GALLUP: Americans Turn Increasingly Liberal On “Moral” Issues

With the news - OK, the legitimate news, which excludes Fox News - in a constant cycle of coverage of the lies of Donald Trump and the White House's efforts to sabotage the FBI investigation into Trump's possible, and in my view, likely, treason,  on a different note, a new Gallup poll underscores the fact that the Christofascists are losing the culture wars.  And losing them significantly.  On every issue dear to the Christofascists, the majority of Americans hold the opposite opinion.  On contraception, gay relationships and a number of issues, the Christofascists are in the distinct minority.  While perhaps having achieved a last gasp under the Trump/Pence misogyny, long term the prospects for the Christofascists are not good.  The poll results should also send a clarion call to the Republican Party that tying itself to Christofascists is not a wise political move.   Here are highlights from Gallup:

The leftward movement in perceptions of what is morally acceptable has been ongoing, with Gallup also noting shifts in 2014 and 2015. Since then, there have been additional, albeit slight, changes in a more permissive direction. All of the new highs this year are one or two percentage points above previous highs.

On an absolute basis, Americans are most likely to view birth control, divorce and sex between unmarried people as morally acceptable. At least two-thirds say each of these is OK.

Of the 19 issues included in this year's poll, 13 show meaningful change in a liberal direction over time, regardless of whether they are currently at their high point in Gallup's trend. No issues show meaningful change toward more traditionally conservative positions compared with when Gallup first measured them. That leaves six issues for which there has essentially been no change over time.

Some of the largest changes in opinion reflect a transformation in Americans' views about the institution of marriage and intimate relationships. Since the early 2000s, the percentage saying that gay or lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage, sex between an unmarried man and woman, and divorce are morally acceptable have increased by double digits.

Gallup has previously shown that Americans in all age groups have adopted more liberal views on these issues over time, but the changes have been proportionately greater among older Americans. Older Americans today are more accepting of same-sex relations and sex between unmarried people than older Americans at the turn of the century were. Still, older Americans today are not as likely as younger Americans to hold permissive views on these issues.

Not only is the more liberal outlook apparent in the perceived morality of issues, but it is also evident in the increasing percentage of Americans who describe themselves as liberal on social issues.

Christofascist Groups Pushing Trump for "Religious Liberty" Executive Order

As noted in previous post, in June, 2016, Donald Trump met with a who's who of Christian extremists and hate group leaders such as Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, in New York City.  The goal of the meeting? To win the support and, ideally endorsement, of these individuals in order to swing the fundamentalist and evangelical Christian vote to Trump.  Trump was successful and in the process reportedly promised to appoint anti-gay justices to the Supreme Court and to sign the dishonestly named "First Amendment Defense Act" which would allow Christian extremists to discriminate against gays and anyone else who did not conform to the Medieval sexual mores of the Christofascists.  Seemingly, Trump may have also promised to sign an executive order allowing open discrimination based on professed religious belief. Trump has honored part of his bargain by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch who believes that religious belief should override civil rights of others as demonstrated in his opinions at the 10 Circuit Court of Appeals.  Now, the Christofascists are demanding that Trump give them the promised executive order.  Right Wing Watch looks at the situation:

More than the 150 members of the secretive right-wing network known as the Council for National Policy have signed a letter calling on President Trump to sign an executive order “protecting the practical exercise of religious freedom,” something Religious Right leaders have been clamoring for since Trump took office. 

On Wednesday, Fox News pundit and serial promoter of bogus religious persecution stories Todd Starnes outed himself as a member of the CNP in writing about the letter.

The Council for National Policy is a network of leaders from the religious and political right, whose membership includes both big names and lesser-known fringe figures. A 2014 membership list obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that the CNP even has room for extremists like neo-confederate Christian Reconstructionist Michael Peroutka. According to Starnes, who says Trump’s election was the result of divine intervention, other signers include “CNP President Tony Perkins, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Morton Blackwell, Bob McEwen, Kelly Shackelford, Becky Norton Dunlop, Chad Connelly, Dr. James Dobson and Penny Nance.”

A month ago, Sarah Posner reported in The Nation on a leaked draft of the executive order, which legal experts said was of “sweeping” and “staggering” scope. If signed it would create wholesale exemptions from a range of nondiscrimination laws and regulations “for people and organizations who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity.” The order could empower government employees to refuse to provide basic government services to gay people or couples or unmarried parents.

Posner’s article quotes a Lambda Legal attorney who says the draft order is similar to a law signed by the Mississippi governor last year, “which a federal district court ruled violated both the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.” That case is on appeal.

The desire to get federal courts to embrace the right’s vision of religious liberty was one of the major reasons Religious Right leaders rallied around Trump after he promised them the Supreme Court of their dreams. In that regard, it is noteworthy that Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch ruled as an appeals court judge in the Hobby Lobby case, which for the first time gave for-profit corporations the right to claim exemption from laws protecting their employees based on the religious beliefs of the company and its owners. That’s a major reason that the Religious Right is thrilled about the Gorsuch nomination.

Those who believe in religious freedom for all should be very fearful of this effort to grant special rights to Christofascists via these efforts to grant a license to discriminate to right wing Christians.

Pope Francis Secretly Met with Kim Davis and Reveals His Duplicity

While Pope Francis seemingly tried to use his visit to America to present a kinder, gentler face on Catholicism and to score a PR triumph, news that Francis met with four times married, serial adulterer Kim Davis shows that nothing has changed in the Church leadership other than a matter of style.  Whatever good I thought of the man is gone and I again say that, in my view, gays who remain Catholics are delusional masochists.  As for Francis, if the Gospels are to be believed, while Christ met with prostitutes, he had little good to say about Pharisees who were selectively  (and falsely) pious - a description that well describes Davis and her professional Christian class supporters.  A column in Huffington Post reflects my views of con man Pope Francis.  Here are excerpts:

After first refusing to confirm nor deny it, the Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis met with the Kentucky clerk Kim Davis at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, where Davis' attorney -- who made the news public after the pope's trip ended -- said Francis told her to "stay strong." And that simple encounter completely undermines all the goodwill the pope created in downplaying "the gay issue" on his U.S. trip. 

