Christian journalist 'can't sleep, lost 14 lbs, and may leave Dublin' after threats by gay marriage advocates

[Tony_the_mad]

Oh but we are talking about those people given those hateful comments are allegedly from people supporting gay marriage.

This isn’t okay, but it isn’t so easy to feel sorry for someone getting their comeuppance.

When the bullies become bullied or the bullied become bullies, it is hard to have sympathy for anyone. (Although, we are called to have sympathy for everyone.) The hardest for me to sympathize with, though, are people who did nothing to help whoever was being bullied.

The gay community has been harassed (and continues to be harassed) in many different ways and too often we have looked the other way. If there is any comfort to this sad story, it is that we have gotten what we have deserved for ignoring the harassment of the gay people.

This fight helps neither side. Marriage cannot be destroyed any worse that what we heterosexual have already done to it. And those who truly discriminate against gay people are not going to suddenly stop because gay people can get married too.

Both sides are fighting for something they really don’t care about. (If heterosexuals and Christians really cared about marriage would there be so much pre-marital sex, extramarital sex, and divorce?) Some, on both sides of the issue, do care, but my experience is that the vast majority of the loudest on both sides don’t really care about it at all.

 

[Robert_Sock]

My thoughts and prayers to everyone experiencing insomnia! I suffer from it too, and I have been forced to take prescription sleep medication, which I do not like taking.

LOVE!

 

[Kaninchen]

Hasn’t he made something of a career out of being provocative/outrageous - even over seemingly trivial things like writing songs for the European Song Contest?

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but outrage can be a good career move in the news production industry and large pinches of salt may be in order.

 

[gam197]

Unfortunately, Mr. Waters has made really stupid comments about “depression” being a phony diagnosis; and about women being “more prone” to emotional outburts than men. There are too many pundits who, rather than being principled, are just making money off deliberately ticking people off, or complaining about people who make a lot out of being ‘victims,’ and then, like Mr. Waters, posing as a martyr.

We all say things but what does this have to do with him being constantly bullied because he does not believe in “gay marriage”?

 

[IBombAtomically]

Oh my goodness. I won’t address each individual post, but to those of you who are of the “Mr. Waters deserves it” ilk, here is my response:

Of course no one should be persecuted or hated for simply being gay! If you’ve ever read the Catechism, or listened to anything Pope Francis has said, you’d know where the Church stands on that. But if your “solution” is for our Church to take a cowardly, lackadaisical stance on moral issues in order to fill the pews, you are confused about which side is Misrepresenting the Faith.

Harassing someone is wrong. Period. Please show me where it says in the NT or in Church teaching that it’s totally fine to act like a jerk if someone else, somewhere in history, did it first! No, really, I’m curious, because that seems like pretty much the opposite of everything our Faith teaches us.

 

[SMGS127]

Oh my goodness. I won’t address each individual post, but to those of you who are of the “Mr. Waters deserves it” ilk, here is my response:

Of course no one should be persecuted or hated for simply being gay! If you’ve ever read the Catechism, or listened to anything Pope Francis has said, you’d know where the Church stands on that. But if your “solution” is for our Church to take a cowardly, lackadaisical stance on moral issues in order to fill the pews, you are confused about which side is Misrepresenting the Faith.

Harassing someone is wrong. Period. Please show me where it says in the NT or in Church teaching that it’s totally fine to act like a jerk if someone else, somewhere in history, did it first! No, really, I’m curious, because that seems like pretty much the opposite of everything our Faith teaches us.

Well, I don’t know that I’d say he “deserves” it. But let me at least mention that it always cracks me up when someone goes on diatribes about gay people and how horrible they are, uses insults and pejoratives and slang or what have you, etc., and then when someone criticizes them for it, they act like they’re being persecuted for their belief on gay “marriage” .

I would never say he deserves to feel like he does, but he most definitely is not being targeted for his position on gay “marriage.”

 

[gam197]

Well, I don’t know that I’d say he “deserves” it. But let me at least mention that it always cracks me up when someone goes on diatribes about gay people and how horrible they are, uses insults and pejoratives and slang or what have you, etc., and then when someone criticizes them for it, they act like they’re being persecuted for their belief on gay “marriage” .

