Activists draw fire for labeling Scottish cardinal 'bigot' [CNA]

[Iron_Donkey]

I thought the Church was supposed to be the paragon of respect and tolerance for the human person. Stonewall rightfully demands that for homosexuals and when the opposite happens it is free to identify those individuals and criticize them for it. Its certainly never laid claim to the title of paragon of tolerance unlike another institution I can think of which demands it from its adherents. The choice of language used on the part of Catholics is very disappointing.

I am not familiar with the comments you are referring to, but judging by the comments I am familiar with that have gotten the same reaction it may be that you are failing to distinguish between criticism of the person and criticism of what the person is doing.

That is, a bishop may criticize sinful actions as terrible things because they are, and if two people decide to perpetuate a relationship centered around those sinful actions he may very well say the same thing about that relationship. But to criticize an action or a relationship, even with strong language and regardless of whether those involved consider their relationship to be loving or not, is not to say that those engaging in it are any less human or have less dignity. I would be very surprised if anything the bishop said implied such.

EDIT: And after reading the quote, it looks like he wasn’t even talking about the act, or the relationship centered around the act, but rather action by the government to call such things good and normalize such relationships. To which his criticism makes even more sense, because he’s talking about a grotesque twisting of a ancient law/custom to enable immorality to have an even larger and legally legitimate foothold on society.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

You seriously don’t know what Crescentinus is referring to? It’s one thing to feel compassion for homosexually inclined people, it’s quite another thing to suggest gay relationships/gay “marriage” are perfectly fine.

That is my view as I am gay however I’m not attempting to convince anyone to share it. I do expect disagreement to be civilized especially coming from an institution which regards itself as a shining beacon of respect and dignity for the human person. Lashing out by referring to people’s loving relationships as grotesque and accusing them of bringing about societal apocalypse is neither respectful or constructive.

I’ve seen footage of gay parades, and “grotesque” is a perfectly suitable term.

I’ve participated in them and I’d hardly consider them to be “grotesque.” Go to any event and I’m sure you’ll find some socially inept person(s) making a fool of themselves. There are rules, sometimes people break them, and some conservative anti-gay activist inevitably frankensteins video footage to make it appear as if that is all there is.

And yes gay “marriage” is a parody, it mimicks the natural union of a man and a woman who love each other and bear fruit (i.e. beget children). You’re clearly pro-gay agenda and would like to bring us Dark Ages Catholics to 2012, where we’re past being bound by moral laws, hence the term “proselytizing”.

Secular marriage is not within the purview of the Church and its bizarre to me that a secular institution which has always been regarded as meaningless by the Church is suddenly subject to a hostile takeover from religious institutions.

 

[philial]

I thought the Church was supposed to be the paragon of respect and tolerance for the human person.

Respect, yes… , for humanity which is why it is so necessary to condemn forms of beastility when they occur, but tolerance? Nope, never been part of the Church’s mission! What, you think we’re just a bunch of limp-wristed post hippy liberals?

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Secular marriage is not within the purview of the Church and its bizarre to me that a secular institution which has always been regarded as meaningless by the Church is suddenly subject to a hostile takeover from religious institutions.

This only makes sense if you consider secular marriage and actual marriage to be completely separate, but they obviously aren’t. Whether you are married in a courthouse or by a priest, you are still stating an intention to start (or at least make official, these days) a sexual relationship with the other person. There may be differences in your intent, and whether you consider your vows to be made before God, etc, etc, but that core part there is common to everything that has ever been called marriage.

But whether or not such relationships are moral is a moral question. And whether or not the state should go around supporting and recognizing an immoral parody of something that is moral as a good thing that should be treated as more or less equivalent to marriage itself is also a moral question. And the Church has always been interested in moral questions.

It’s not a case of churches trying to take over something which they haven’t cared about. It’s a case of the government suddenly reaching in and trying to twist something which all churches everywhere have always cared deeply about, and trying to do so in ways that are so unprecedented that no church has ever needed to argue against them in any detail before - because the fact that such a twisting is wrong has always been obvious to nearly all people.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

This only makes sense if you consider secular marriage and actual marriage to be completely separate, but they obviously aren’t. Whether you are married in a courthouse or by a priest, you are still stating an intention to start (or at least make official, these days) a sexual relationship with the other person. There may be differences in your intent, and whether you consider your vows to be made before God, etc, etc, but that core part there is common to everything that has ever been called marriage.

Secular marriage is real marriage. The difference here is between secular and religious marriage which have nothing to do with each other. Marriage hasn’t always been between opposite sexes or even one man and one woman. This concept is a more recent development in the evolution of marriage.