The pope played us for fools, trying to have it both ways. As I noted last week, he's an artful politician, telling different audiences what they want to hear on homosexuality. He did that in Argentina as a cardinal -- railing against gay marriage when the Vatican expected him to do so -- and he's done that since becoming pope, striking a softer tone on the issue after Benedict's harsh denunciations were a p.r. disaster for the Catholic Church in the West. But this news about Kim Davis portrays him as a more sinister kind of politician. That's the kind that secretly supports hate, ushering the bigots in the back door -- knowing they're an embarrassment -- while speaking publicly about about how none of us can judge one another. 

[B]y meeting with Davis secretly, and then at first having the Vatican neither confirm nor deny the encounter -- and now having the Vatican say it "won't deny" the meeting while it still won't offer any other details -- the pope comes off as a coward. 

He shows himself to be antithetical to much of what he preaches and teaches. He talks about dialogue and having the courage of one's convictions and the courage to speak out. But he swept this Davis meeting under the rug, seemingly ashamed and certainly not wanting to broach the subject. Even Davis's supporters should find that insulting to them.

[B]y telling Davis that she should "stay strong" -- if her attorney's account of the encounter is to be believed -- the pope is only encouraging the bigots, even if he's doing so quietly.  

Rather than moving us forward on LGBT rights ever so slightly, as many viewed the pope as doing, he now, with this meeting, emboldens the haters in the church who will be pushing to make sure church doctrine continues to call homosexuality "intrinsically disordered." And it sends a message to all those people who've experienced anti-gay discrimination . . . . that this pope is not going to end that discrimination any time soon. Rather than stopping that discrimination, he welcomed, with open arms in the Vatican's own embassy, the bigots who promote that discrimination but who've turned themselves into the victims.

Kim Davis and Robert Bentley - Poster Children for Chistofascist Hypocrisy

Time and time again the Christofascists who campaign against LGBT equality and same sex marriage in particular prove that it is they, not gays, who are the real threat to the "sanctity of marriage."  As the four times married Rowan County clerk faces a contempt of court hearing tomorrow, new bomb shells are underscoring her rank hypocrisy on the issue of "Biblical marriage."  U.S. News & World Reports has some of the salacious details.  Here are highlights:

The Kentucky county clerk facing potentially stiff penalties for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses has been married four times, raising questions of hypocrisy and selective application of the Bible to her life. 

The marriages are documented in court records obtained by U.S. News, which show that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis divorced three times, first in 1994, then 2006 and again in 2008. 

She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second. Davis worked at the clerk's office at the time of each divorce and has since remarried.

Davis has described her desire to strictly adhere to the Bible in stark terms and thus far has shown no sign of bending to court orders on same-sex marriage. She said Tuesday she fears going to hell for violating "a central teaching" of the Bible if she complies with the orders.

Staver says “it’s not really relevant, it’s something that happened in her past” and that her conversion to Christianity about four years ago wiped her slate clean. “It’s something that’s not relevant to the issue at hand,” he says. “She was 180 degrees changed.”

Davis' selective application of the Bible is akin to that of Maggie Gallagher who seems to have never gotten over her unwed mother status in college.  As blogger friend Bob Felton notes:

It doesn’t need much imagination to understand how that string of bad marriages and relationships, and the complicated paternity of her children, might have had a debilitating effect upon her judgment, her self-esteem, her sense of self and worth.

And then she encounters a predatory cult that targets the insecure and the damaged, and fastens on to it like a lamprey — because her ‘church family’ and the love of an Invisible Friend are all that she has.

Maybe that’s how it happened, and maybe not; obviously, I speculate. It’s a familiar progression, however.

Gov. Robert Bentley and
Rebekah Caldwell Mason
(From HBTV.us)

Davis, however, isn't the only hypocrite when it comes to marriage.  The wife of anti-gay Robert Bentley, Governor of Alabama, has filed for divorce?  Why?  Because of her husband's affair with a staffer.  Like Davis, Bentley is a complete hypocrite.  Here are details from Legal Schnauzer:

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley engaged in an extramarital affair with his former communications director, leading First Lady Dianne Bentley to file for divorce last Friday after 50 years of marriage, sources tell Legal Schnauzer.

Rebekah Caldwell Mason, a married mother of three from Bentley's home base of Tuscaloosa, was the governor's mistress in an affair that sources say raises a number of possible legal issues--including use of the state jet and a state trooper's services for personal reasons that had nothing to do with Bentley's official role.

According to Dianne Bentley's divorce complaint, the couple separated in January 2015 because of a "complete incompatibility of temperament" and a "conflict of personalities which destroys the legitimate aims of matrimony." In fact, sources say, Gov. Bentley's affair with Mason destroyed the matrimonial bonds.

The 72-year-old Bentley, a Republican serving in his second term, repeatedly has touted his Christian faith and conservative "family values" to attract voters. He long has served as a deacon at First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa. Bentley made national headlines in 2011 when, shortly after his inauguration, he said, ""Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister. And I want to be your brother."

Rebekah Caldwell Mason, sources say, quickly became more than just a communications director to Bentley. Their affair became so widely known that it diluted any moral authority the governor might have had. 

