Bohemian Rhapsody

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I think this opinion piece is also a good explanation of how many people feel:

“as we sat there watching this particular episode, we both had a growing sense that the show was somehow “desensitizing our sensibilities”. We started to feel… “dirty”. We turned off the laptop; watching any further only demonstrated our tacit approval and we wanted to stop before our worldview had been permanently altered…”

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Christian Worldview: What Does It Mean to Be “In the World” but Not “Of the World”? | Cold Case Christianity

What does it really mean to live as a Christian in a non-Christian environment? What happens when our "point of location" becomes our "source of information"?
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Most people don’t feel that way. Just fundies and Catholics who are too sheltered.
 
Look, it’s simple. If you think listening to a particular music is an occasion of sin for you, then don’t listen to it. I am sure there are Catholics somewhere who felt that way about Glenn Miller, or the Beatles. Maybe watching Beatle Paul shake his hair gave somebody an impure thought.

As long as the person laying down this restriction doesn’t impose it on all other Catholics, and lets other people choose what they want to read, watch and listen to, and take responsibility for their own conscience and their own sin, then fine, it’s a preference.

I have never seen listening to any band as an endorsement of their lifestyle. If that was the case, I would not only have to rule out Freddie Mercury for being gay, but rule out Aerosmith because Steven Tyler had a 14-year-old girlfriend and made her have an abortion, and Janis Joplin because she was an alcoholic, sometime lesbian and heroin addict, and David Bowie because he spent part of his career gender bending, and so forth. I guess it would still be okay to listen to Alice Cooper sing about necrophilia because he’s a good Evangelical church-goer these days, and maybe Slayer’s “Reign in Blood” would be fine because Tom Araya is a strong Catholic, but you get the drift.

And I haven’t even started on visual artists or authors or actors.

When I was a teenager I went through the usual hassles with parents about what I was allowed to read or listen to or watch. I was actually fortunate that they were more permissive than some parents I knew who wouldn’t allow their kids to own records or threw entire record collections in the trash. Trust me, that sort of control is NOT the way to make your kid become a strong Catholic. It’s a great way to just make him move out and not speak to you for about 10 years.

Learning to separate what you absorb as art from your actual daily behavior and morals is a skill, and one that is good to learn in my opinion. I don’t need to run down the street covering my eyes or ears every 2 minutes because nothing there is going to influence me. Furthermore, I’m able to pretty easily dismiss a lot of the excessive stuff because it’s just kinda dumb IMHO. Making it all forbidden, on the other hand, creates a lot of curiosity and excitement over what could possibly be behind the curtain, and has the opposite effect from just seeing there is nothing there beyond some man pulling a lever.

YMMV.
 
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Also Mozart wrote songs about farts and did the premarital deed and was a mason
 
Sure, there is a spectrum. Some are more graphic, while some are less graphic. I find it encouraging that the band members did not want to go the more graphic route that Sasha Baron Coen wanted to go.
 
HarryStotle said:
Just a question or ten: Is it likewise fruitless to speculate on our own spiritual condition? If so, then how do we know with any certainty whether we are making headway towards a more positive spiritual state or falling headlong into the abyss?
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One presumably has more access to one’s own internal states. And we are not clueless, we simply do not know for certain. Still, the church has very strongly told us that we are to never, ever presume, but to trust in God.
HarryStotle said:
As “non-judgmental persons” what if our refusal to undertake any judgement at all with regard to the spiritual state of others means we are allowing them to fall into the abyss without what could have been help from us? Perhaps after they have fallen, we can just walk away with hands clean of any guilt – not my problem. Who am I to judge? Seems just a tad hollow, no?
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If one is friends with a living individual and in a position to be heard, then, yes, we can provide advice and support based on what we see of their actions. We’re not completely clueless.

It is, however, quite pointless to speculate on the spiritual state of dead people. It’s also generally pointless to speculate on the spiritual state of living people we merely know by reputation. There’s certainly no benefit to the person being speculated about, and very rarely any benefit to the ones doing the speculating.
 
I would hope Freddie Mercury is in either heaven or purgatory. AIDS is certainly a form of purgatory on earth.
Anyway, this thread has been a good reminder that I need to pray for his soul.
 
notforgotten said:
The whole band is gay.
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Queen?

Freddie Mercury: gay.
Brian May: married twice, father of three, definitely not gay.
John Deacon: married to his wife for over 43 years, father of six, definitely not gay.
Roger Taylor: married twice (and a long-term relationship with woman between his two marriages), father of five, definitely not gay.
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
It’s not sinful to like a musician who is an LGBT icon. You can still remain a faithful catholic. This whole conversation is soooo legalistic that I can’t even…
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Let’s get this straight.I love Queen as well as Freddie. I even cried at the news of his death. I plan to see this movie. I watch movies starring gay actors/actresses and listen to music by gay artists. I have no problem with that. My question was asked because of the possibility it will be tooooo graphic.
 
If it’s in theatres nation wide you’re good, it’s not porn
 
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I won’t be watching, but that’s because I don’t care for biopics; and I don’t watch very many movies anyway.
 
Isn’t the idea that watching a movie that includes sex scenes means you’ve sinned, somewhat the same as watching a movie about a bank robbery and believing you’ve sinned against the 7th commandment. Hey, lighten up.
 
Just a comment in general: it’s funny that the main concern that seems to be raised is that one of the members of the band was gay. My main moral concern about Queen has always been that they played for an all-white audience in Apartheid South Africa at a time when a majority of artists adhered to a widely held understanding that performing in South Africa was simply not acceptable for as long as the Apartheid regime remained in force and audiences were racially segregated. That worries me a lot more than anyone’s sexual behaviour. And if we’re judging people’s sexual behaviour, at least one straight member of the band had a pretty colourful love life.
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
If it’s in theatres nation wide you’re good, it’s not porn
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Well, Brokeback Mountain was in theaters, though I either saw it on cable or rented it. It had one, IMO, too graphic scene when they first had sex that was, again IMO, too graphic, rough, and almost seemed like a rape.
 
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Londoner said:
And if we’re judging people’s sexual behaviour, at least one straight member of the band had a pretty colourful love life.
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There are almost no musical acts out there (except possibly “Christian music” acts) that don’t have at least one member in this category.

In addition, Mercury stayed in the closet to the public for almost all of his life. Many of his fans had absolutely no idea he was gay. I know I liked some of Queen’s music in high school, as did many of my classmates. Nobody had an inkling.
 
Do you have the same moral concern about the musicians who protested apartheid but are now silent about the racism, land seizures, violence and murder of whites in modern day South Africa?
 
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