It would be very convenient if hate and bigotry were always announced as hate and bigotry. It would be nice if those who spread anger and persecution would be good enough to be ugly when they do it.
But they don't.
The attack you didn't see is clearly there. The conflation of the destruction of the environment and the destruction sown by homosexuality and gender reassignment or identity shift is clearly there. The stark warning that these things deny God and God's creation and that way lies destruction of the self and ultimately the world are clearly there. The Pope is explicating a doctrine that comes down to "homosexuality and gender reassignment is immoral, God creates all marriage, and God doesn't create it for single sex couples."
And you're saying you don't see the hatefulness, the meanness and the attack? And you're saying that the Pope and I have a 'disagreement on the gay marriage?'
I submit that a gay man who wants to marry the man he loves with all his heart would see the hatefulness. I submit that the lesbian widow who watched her wife die and now can't get custody of their child because the courts won't recognize parental rights would see the meanness. I submit that the woman who has wrestled her entire life with gender identity, with feeling alien in her own skin, and who finally took the step to make her male exterior resemble what she feels inside would see the attack.
I didn't call for a pogrom in American cities. The Pope did meanly and hatefully attack homosexuals and transsexuals. That's the difference. And you'll forgive me, I hope, but I no longer see 'gay marriage' as a controversial issue. I see it for what it is -- the systemic and organized dehumanization of the different. The denial -- or in the case of Prop 8 the revocation of the basic rights of others in matters that could not matter less to the people doing the revoking. They don't like homosexuality. It seems ooky to them. And rather than growing up and getting over it and realizing that what two people do in their own house doesn't matter a tinker's damn to them, they organize and they legislate and they set agendas and policies and they claim that it's God's will.
And when they do it in the name of their religion, there are plenty of people in their religion who say 'look, these small minded bigots are ugly and horrible, but they don't represent me.'
The Pope, when he equates homosexuality with self-destruction, gender issues with the perversion of God's will, and the complete incapacity for homosexuals to marry, does represent the Catholic Church.
Beyond that, I don't know what we can say on this subject. If you can honestly read those passages and think they're just a reasonable and sober assessment of doctrinal points without devastating impact on the lives and very identity of the people he's talking about, then nothing I write will convince you otherwise.
no subject
It would be very convenient if hate and bigotry were always announced as hate and bigotry. It would be nice if those who spread anger and persecution would be good enough to be ugly when they do it.
But they don't.
The attack you didn't see is clearly there. The conflation of the destruction of the environment and the destruction sown by homosexuality and gender reassignment or identity shift is clearly there. The stark warning that these things deny God and God's creation and that way lies destruction of the self and ultimately the world are clearly there. The Pope is explicating a doctrine that comes down to "homosexuality and gender reassignment is immoral, God creates all marriage, and God doesn't create it for single sex couples."
And you're saying you don't see the hatefulness, the meanness and the attack? And you're saying that the Pope and I have a 'disagreement on the gay marriage?'
I submit that a gay man who wants to marry the man he loves with all his heart would see the hatefulness. I submit that the lesbian widow who watched her wife die and now can't get custody of their child because the courts won't recognize parental rights would see the meanness. I submit that the woman who has wrestled her entire life with gender identity, with feeling alien in her own skin, and who finally took the step to make her male exterior resemble what she feels inside would see the attack.
I didn't call for a pogrom in American cities. The Pope did meanly and hatefully attack homosexuals and transsexuals. That's the difference. And you'll forgive me, I hope, but I no longer see 'gay marriage' as a controversial issue. I see it for what it is -- the systemic and organized dehumanization of the different. The denial -- or in the case of Prop 8 the revocation of the basic rights of others in matters that could not matter less to the people doing the revoking. They don't like homosexuality. It seems ooky to them. And rather than growing up and getting over it and realizing that what two people do in their own house doesn't matter a tinker's damn to them, they organize and they legislate and they set agendas and policies and they claim that it's God's will.
And when they do it in the name of their religion, there are plenty of people in their religion who say 'look, these small minded bigots are ugly and horrible, but they don't represent me.'
The Pope, when he equates homosexuality with self-destruction, gender issues with the perversion of God's will, and the complete incapacity for homosexuals to marry, does represent the Catholic Church.
Beyond that, I don't know what we can say on this subject. If you can honestly read those passages and think they're just a reasonable and sober assessment of doctrinal points without devastating impact on the lives and very identity of the people he's talking about, then nothing I write will convince you otherwise.