Federal Judge Orders Anti-Gay Kentucky Clerk To Issue Marriage Licenses

One pattern that we see over and over again is that of Christofascists viewing themselves as above the law.  In their warped mindset, clinging to myths and legends based on the writings of ignorant Bronze Age herders is more important than complying with the civil laws of the United States of America.  One of the current poster children for this phenomenon is Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk of Court, who believes she can ignore the duties of her position and give the figurative middle finger to a federal court because of her "deeply held religious beliefs" that rely on 2000 year old myths.  As The New Civil Rights Movement reports,  Davis has been ordered by the federal district court to issue marriage licenses to all applicants, gay or straight. She has decided to basically tell the court to go f*ck itself.  If there was ever a case where someone needs to be lead off to jail for contempt of court, it is Ms. Davis.  The irony, of course is that while she claims to be constrained by her religious beliefs,  she hasn't respected the "sanctity of marriage" that she now pretends to be protecting.  Here are story highlights:  

U.S. District Judge David Bunning granted a preliminary injunction today against Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land. Ms. Davis, who claims a religious objection to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was sued by the ACLU on behalf of both gay and straight couples who were inconvenienced by her stance. Ms. Davis then sued the Governor who told all the state's rebelling clerks to get back to work, for violating her religious rights.

Judge Bunning found Ms. Davis has no legal right to object on religious grounds and ordered her to begin to issue licenses immediately, writing:

"Davis is bound by her duties as a public servant to obey the law. She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do. However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk," Bunning wrote."

 Davis needs to be placed in jail for contempt of court plain and simple. But the "rest of the story" is that she has been encouraged to defy the federal court's order by Mat Staver and the other extremists at Liberty Counsel.  Joe My God has details on this part of the story:

On Thursday, deputy clerk Nathan Davis, Kim Davis’ son, said the office was advised by attorneys with the Christian law firm Liberty Counsel to continue refusing same-sex couples as it appeals the order that was filed Wednesday. They told David Moore and his partner David Ermold, who showed up as soon as the doors opened, that they were not issuing marriage licenses. Davis’ attorneys at Liberty Counsel were not available for comment Thursday. They told WKYT they were in a prayer meeting.

My question is a simple one: when the Hell is Staver's law license going to be revoked.  If anyone else engaged in such conduct, the state bar would more against them so fast their head would be spinning. Are we yet again witnessing undue deference and special rights being afforded to those who hide behind "religious belief" to flout the law. I say, disbar Staver.
 

Limbaugh to GOP: Don't Accept Caitlyn Jenner

The attacks on Caitlyn Jenner from the far right continue as gas bag Rush Limbaugh - the four time married defender of the "sanctity of marriage" - unleashed a rant against Caitlyn Jenner.  Limbaugh is beyond despicable not to mention a complete hypocrite given his own past scrapes with the law over his illegal prescription drug use.  If Limbaugh had any sense of shame, he shut his big mouth.  That, of course, will never happen since Limbaugh and his sheep like followers have no shame and no moral decency.  Politico looks at Limbaugh's foul attacks.  Here are excerpts:

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh thinks Republicans should reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she agrees with them politically.

Limbaugh said on his radio show Tuesday that liberals are trying to “redefine normalcy” in an effort to stigmatize conservatives and that conservatives shouldn’t agree to their terms by accepting Caitlyn Jenner as a woman.

He likewise dismissed a conservative blog that wrote that Republicans should embrace Jenner as one of their own to seem more humane, saying that doing so would constitute falling into a liberal trap.

Under this system, “conservatives and Republicans are the new weirdos, the new kooks,” the pundit said, “and that is part of the political objective here in normalizing all of this really marginal behavior. I mean, if less than 1 percent of the population is engaging in it, it’s marginalized behavior. It isn’t normal, no matter how you define it.

Limbaugh had previously discussed Jenner’s transition after the former Olympian, then known as Bruce Jenner, told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he identified both as a woman and a Republican, despite the party’s history of tension with the LGBT community.

“Maybe this is why God put me on this earth,” Jenner told ABC. “To deal with this issue.”

After the interview, Limbaugh said that liberals were pleased because they support “anything to upset these damn conservatives and Republicans that believe in their precious social issues.”

During the segment, Limbaugh expressed his belief that being transgender is “a mental illness,” citing the research of a Johns Hopkins professor.

Lionizing Jenner, Limbaugh said at the time and reiterated Tuesday, was a media tactic in a political battle between liberals and conservatives on social issues.

“This fits everything the media wants to do in terms of turning the culture upside down, redefining what ‘normal’ is, getting revenge against the majority for all of these decades of discrimination and mockery and disapproval and all these religious fanatics judging other people simply because of, quote, ‘who they love,’ unquote.”

 I guess Limbaugh justifies his multiple marriage and serial monogamy based on the fact that divorce and multiple remarriages are so prevalent among "godly Christians" in the Bible Belt. 

Justice Kennedy Spars With Michigan’s Special Assistant Attorney General

Justice Kennedy

Fellow transplanted northerner blogger Bob Felton has an even lower opinion of Christofascists and their view of marriage as merely "a cosmic license for sexual intercourse" in order to procreate than I do.  But he sums up the Christofascist view of marriage all too accurately and today quoted batshitery for Bill Donohue of the always deranged Catholic League as yet further proof.  Donohue in a rant against same sex marriage stated:

Not only is love as a basis for marriage a relatively recent phenomenon — most marriages throughout history were arranged or based on duty — it is profoundly detached from the historical purpose of marriage, which is procreation. Once love is given primary status as a condition for marriage, the institution itself is no longer recognizable.

