Just like FRC pouts and shrieks like a petulant child when its called out for its lies and bigotry, Roman Catholics in the Miami archdiocese can dish it out, but they sure cannot take when someone dishes it back to them. Exhibit 1: corpulent anti-gay windbag Thomas Wenski, the Archbishop of Miami, who recently wrote a diatribe against gay marriage in the Sun Sentinel and his followers. Wenski said among other things the following:*
Those who see "same sex marriage" as progress towards a more "tolerant" society will, with characteristic intolerance, label their opponents as "intolerant," "bigoted," "homophobic" and so on. However, to defend marriage as a monogamous union between one man and one woman is not bigotry. Nor are the efforts of those who seek to enshrine in state or federal constitutions the "traditional" understanding of marriage intolerant.
*
In our nation's culture wars, the two sides are fighting about the understanding of man and his relationship to truth and reality. One side — and today, "gay marriage" is its poster child — holds that anyone can essentially create his or her own reality. This side holds for a radical autonomy by which truth is determined not by the nature of things, but by one's own individual will. The other side holds men and women are not self-creators, but creatures. Truth is not constructed, but received and thus must reflect the reality of things. Or, as the Book of Genesis says: "Male and female, He (God) created them." (Genesis 1:27).
*
Like most Christofascists, Wenski forgets that the government of this nation is a SECULAR government with a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion for all citizens. That means that the days of the Inquisition imposing Catholic religious doctrine into the CIVIL laws is over. He also suffers from the revisionist history that pretends that marriage has always been in its heretofore current form in this country and elsewhere. This inconvenient reality seems to always be beyond the intellectual skills of the Christianists. In any event, Wenski's column prompted columnist Brandon Thorp to write a rebuttal in the Broward/Palm Beach New Times wherein he wrote among other things the following:
*
Just to be clear, Archbishop Wenski believes that a virgin gave birth to a deity who was nailed to a piece of wood to save us from the wrath of his father; and who rose from the dead, floated in the air, and ascended through a magic portal to heaven. I mention this not to cast aspersions on Wenski's faith -- I'll do that in a moment -- but to underline what Wenski means when he asserts that it's his side of the culture wars that is concerned with the "reality of things," and the other side that is full of fantasists.
*
A few brief responses:
*
Wenski accusing the gay-marriage-crowd of intolerance is almost pure gibberish, akin to saying that blacks who opposed Jim Crow were intolerant of Southern whites, or that women who fight for wage equality are intolerant of sexist CEO's. Both statements are technically true, and both statements make useless hash of the word "tolerance." The argument would have some bite if gay activists were trying to force Catholic clergy to perform same-sex marriages, but they're not. Catholic clergy ought always be free to marry whomever they choose, and no one argues otherwise.
*
Wenski's second point, that queers should be grateful that the world's decent folk aren't monitoring and punishing their bedroom activities, is even less sensible than his first. As it happens, queers are grateful for the strides that have been made towards equality, and our memories are long enough to remember who opposed those strides. Wenski seems to suggest that the outcome of the Supreme Court case which legalized consensual sodomy, Lawrence v. Texas, was an example of Catholic compassion and moral largesse. That's not the case. If Wenski and his co-religionists had their way, private, consensual homosexual acts would still be illegal.
*
•It really could be said that the purpose of marriage is to create environments in which children may be healthily reared, and Wenski is more than welcome to his opinions about what such an environment might comprise. But the child-rearing argument is really a moral one, and its validity is inherently subjective. For example: Most heterosexual married couples -- including those for whom the Archbishop performed the nuptials -- would insist that their marriages are about a great deal more than child-rearing. And whose opinions are more trustworthy? Those of actual married couples, or those of an unmarried, self-proclaimed virgin?
*
You'll note that Wenski implies, but doesn't quite say, that these monogamous, heterosexual marriages have been the norm in recorded history. Wenski doesn't quite say it because it's a lie. Wenski's own holy books document a long history of polygamy, most of which was approved by Wenski's god. The biblical David, the shepherd boy who felled Goliath and became king, had eight wives, and his nuptials predated those performed in Wenski's churches by several millenia. What could be more traditional?
*
Wenski has a platform in the Sun Sentinel not because of his stature as a journalist, or as an essayist, or as an ethicist, but because he has risen to prominence in an organization which has institutionalized and then lied about the rape and torture of tens of thousands of children. To treat such a man as a moral authority is laughable. If he possessed any true moral authority, he'd have cut and run long ago -- or, at the very least, have the decency to use his Sun Sentinel platform not to pontificate, but to apologize.
*
Thorp was on the mark on every point. However, the truth did not sit well with many of the sheeple in the local Catholic pews or Catholic media. No sir! They did not like hearing the truth. In fact, they went berserk and attacked Thorp as a "homosexual bigot" among other things. Historical fact can be ever so inconvenient and Thorp came back with a follow up editorial responding to his critics. Here are some additional highlights from the response:
*
Both the Zuhlsdorf and the Peters article suggest I am an anti-Catholic bigot. Let me be clear: Of the various monotheisms currently mucking up the planet, Catholicism is one of the least odious, and I would happily debate theology with its adherents in a civil manner. But Archbishop Wenski was not arguing theology in his Saturday column. He was proposing that his sect's views of matrimony be adopted as public policy, affecting believers and nonbelievers alike. This is bullying, and it brings out my claws.
*
More to the point: Peters ought to learn his history. He mocks the idea that the Catholic Church has condoned the burning of women and that Catholic missionaries have subjugated native populations. Incredibly, he even pokes fun at my assertion that the Bible contains deity-approved polygamy.
*
Peters disregards my claim that the church bears responsibility for the burning of women with a flip reference to the "First Council of Salem." It's hard to believe he's serious. Pope Innocent VIII wasn't joshing when he wrote the Summis desiderantes in 1484, proclaiming a worldwide witchcraft epidemic. Since the issuance of that papal bull, there has seldom been a corner of the world in which Catholics haven't been burning "witches." The practice continues still.
*
I hesitate to even link to this video, which documents a recent witch burning in Nyamataro, a village in the Catholic district of Kisii, Kenya. It's the most vile thing I've ever seen. Watch if you've the stomach, and then read this article, also from Kenya, in which Catholic clergy attempt to inflame the public's fear of witchcraft. This is murderous irresponsibility from men who claim to regularly stand in persona Christi.
*
WARNING - The video is very disturbing. Sadly, it's a testament to the evils done in the name of religion and religiosity.
No comments:
Post a Comment