first on this; if there’s importance beyond the state borders, it’s largely that we have a larger population than the other U.S. states that currently allow same-sex marriage, and whatever happens here may be taken as an example. I know and you know that there are twice as many Canadians as New Yorkers, but a lot of Americans don’t quite believe that there’s anything to the north besides hockey and polar bears.
One man, one woman ia a ‘ timeless truth’ about marriage. Someone hasn’t been reading their bible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw
Golly, Steve, you’re the even one who made my least favorite “argument” of all on that thread. It’s the one I always cite, in paraphrase – as “‘nigger’ is racist but ‘bitch’ isn’t sexist.”
I had asked
And your reply was
Arggh.
Ah, the elites.
Isn’t it wonderful how they think they can get away with it? Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad; those whom the elite wish to destroy, they start on by calling them an ‘elite’.
For some, independence of thought is elitism of the worst variety. Some people can have massive bank accounts and lines of credit, and be as connected all over the place as a power grid, yet as long as they are politically in tune with the elitism detectives, will miss out on the label completely. Recent image problems of the RC church have seen its elite close ranks like a pack of wolves (the kind that like to dress up in woolly costumes).
Some and others ain’t so lucky.
Does the word “elite” actually mean anything anymore? is it just a general term of abuse now?
Does the word “elite” actually mean anything anymore? is it just a general term of abuse now?
It’s the new spelling of “Jew”. (Not, I hasten to make clear, that I think most of the users of the term are anti-semites speaking in code; only that “elite” serves the same political function as was once served by “Jews”: give the audience an Other to despise and blame their troubles on).
Marie-Therese: RCC Inc has no moral authority to lose.
The executives of RCC Inc. don’t get upset by poverty and unmet human need. They only get upset when their supposed authority is challenged, whether directly or indirectly. Hence you can be excommunicated for ordaining a woman as priest because that acts against the RCC CEO’s ban on women priests. It attacks the RCC monopoly and the rules that only they get to make.
In the case of SSM again it opposes what the RCC CEO and his executives deem to be their monopoly regarding who and who may not get married. They claim to this day that Catholic marriage is the only true marriage.
Of course SSM doesn’t threaten marriage, our civilization and/or the whole world in any way whatsoever – nor can RCC make any case that it does; nor have they tried beyond simple unsubstantiated assertion. It is a pity the media even pay attention to these clowns.
As for pizza – what’s wrong with hawaiian pizza?
Well, Ophelia, I was the one who said this was off topic and I don’t really want to open that particular wound. But it’s your blog. Suffice to say that actually I have changed my mind and position significantly since then and although I could still defend that statement, I am not as protective of it now as I would have been that night (and it was a long night) and besides it was just one line of reasoning I used to defend use of language for its own sake and not censor it automatically for perceived gender or racial subtexts.
That being said and because of you and Sarah Braasch and other commenters on that thread and beyond I continue to develop my feminist mindset (no really :). I made a point of reading a lot of your material and bought “does god hate women” specifically after that debate. I substantially agree with pretty much everything I have seen of you in print and online but perhaps we don’t have to agree on everything. It is possible to have a “nuanced” argument for anything as long the agenda isn’t unnecessarily polarised so if we find an opportunity to revisit this; who knows?
Eric MacDonald wrote (#6):
Easy. These people have power. And the easiest way for someone without power to gain some is to toady up to those with it and fight over whatever scraps that happen to be thrown their way.
They seem to be under the misapprehension that the because those with power are willing to use them, that it means they’ve somehow gained respect and recognition by the powerful. In fact, all it means is that they were merely a useful idiot. If they ever outlive their usefulness, or get in the way, the powerful elite they’ve been cozying up to will be more than happy to turn on them and throw them to the wolves.