That's right, per Donohue and a host of lunatics on the Christian Right, marriage is really all about treating women as brood mares and regulating the offspring.  Love has nothing to do with it. Sounds crazy?  You bet, but that is in essence part of the argument John Bursch, Michigan’s special assistant attorney general, made to the U.S. Supreme Court today to justify Michigan's gay marriage ban.  The argument did not seem to sit well with Justice Kennedy.  A piece in Slate looks at the exchange:

Kennedy finds himself in an argument with John Bursch, Michigan’s special assistant attorney general, about whether marriage is a dignity-conferring enterprise, or not. Bursch, defending his state’s ban on same-sex marriage, is explaining that the purpose of marriage is not to confer dignity but to keep parents bonded to their biological children.

Justice Kennedy—who opened argument Tuesday morning with the observation that this whole case is about an institution whose definition has gone unchanged for millennia—looks rather shocked. The author of the majority decision outlawing sodomy bans in Lawrence v. Texas (“Adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons”) and the decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor (“It seems fair to conclude that, until recent years, many citizens had not even considered the possibility that two persons of the same sex might aspire to occupy the same status and dignity as that of a man and woman in lawful marriage”) did not want to hear this. Indeed, it seems like Kennedy wanted it to be perfectly clear that he is the guy who gets to say that if marriage is nothing else, it is a dignity-stamper.

Bursch explains that if marriage is expanded to include same-sex couples, the whole purpose of the institution will change. According to him, that view of marriage is “keeping the couple bound to that child forever,” whereas the new purpose (once gay couples are allowed to wed) will be about “their emotional commitment to each other.” This presumably less noble view of marriage will then proliferate, and result in illegitimacy, which the state seeks to avoid. Kennedy looks stunned. “That assumes that same-sex couples could not have a more noble purpose, and that’s the whole point. Same-sex couples say, of course we understand the nobility and the sacredness of marriage,” says Kennedy, the presumed swing vote.

Later in the argument, Bursch circles back to say, again, “marriage was never intended to be dignity bestowing.” At which point Kennedy almost bursts a pipe: “I don’t understand that [marriage] is not dignity bestowing. I thought that was the whole purpose of marriage. It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage. … It’s dignity bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that same ennoblement.”

Bursch replies that the “state is trying to figure out how do we link together these kids with their biological moms and dads when possible, the glue are benefits and burdens, but not necessarily dignity.” Anthony “Dignity” Kennedy can’t even believe it: “Well, I think many states would be surprised, with reference to traditional marriages, they are not enhancing the dignity of both the parties.”
But the other problem with the procreation-only argument is: What about old people? As Ginsburg ponders, “What if a 70-year-old couple wants to get married?” People cheer and applaud. Kennedy notes that Bursch’s premise “that only opposite-sex couples can have a bonding with the child” was “just a wrong premise,” adding “under your view it would be difficult for same-sex couples to adopt some of these children. … I think the argument cuts quite against you.”

There's more, but one can see why Christofascists - at least the far right Catholic  element - are anti-divorce.    Love, happy, supportive relationships are irrelevant to the equation.  It's only about legalizing sex for the purpose of breeding and raising children.  No wonder Christofascists are such miserable people.

Coming Out and Becoming a Better Parent

My coming out in mid-life was not easy for me or for my children and truth be told, not divorce is any easy thing for the children involved.  Added to all of the other stresses is the gossip and homophobia that is still far to prevalent in society, especially the conservative community in which I lived in the closeted phase of my life.  I certainly was not a happy person while in the closet and that unhappiness and self-hatred had to spill over into my parenting.  Despite all of the turmoil, I like to think that I am now a far better parent and, I hope my children have learned that they need to live their lives to make themselves happy, not please parents or societal expectations.  In contrast, the Christofascists want gays to remain in marriages that are not working so as to pretend they have "prayed away the gay" and to please their imaginary friend in the sky.  A piece in Huffington Post by a woman who came out later in life reflects some of my thinking on this issue.  Here are article highlights:

I came out in the early 1980s -- into a thriving lesbian community that was fueled by the feminist movement and had some overlap with the gay male community. I always knew that there were different realities for gay people and that many still were in the closet. I dismissed these realities as not being connected to mine. It wasn't until I met Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed., and read her books . . . .   that I began to reconsider.

Kaye is an internationally known author and counselor to straight women who are married to gay men. She also counsels closeted gay men on how honesty can help them and their female spouses.

An opinion piece in The New York Times reports that "the openly gay population is dramatically higher in more tolerant states...." Based on factual research, the author concludes, "The evidence also suggests that a large number of gay men are married to women."

Of course, there are also many closeted lesbians who are married to straight men, something that was documented on The Huffington Post.

I came to the conclusion that homophobia is hurting us all -- the straight spouses, the closeted gay or lesbian spouse, the children and particularly the children of closeted gay parents who identify as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning). Ultimately I was left with more questions than answers. Here Bonnie answers them.

Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.: My counseling work specializes in straight women who unknowingly married gay men, and gay men who were hoping they were straight and believed marriage would "cure" those attractions for other men. I started this counseling after the end of my own marriage to a gay man in 1978. Since that time, I have worked with over 100,000 people in this situation, 96 percent women and 4 percent gay men.

Kaye: I believe these marriages are toxic. Marriages are based on honest communication, intimacy on a physical and emotional level, and fidelity. A gay husband isn't able to provide this to a woman in a sustaining way, as his urges to be with men heighten as the years go on. In many cases, the husband becomes either emotionally or physically abusive due to his frustration of being in the wrong place with the wrong gender. The marriage needs to end because both parties are losing out on what they deserve. However, families can be "redefined" after divorce and remain close as each partner has a chance to find his and her true soul mate. 

Kaye: Living a lie takes its toll on the whole family unit. They say that secrets destroy families, and this is certainly true. Most children are so sophisticated today that they learn the secret before their mothers do. Then they become keepers of the secret, which tears them apart. If they tell their mothers, they fear it will destroy her life. If they don't tell her, they feel a sense of betrayal because their father is cheating. 