But whether or not such relationships are moral is a moral question. And whether or not the state should go around supporting and recognizing an immoral parody of something that is moral as a good thing that should be treated as more or less equivalent to marriage itself is also a moral question. And the Church has always been interested in moral questions.

Why question the morality of something the Church has never regarded as legitimate anyway?

It’s not a case of churches trying to take over something which they haven’t cared about. It’s a case of the government suddenly reaching in and trying to twist something which all churches everywhere have always cared deeply about, and trying to do so in ways that are so unprecedented that no church has ever needed to argue against them in any detail before - because the fact that such a twisting is wrong has always been obvious to nearly all people.

That just isn’t true. There are several churches which already allow gay marriage and do not consider it a moral issue. The State is not redefining religious marriage; secular marriage has nothing to do with religion at all. It has no impact on the Catholic Church.

 

[Dale_M]

I know that Cardinal O’Brien cannot be so blunt (or can he?

My sense, from earlier news threads posted here, is that he is unusually plain-spoken. But perhaps our friends in the UK can give us a better idea.

As a news followup, the organization Stonewall has defended this year’s choice for the BotY award, and defended the existence of the award category.

A spokesman for the group said it was “incredibly important” that it challenged people who made “gratuitously offensive comments” about gay people. The bigot award “is definitely going to happen next year. No doubt about it,” he said.

guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/02/stonewall-unrepentant-cardinal-bigot-award

However, with two of the major financial donors to the group threatening to withdraw support the group, may reconsider after the media spotlight is turned off. I hope they do. BotY is a sophomoric and sneering category. Such an award may have been acceptable when Stonewall was smaller and less influential, but it has outgrown that stage. Its time to leave childish things behind.

 

[SuperLuigi]

A ‘gay rights’ organisation’s decision to label Scotland’s senior Catholic clergyman a ‘bigot’ last night for his strong defence of traditional marriage has been condemned by the Church in Scotland.

“Stonewall’s decision to award their ‘Bigot of the Year’ award to Cardinal O’Brien reveals the depth of their intolerance and their willingness to attack and demean those who don’t share their views,” Peter Kearney, the director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, said.

Full report: sconews.co.uk/news/23272/attack-on-cardinal-obrien-is-mark-of-intolerance/

As someone who used to live in Scotland, this is completely unacceptable.

Imagine if a religious group (well, non-Muslim anyway) issued a pervert of the year award for someone in the GLBTQ community.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Ah, hypocrisy; nice to see its still rearing it’s ugly head. '-_-

It’ll be nice when the world wakes up and realizes that natural law and God’s law are the only laws that matter, and their petty and selfish wants and desires have no meaning… too bad that probably won’t be within our lifetime.

It’s a long, hard process and the more stubborn a society is, the harder and longer the journey is.

Short of direction intervention of the Divine, nothing will trump natural law.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Secular marriage is real marriage. The difference here is between secular and religious marriage which have nothing to do with each other. Marriage hasn’t always been between opposite sexes or even one man and one woman. This concept is a more recent development in the evolution of marriage.

If you say that secular marriage is real, then it appears that from the point of view of the religious person there is no difference between them after all (at least when done correctly). The only possible argument that could ever be put forward to convince religious people that the two should be treated completely separately is to say that secular marriage is no more and no less than a contract about sharing of goods etc. But this is obviously false (and you don’t seem to be taking this position).

Edit: there is a difference between a sacramental marriage and a non-sacramental marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church at least, but either of these can occur with a religious ceremony (inside or outside the Catholic Church) or without one. So I am not saying that we don’t see differences in marriages at all, just that the thing itself appears to be more or less the same.

Why question the morality of something the Church has never regarded as legitimate anyway?

The Church has always regarded marriages it does not officiate as legitimate, with a few exceptions. Two atheists married by a judge really are legitimately married in the eyes of the Church, assuming there are no circumstances preventing it from being valid. To say that the Church just never cared is simply wrong.

That just isn’t true. There are several churches which already allow gay marriage and do not consider it a moral issue. The State is not redefining religious marriage; secular marriage has nothing to do with religion at all. It has no impact on the Catholic Church.

The various denominations which allow gay marriage do not say that it is not a moral issue, they just disagree with us about what the answer to the morality question is.

And again, I’d have to ask you what you think the difference is between religious marriage and secular marriage. And even if we get that sorted out, what makes you think that a church can only be concerned with issues that some other people decide are religious?

I mean, that’s like saying that the Democrats should be able to pass a law allowing registered Democrats to steal from other registered democrats without the Republicans caring. I mean, after all, it doesn’t change the definition of Republican theft.

 

[Solly_Gratia]

The State is not redefining religious marriage; secular marriage has nothing to do with religion at all. It has no impact on the Catholic Church.

This is certainly not true in the UK, since no marriage can take place in church without a representative of the state, the registrar, being there.