I would never say he deserves to feel like he does, but he most definitely is not being targeted for his position on gay “marriage.”

How do you know that?

 

[SMGS127]

How do you know that?

Because the community rarely targets people merely for their views on gay “marriage.” The Firefox and Chick Fil A situations are the only two I’ve ever seen, and even in those cases, most of the anger didn’t come directly from the community (Silicon in the first case, heterosexual Democratic mayors in the 2nd).

Usually, the people/organizations that cause actual anger from the community (the Family Research Council, the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson) are hate groups that make all sorts of horrifying comments about gay people (‘gay people worship pedophiles’, “God hates f**s,” ‘gay people caused 9/11,’ respectively). And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people on here defend the FRC’s claims that gay opposition is entirely due to their position on marriage . People like to believe that Christian groups are being persecuted for their views on marriage, but almost always, they’re really being attacked for alternative reasons. Most of the examples people give are either highly isolated cases (a singular couple suing a company), a non-example like the FRC, or an example that doesn’t actually involve the LGBT community.

 

[jonathan_hili]

Interesting reply, Dex, but a couple of points please:

We don’t generally go around energetically telling Jews and Muslims how wrong they are and how evil it is that they won’t eat pork or that they circumcise their male children…

As far as I can see, there’s nothing fundamentally in error with someone not eating pork or the practice of circumcision. However, attempting to alter the nature of marriage is a different kettle of fish. I would say it’s more akin to people in society wanting to legalise a negation of parenthood, i.e. that when a child is born, legally, he or she has no parents. We see that there is a fundamental wrong (both morally and metaphysically) in denying the parent-child relationship in a legal and social sense; similarly, denying the male-female relationship in marriage as inherently different from any same-sex union is fundamentally wrong.

Why do we persist in going around telling other people who don’t share our religion how wrong they are and how evil they are if they have a different perspective and understanding on what marriage ‘is’?

Again, it’s not a matter of religion but of the natural law.

I’ve seen it on these forums and I see it in the world. The people who claim to speak for the Church constantly complain, belittle and condemn and do not give any positive witness for the Faith. I often consider them to be of the same sort of thread as a certain recently deceased fundamentalist ‘church’ leader… They do nobody any favours.

You’ve got a good point here. I think we need a balance: to speak out for the truth on social issues but at the same time to balance this with the truth of the Gospel. Okay, marriage is only an institution between a man and a woman - but why? We need to present the positive vision of human relationships that Jesus does.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

We all say things but what does this have to do with him being constantly bullied because he does not believe in “gay marriage”?

I believe the actual reason he is getting attacked is “being a pompous wanker who deliberately aims to make people angry”.

 

[gam197]

Because the community rarely targets people merely for their views on gay “marriage.” The Firefox and Chick Fil A situations are the only two I’ve ever seen, and even in those cases, most of the anger didn’t come directly from the community (Silicon in the first case, heterosexual Democratic mayors in the 2nd).

Usually, the people/organizations that cause actual anger from the community (the Family Research Council, the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson) are hate groups that make all sorts of horrifying comments about gay people (‘gay people worship pedophiles’, “God hates f**s,” ‘gay people caused 9/11,’ respectively). And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people on here defend the FRC’s claims that gay opposition is entirely due to their position on marriage . People like to believe that Christian groups are being persecuted for their views on marriage, but almost always, they’re really being attacked for alternative reasons. Most of the examples people give are either highly isolated cases (a singular couple suing a company), a non-example like the FRC, or an example that doesn’t actually involve the LGBT community.

So what was his crime before this?

originally posted by Joie de Vivre
I believe the actual reason he is getting attacked is “being a pompous wanker who deliberately aims to make people angry”.

My problem with this is that this man has been a journalist for the Irish Times(#1 newspaper in Ireland) for about 30 plus years and now all of of a sudden he is “…”?

They just found this out after he made a state to a small group about gay adoption?.