Kaye: Children who are gay struggle so much more with dishonest gay parents. Children can sense or know when they have a gay father. His rejection of their homosexuality makes their struggle that much more difficult. They start feeling that "If even my gay father won't accept me, how will others?" 

Kaye: Straight spouses need to find support to go through this grieving process in order to move on. Gay partners have to learn that they have the responsibility to help with the collateral family damage that will take place once this revelation is out. The beginning is always filled with turmoil and angry feelings, but the goal should be to redefine the family but work together as much as possible. Sadly, many gay partners are so happy to finally be "free" they pursue what they feel they've missed for so many years and don't provide that support.

I do not have gay children and I did not cheat on my former wife for years as many closeted men seem to do - just check out Craigslist and other sites to see the large number of cheating married men - but life in the closet was emotionally and psychologically exhausting.   Especially when you factor in the toxic religious brainwashing I suffered growing up Catholic.  For children, being honest and genuine is so important, yet it is something you cannot give when you are lying to yourself and those around you.  Again, I believe coming out ultimately made me a better parent.  Certainly a far more honest parent.

Has the Catholic Church Civil War Begun

For some years now the Republican Party has been caught in a civil war that pits the sane and rational Republicans - those that are left - against the insane, ignorance embracing forces of the Christofascists/Tea Party crowd who reject objective reality and oppose any and all modern knowledge.  Now, it seems a similar civil war may be igniting within the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the recent synod on the family in Rome.  In some ways the mindset of the "conservatives" it is not surprising given the fact that it is minds such as theirs that kept the Church's on the wrong side of history time and time again over the centuries be it refusing to concede that the earth revolved around the Sun instead of vice versa or the condemnation of Galileo.  The Spectator looks at the lines being drawn in the latest battle over whether or not the Church should enter the current century.  Here are highlights:

‘At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder,’ said a prominent Catholic conservative last week. No big deal, you might think. Opponents of Pope Francis have been casting doubt on his leadership abilities for months — and especially since October’s Vatican Synod on the Family, at which liberal cardinals pre-emptively announced a softening of the church’s line on homosexuality and second marriages, only to have their proposals torn up by their colleagues.

But it is a big deal. The ‘rudderless’ comment came not from a mischievous traditionalist blogger but from Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura — that is, president of the Vatican’s supreme court. As it happens, Pope Francis intends to sack Burke, whose habit of dressing up like a Christmas tree at Latin Masses infuriates him. But he hasn’t got round to it yet. And thus we have the most senior American cardinal in Rome publicly questioning the stewardship of the Holy Father — possibly with the tacit approval of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Nothing like this has happened since the backstabbing behind the scenes at the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago. It raises the question: is the Catholic church in the early stages of a civil war between liberals and conservatives, fought not over liturgical niceties (the source of relatively harmless squabbles under John Paul II and Benedict XVI) but fundamental issues of sexual morality?

The October synod was a disaster for Pope Francis. Before it started, he had successfully tweaked the Catholic mood music relating to divorcees and gay people.

The synod’s ‘special secretary’, the Italian archbishop Bruno Forte, wrote a mid-synod report suggesting that the participants wanted to recognise the virtuous aspects of gay unions. In doing so, Forte — an even more radical figure — overplayed his hand. Most synod fathers wanted no such thing. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s finances, were horrified. They ensured that the final report kicked Communion for divorcees into the long grass and did not even mention homosexual relationships. ‘Synod rebuffs Francis on gays,’ reported the media — the last thing the Pope wanted to read.

And now another voice is being heard. The last pope is neither dead nor senile nor as silent as we thought he was going to be. In the last month Benedict XVI has written to the ex-Anglicans of the Ordinariate expressing delight that they now worship in the former Bavarian chapel in Warwick Street, London; to Rome’s Pontifical Urban University about the dangers of relativism; and, most significantly, to supporters of the old liturgy.

Where does this leave Francis? Looking a bit like ‘the Hamlet Pope’, Paul VI, whom he has beatified. He supports some sort of reform, but uncertainty is breaking the church into factions reminiscent of the Anglican Communion. Old enemies of Benedict XVI reckon they can persuade Francis to stack the college of cardinals in their favour. 

Cristina Odone, former editor of the Catholic Herald, says that ‘Francis achieved miracles with his compassionate, off-the-cuff comments that detoxified the Catholic brand. He personifies optimism — but when he tries to turn this into policy he isn’t in command of the procedures or the details. The result is confusion.

 Regardless of what the so-called conservatives want to believe, the Church is dying in the west and it is largely because the Church's far right policies towards gays, women, contraception, and the divorced  are driving people away.  Especially the younger Catholics. Growth in ignorant backward areas such as equatorial Africa will not replace the losses in the west - especially since America and German are the main bank rollers of the Vatican. 

Why Conservative Christians Would Have Hated Jesus

This blog often notes the reality that while professing support for Christian values, today's conservative Christians - and certainly those within the Republican Party - are pursuing agendas totally at odds with the Gospel social message.  It's as if the worship a reverse version of the Sermon on the Mount and believe that Mitt Romney's vulture capitalism is the highest form of walking in the shoes of Christ.  Other than seeking to police everyone bedrooms to impose a puritan form of sexual conduct, they truly despise the message of Christ.  A piece in Salon looks at why the "godly folk" would hate Christ if he returned today.  Here are excerpts:

Jesus never could have been the pastor of a contemporary evangelical church nor a conservative Roman Catholic bishop. Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics thrive on drawing distinctions between their “truth” and other people’s failings. Jesus by contrast, set off an empathy time bomb that obliterates difference.