Peter Tachell knows full well that as soon as the British government signs SSM into being, it comes under european equality law. If some forms of marriage can be celebrated religiously, with the legal aspect also part of that act, then ALL forms of marriage have ‘the right’ to be so conducted, and the churches that refuse will be penalised. The state, in this case the British government, will throw up its hands saying, ‘well we gave assurances but the EU over-rode us, sorry’, and sign the rest into being as well.

This is the goal of the gay lobby, whether individual gay people, or sympatheitc hets realise it or not. The ultimate goal is not to finally have gay religious marriages however, but to smash marriage and the church institutions. They expect the churches to give up marriages, to conduct voluntary blessings, to avoid legal action. They expect marriage to be reduced to the level of a state legal contract of what ever term of years the contractees express. Eventually, they expect to remove ‘marriage’ as a binding contract completely. This was signalled in the 1971 Gay Liberation Front manifesto, and was part of the ideology of left wing groups in the early part of the 20th century. Marriage is seen as a bourgois phenomenon ‘holding back’ society from 'progressive values that include full sexual liberty, abortion on demand, contraception on demand, partners on demand, and no responsibilities other that what the state requires. The soviets spent 70 years implementing it, and so-called liberal democracies are moving towards that end. ‘bigot’ is the standard word used to describe anyone who does not accept the new orthodoxy. Canada and France are already removing words like ‘father’ and ‘mother’ from offical documents. Go and read 1984 and Brave New World, it’s all there.

This is not about equality, since in the UK and elsewhere Civil Partnerships provide all the legal equality required. This is an ideological struggle by a small clique who have captured the media and high places of political power.

 

[Solly_Gratia]

Yes, I accept that. It was the comparison I was drawing. Peter Hitchens, the British journalist, spent several years in Russia, it was that experience that helped towards his rehabilitiation from Trotskyism to a more conservative position. He writes about how the Soviet government made it policy to break up families wherever possible, by conflicting work shifts, state child care and education, etc. Everyone was to owe their allegiance to the state, and only the state. The gay lobby have learnt that lesson (promulgated in the 70s and 80s in America originally), and use the state as a tool to get their own ends, creating an aura of victimhood, as well as inflating their numbers. Manipulation of language, well known in Soviet Russia, and revealed to the West by Orwell, is the main plank. Words like ‘Bigot’, the subject of this thread, have no content. They are used to end argument and discussion, to rule out the acceptability of views not deemed orthodox. ‘Bourgois’ was used in the SU in the same way.

 

[CNA_News]

Edinburgh, Scotland, Nov 3, 2012 / 05:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic spokesman slammed the U.K. gay advocacy group Stonewall’s bestowal of its “bigot of the year” award on Cardinal Keith O’Brien, calling the move an effort to attack marriage supporters.

Peter Kearney, Director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, said the award “reveals the depths of their intolerance and their willingness to attack and demean those who don’t share their views.”

“Stonewall and others have promoted terms like 'bigot' and 'homophobe' relentlessly, in order to intimidate and vilify anyone who dares oppose their agenda,” Kearney said Nov. 1.

“It is an agenda which the wider public does not endorse and which their excessive language has undermined.”

Cardinal O'Brien, the Archbishop of St. Andrews and Glasgow, has been a leading defender of traditional marriage in the face of local efforts to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions.

Stonewall, which receives some government funding, said its 10,000 members voted “decisively” to give the award to the cardinal after he described same-sex “marriage” as a “grotesque subversion” of the universal right to marry.

In a March 3 editorial in the British newspaper The Telegraph, the cardinal warned that redefining marriage would have “huge implications” for schools and for wider society. It would “eliminate entirely” from law the idea that a child needs a mother and a father. He questioned whether teachers who wants to tell students that marriage can only mean the union of a man and a woman will lose that right.

“Will both teacher and pupils simply become the next victims of the tyranny of tolerance, heretics whose dissent from state-imposed orthodoxy must be crushed at all costs?” he asked, citing precedents in Massachusetts to normalize homosexual advocacy.

He warned that the redefinition of marriage might set a precedent for polygamous marriage and cause “further degeneration of society into immorality.”

In response, the director of Stonewall ScotlandColin Macfarlane told The Guardian that the cardinal has “gone well beyond what any normal person would call a decent level of public discourse.”

But Ruth Davidson, an openly lesbian leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, gave a speech at the Stonewall awards ceremony in which she criticized the attack on Cardinal O'Brien.

She said she disagreed with Stonewall’s “need to call people names like ‘bigot’.”

“It is simply wrong,” she said, The Christian Institute reports.

In response, event attendees booed her.

Two leading banks who sponsor the Stonewall event, Barclays and Coutts, have threatened to end their sponsorship unless it drops the prize for “bigot of the year.”