Jesus’ empathy bomb explodes every time a former evangelical puts love ahead of what the “Bible says.” It goes off every time Pope Francis puts inclusion ahead of dogma. It goes off every time a gay couple are welcomed into a church. Jesus’ time bomb explodes whenever atheists follow Jesus better than most Christians.

Put it this way: Godless non-church-going Denmark mandates four weeks of maternity leave before childbirth and fourteen weeks afterward for mothers. Parents of newborn children are assisted with well-baby nurse-practitioner visits in their homes.

In the “pro-life” and allegedly “family friendly” American Bible belt, conservative political leaders slash programs designed to help women and children while creating a justifying mythology about handouts versus empowerment.

In “God-fearing America” the poor are now the “takers,” no longer the “least of these,” and many conservative evangelicals side with today’s Pharisees, attacking the poor in the name of following the Bible.

So who is following Jesus?

Confronted by the Bible cult called evangelicalism we have a choice: follow Jesus or follow a book cult. If Jesus is God as evangelicals and Roman Catholics claim he is, then the choice is clear. We have to read the book–including the New Testament–as he did, and Jesus didn’t like the “Bible” of his day.

Confronted by bishops protecting dogma and tradition against Pope Francis’ embrace of empathy for the “other” we have a choice: follow Jesus or protect the institution.

Every time Jesus mentioned the equivalent of a church tradition, the Torah, he qualified it with something like this: “The scriptures say thus and so, but I say…” Jesus undermined the scriptures and religious tradition in favor of empathy. Every time Jesus undermined the scriptures (Jewish “church tradition”) it was to err on the side of co-suffering love.
Every time conservative Roman Catholics try to stop the Pope from bringing change to the Church they are on the side to those who killed Jesus.

In evangelical and Roman Catholic fundamentalist terms, Jesus was a rule-breaking humanist who wasn’t “saved.” A conservative bishop would have refused Jesus the sacraments. Christianity Today magazine would have editorialized against him, called for his firing, banning and branded him a traitor to the cause of Christianity.

The message of Jesus’ life is an intervention in and an acceleration of the evolution of empathy.

Jesus responded by attacking the preeminence of religion, tradition, dogma and group identity, offering an entirely new way of looking at spirituality by emphasizing basic human dignity above nation, state, gender or religion: . . 

Evangelicals struggle to conform Jesus to a book, not the other way around. And the conservative bishops have aligned themselves with the American neoconservative wing of their church against not just the Pope Francis but against the emancipating logic of Jesus’ empathy time bomb. If Jesus isn’t the “lens” evangelicals and Roman Catholics read the Bible and their traditions through then whatever they say to the contrary they do not really believe Jesus is the son of God.

Well said.  The reality of just how unChristian the godly folk have become goes a long way toward explaining why 30% of the younger generations have simply walked away from Christianity.  The "godly folk" have made it something truly ugly.  Hatred of others has become conservative Christianity defining characteristic, along with conduct that would have embarrassed the biblical Pharisees.

Far Right Catholics Declare War on Pope Francis

Over the weekend a column by Ross Douthat ran in the New York Times that more or less declared war on Pope Francis' attempt to move the Roman Catholic Church out of the Middle Ages.  The column demonstrates the mindset of far right Christians - both Catholic and Protestant - who are terrified by anything that challenges their childish, myth based beliefs and requires that they engage in thought and analysis instead of parroting what has been spoon fed to them from pulpits occupied by those who are little better than demagogues.  In a post today, Andrew Sullivan correctly described the sickness of those like Douthat.  Here are highlights:

[I]n Ross’s column, there is a clear assumption that his side of the debate owns the church, that any contrary views to his are an outrageous, treasonous and unprecedented attack on the institution itself, that any accommodation of mercy for those caught in the cross-hairs of the teachings on sex and marriage and family is somehow a “betrayal” of the core faith. Not a misguided idea – but a betrayal.

This is nonsense and panic, but it is a useful insight into the theo-conservative psyche. Notice the language used to describe a civil, rare and open debate of issues that the church is grappling with. This process – in which the theocons won on their core issues – is “a kind of chaos,” it’s “medieval” and “dangerous,” it sows “confusion.” It is as if these questions cannot even be debated (which was, of course, the view of John Paul II and Benedict XVI), as if faith itself is so fragile and so rooted in unquestioning blind obedience to a body of teaching that makes no distinction between central and more marginal issues, that any Pope that actually seeks to have a conversation about these questions is a threat to the church itself.

And what are these questions that are so dangerous to consider? That some divorced Catholics who sincerely want to be part of the life of the church should be allowed some participation in the sacraments; that a gay relationship should not be defined and condemned solely for its sexual nature – but can be appreciated for other virtues, such as mutual love and sacrifice; that doctrine should never be imposed without an option for mercy. These are not violations of the core teachings – that marriage is for life and must be always open to life; that non-procreative sex inside or outside marriage is always sinful – but attempts to acknowledge that human beings are involved here, and that exclusion and cruelty and contempt are not the only options for those following the teachings of Jesus.

But for Ross, it appears that mercy is an attack on inviolable truth, rather than its essential Christian complement.  . . . . If your faith cannot admit of doubt, of debate, of conversation … then it is a white-knuckled faith in the religion of total certainty, rather than the calm faith of those who know we do not have all the answers to every pastoral question.

It’s an almost textbook case in which those who regard themselves as morally superior claim ownership of a church created … for sinners. There is a clear rebuke to that mindset: So the last will be first and the first last, for the called are many and the chosen ones are few.

Surprise: Catholic Church is Still Homophobic

Like the evangelical and Southern Baptist Christofascists who seem driven to alienate as many thinking and decent people as possible in their quest to "save" Christianity, so too the bitter old men in dresses in Rome over the last two weeks - many of who gained their positions by being servile and obsequious ass kissers and embracing John Paul II and the Nazi Pope's reactionary positions, seem Hell bent to kill Catholicism in the west.  Why?  Because after suggestions that just maybe there might be changes in the Church's Medieval approach to women and gays, it now appears that - as I predicted - no change is in the offing.  Slate looks at how the forces of reaction have prevailed.  Here are excerpts:

Roman Catholic bishops voted down what would have been a historic shift in the church’s approach toward gays and the divorced. The draft report that called for greater openness toward these two groups did not get the necessary two-thirds majority at a Catholic Church synod even though the controversial sections had been largely watered down in recent days. The Vatican tried to play down the vote, saying the important fact is that the issue is being discussed in the first place. "It is important not to over-analyze," a Vatican spokesman said. "The fathers of the synod never saw themselves as reaching a final conclusion with this document."

But there was no hiding that the failure to get the votes illustrates “the deep divisions facing the hierarchy as Pope Francis continues his push for a more open church,” notes Josephine Mckenna of Religion News Service.

The document did not obtain a two-thirds majority among the almost 200 bishops who gathered at a Vatican assembly on the family even though the language that many had hailed as groundbreaking had been severely toned down since it was first revealed on Monday. The title of the section on gays, for example, switched from “Welcoming homosexuals” to “Pastoral attention towards persons with homosexual orientations.” While the original version included talk of “accepting and valuing their (homosexuals') sexual orientations” and providing a “a welcoming home” for gays, the final document merely said that discrimination “is to be avoided,” details Reuters. While the initial version talked of how members of same-sex couples could provide “mutual aid” and “precious support” to each other during difficult times, the new version makes it clear “there is no foundation whatsoever” to compare same-sex to opposite-sex unions.

Paragraphs that dealt with whether divorced Catholics could receive communion also failed to pass. During his final address to the Synod, Francis received a long standing ovation after he warned against “hostile rigidity” of “so-called traditionalists” while also criticizing progressives who would “bandage a wound before treating it.”

The BBC’s David Willey points out that while the paragraphs on gays and the divorced failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to be incorporated into the final document, they did get more than 50 percent of the vote. “This allows the necessary leeway for further discussion before the synod reconvenes in Rome in an expanded form in a year's time,” writes Willey.

This from the same church that condemned Galileo for heresy in 1633 and did not formally acknowledge its error until 1992.   Throughout the centuries, the Catholic Church has been routinely wrong, yet the bitter old closet cases prissily proclaim their infallibility.  Why does anyone listen to these individuals?

Can the Catholic Church Change Its Attitude Toward Gays?

Reports coming out of Rome cite a new document released today at the ongoing synod at the Vatican called by Pope Francis which is known as a relatio post disceptationem.  By Catholic Church standards - it took the Church centuries to face and admit its wrongful condemnation of Galileo - the document does sound almost revolutionary in it hints at possible changes to how it addresses Catholics who are divorced and remarried, how it addresses gay people, how it addresses contemporary culture.  However, talk is cheap as the saying goes and the real proof will come in how the Church actually changes it approach through actions - actions such as not firing gay employees who admit their sexual orientation or, horror of horrors, marry their same sex spouse.  It goes without saying that there will be terrific blow back from (i) some of the bitter closet cases within the Vatican hierarchy and in bishoprics across the globe, and (ii) far right Catholics who can only feel superior when denigrating and condemning others (think William Donohue of the farcical Catholic League).  Meanwhile, I hope Pope Francis doesn't eat or drink anything until a taster has previously sampled it.  Both Reuters and the National Catholic Reporter look at the development.  First highlights from Reuters:

VATICAN CITY, Oct 13 (Reuters) - In a dramatic shift in tone, a Vatican document said on Monday that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognise positive aspects of same-sex couples.

The document, prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops on the family, said the Church should challenge itself to find "a fraternal space" for homosexuals without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony.

While the text did not signal any change in the Church's condemnation of homosexual acts or its opposition to gay marriage, it used language that was less judgmental and more compassionate than past Vatican statements under previous popes.

The document will be the basis for discussion for the second and final week of the assembly, known as a synod, which was called by Pope Francis and focuses on the theme of the family.

It will also serve for further reflection among Catholics around the world ahead of another, definitive synod next year.

 "Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home," said the document, known by its Latin name "relatio".


"The document clearly reflects Pope Francis' desire to adopt a more merciful pastoral approach on marriage and family issues," he said.

A number of participants at the closed-door synod have said the Church should tone down its condemnatory language when referring to gay couples and avoid phrases such as "intrinsically disordered" when speaking of homosexuals.


The document also showed considerable opening to heterosexual couples who were married only in civil services or who were living together, mentioning "positive aspects" of such unions, especially if the couple saw them as a prelude to marriage in the Church. 

Here are excerpts from the piece in the National Catholic Reporter:

Taking a decidedly different tone than many church statements in recent years, the worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops on family issues has released a document calling for the church to listen more, to respect people in their various struggles, and to apply mercy much more widely.

Summarizing the work of the continuing meeting, known as a synod, the document acknowledges bluntly that the strict application of church doctrine is no longer enough to support people in their quest for God.

"It is necessary to accept people in their concrete being, to know how to support their search, to encourage the wish for God and the will to feel fully part of the Church, also on the part of those who have experienced failure or find themselves in the most diverse situations," states the document, released Monday morning.

Among the many changes in tone in the document are how it addresses Catholics who are divorced and remarried, how it addresses gay people, how it addresses contemporary culture -- and, more widely, how it asks for a church that is always open.