Stonewall U.K. receives funding from many public bodies, including the Scottish government.

Kearney said Stonewall's “intolerant and intimidatory tactics” should call into question the group's funding from many public bodies.

The Scottish parliament could legalize “gay marriages” next year despite strong opposition from religious groups and others.

The push for marriage redefinition is also evident in other parts of the U.K. The United Kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was also the focus of controversy after his office released a draft speech which called opponents of redefining marriage “bigots.”

feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/catholicnewsagency/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews/~4/wS9m28FVf0E

Full article…

 

[Crescentinus]

I just hope that it can also happen here in Manila. These gay pride parades are boring. You’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen them all.

 

[JackyB]

This is certainly not true in the UK, since no marriage can take place in church without a representative of the state, the registrar, being there.

Peter Tachell knows full well that as soon as the British government signs SSM into being, it comes under european equality law. If some forms of marriage can be celebrated religiously, with the legal aspect also part of that act, then ALL forms of marriage have ‘the right’ to be so conducted, and the churches that refuse will be penalised. The state, in this case the British government, will throw up its hands saying, ‘well we gave assurances but the EU over-rode us, sorry’, and sign the rest into being as well.

This is the goal of the gay lobby, whether individual gay people, or sympatheitc hets realise it or not. The ultimate goal is not to finally have gay religious marriages however, but to smash marriage and the church institutions. They expect the churches to give up marriages, to conduct voluntary blessings, to avoid legal action. They expect marriage to be reduced to the level of a state legal contract of what ever term of years the contractees express. Eventually, they expect to remove ‘marriage’ as a binding contract completely. This was signalled in the 1971 Gay Liberation Front manifesto, and was part of the ideology of left wing groups in the early part of the 20th century. Marriage is seen as a bourgois phenomenon ‘holding back’ society from 'progressive values that include full sexual liberty, abortion on demand, contraception on demand, partners on demand, and no responsibilities other that what the state requires. The soviets spent 70 years implementing it, and so-called liberal democracies are moving towards that end. ‘bigot’ is the standard word used to describe anyone who does not accept the new orthodoxy. Canada and France are already removing words like ‘father’ and ‘mother’ from offical documents. Go and read 1984 and Brave New World, it’s all there.

This is not about equality, since in the UK and elsewhere Civil Partnerships provide all the legal equality required. This is an ideological struggle by a small clique who have captured the media and high places of political power.

 

[lerapt78]

Wow! I hope the Cardinal got a trophy! Or at least some coupons for his favorite restaurant. I mean, it takes talent, discipline, and determination to win first place - just think of all those bigoted runner-ups who had to go home empty-handed.

Sigh. The more people baselessly throw out these labels and claims that once used to be appropriate to the actual definition of the word (and therefore had meaning), the more these words will lose the significance attached to them.

 

[Pat_the_elder]

Here’s what you get for telling it like it is-
-Sorry just realised this is discussed in Catholic News

guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/02/catholic-stonewall-bigot-keith-obrien

 

[Crescentinus]

Wow! I hope the Cardinal got a trophy! Or at least some coupons for his favorite restaurant. I mean, it takes talent, discipline, and determination to win first place - just think of all those bigoted runner-ups who had to go home empty-handed.

Sigh. The more people baselessly throw out these labels and claims that once used to be appropriate to the actual definition of the word (and therefore had meaning), the more these words will lose the significance attached to them.

Sadly, the homosexualists will continue doing that.
For me to be called that is a badge of honor though.

 

[lerapt78]

Sadly, the homosexualists will continue doing that.
For me to be called that is a badge of honor though.

Yes. I find that name-calling usually is the attack weapon of choice once reason and logic fail to generate enough support.

 

[epan]

I read the Cardinal’s editorial, and his pastoral letter. I didn’t read any offensive language. He simply stated the Catholic position clearly and logically.

Here is a link to his letter to the Daily Telegraph. I would suggest reading it before making statements about Cardinal O’Brien’s allegedly bigoted statements:

telegraph.co.uk/comment/9121424/We-cannot-afford-to-indulge-this-madness.html

The pastoral letter just announces the formation of a Commission for Marriage and Family.

 

[epan]

Public opinion is somewhat ahead of the US in this issue in much of Europe. A number of euro countries, including Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden have had legalized gay marriage for many years. Britain has civil unions and is scheduled for legalization. Germany has registered life partnerships (Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft) and the largest political party has gay marriage on their slate for the Bundestag to take up. France is about to legalize gay marriage.

The US only achieved plurality support recently (51%), but that is only when the option of civil union does not exist. 5-10% of Americans support civil unions over marriage.

Whereas in most of Europe about 2/3rds of the population support gay marriage.