At one point, it quotes Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel"), stating: "The Church is called on to be 'the house of the Father, with doors always wide open ... where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems' and to move towards those who feel the need to take up again their path of faith."

Would I like to see the Church come into the 21st Century - even the 20th century ?  Most definitely.  Will I be holding my breath expecting real change?  Definitely not.  

 

Straight Spouses - Victims of the Christofascists' "Ex-Gay" Myth

Image - JaySi/Shutterstock.com

I frequently attack the lies disseminated by Christofascists as they continue their war against gays by promoting the "choice myth" and "ex-gay myth."   Having tried unsuccessfully to "change" myself for 37 years, I know the damage these lies do to ones life.  And that doesn't even factor in the number of LGBT individuals who ultimately take their own lives when they finally concede that they cannot change.  But their are additional victims about whom the "godly folk" don't give a damn: straight spouses who marry well intentioned opposite sex gays who are trying to be what church and family tell them that they are supposed to be.  And then there are the children of these doomed marriages.  They too are apparently acceptable collateral damage to the Christofascists eager to keep funds flowing into their coffers and push their anti-gay political agenda.  A piece in Slate looks at the straight spouses who ultimately are the victims of not their closeted spouses but instead they vile propagandist who continue to claim that gays can "change" even though all of the legitimate experts hold that change is not possible.  Here are article highlights:

After 16 years of marriage to a woman who would eventually come out as lesbian, Tom Teague made a promise to himself on a balmy October night in 2003: He would dance with every straight woman at the bar. Given the particularities of that evening, the odds were in his favor.

Teague, a reserved software development manager with a mop of white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, was one of anywhere between 80 and 100 attendees at the annual beachside gathering in Florida for members of the Straight Spouse Network. He had arrived fresh from the memorial service for his mother, who had died of pancreatic cancer days earlier. But he sought solace from more than just her death. SSN had been his lifeline since his wife came out as a lesbian that January. More than ever, he needed to be with people who could understand him.

It was a welcome change. For a long time, life had been filled with more misery than magic. But that’s what the closet—a place as real for straight spouses as it is for the sexually struggling gay men and women they marry—will do to you.

Straight spouses are largely absent from the national conversation about gay marriage and the modern family. Certainly, it’s easier to talk about two moms or two dads who have been together from the start than to talk about why Mom left Dad for another woman, or why Dad left Mom for another man. . . . . But we need to include straight spouses in that conversation, because as tolerance for LGBTQ people spreads throughout the culture, more closeted spouses will undoubtedly come out. While for them, the light beyond those doors can be liberating, for the straight partners stumbling out behind them, it can be quite harsh.

Teague and Cloud, meanwhile, are in the process of forming their own member-supported organization, Overcoming Coming Out. Teague says OCO will take a more holistic approach to the familial reverberations of LGBTQ people’s decision to come out than SSN, which is geared toward their straight spouses . . .

Economist and New York Times columnist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz estimates that roughly 5 percent of the 151.8 million men recorded in the 2010 U.S. census are primarily interested in other men—and that millions live some version of a closeted life, including marriages to straight women.

Coming out is never easy, but it’s incalculably more difficult for the gay men and women who have joined a heterosexual marriage for one reason or another. Sometimes, they come to an understanding—or acceptance—of their sexual orientation only later in life. Perhaps they have, to some degree, known all along but wanted more than anything to be heterosexual (or to be perceived that way), and to have the unequivocal legal right to marry and have children. Others simply caved to family or social pressures. Many gay men deeply love their wives, but as Gravallese points out, “Society and everything we were taught told us that love equals sexual attraction.” Of course, that’s not always the case.

In terms of the healing journey, [gay spouses] are way ahead of the game,” says psychotherapist Kimberly Brooks Mazella, who works with as many as 15 straight spouses, mostly women, at a time in her McLean, Virginia-based practice about 20 minutes outside of D.C. Straight spouses comprise about half of her practice.

Mazella has been treating straight spouses since 1987—the year she became one herself. At the time, she confronted many of the same questions that her patients do now. “Was I ever really loveable? Was he faking it the whole time? It just cuts to the core,” she says. “For me, it was just a couple of years. Had I been married for 30 or 40 years, I think those questions would cut even more deeply.”

When Mazella helps her patients move through the stages of grief, she acknowledges that it can be an emotional balancing act at times. ​“Straight spouses are often struggling with competing emotional experiences—their own feelings of grief and loss, anger at the gay spouse’s betrayal, and compassion for their partner’s own painful journey,” she says. Empathy for gay spouses is not unusual among the straight spouse community. Degrees vary based on personal experience, as in any divorce. But ask a straight spouse, any straight spouse, what awaits him or her on the other side of the closet door. The most common answer is a deep sense of isolation.

“I can’t really fault him,” Christine says. She lays out the circumstances, including his upbringing in a conservative church that shunned homosexuality. If faced with the same, she feels she might have retreated into the closet. Not everyone in Christine’s life would agree. Encountering people who have encouraged her to turn bitter against her husband only compounds an already difficult situation, she says. She may be angry, but she does not want to be bitter. She prefers to approach the end of their marriage as they began it—as a team.

As long time readers know, my divorce was very bitter.  While she has remarried and is hopefully happy, I doubt that my former wife will ever believe that (i) I did indeed love her and (ii) that I never meant to hurt her.  It sickens me that the Christofacists continue to peddle lies that will lead others to suffer the pain and hurts that both she and I experienced.  Their sole goal is to make money, slander gays - or avoid admitting that the myths in the Bible are flawed and in far too many cases flat out untrue.  I truly hold nothing but contempt for these very vile individuals who should be treated as social pariahs. Instead the GOP prostitutes itself to them and the media continues to give them wholly undeserved deference even as the continue to damage countless lives.