Don't drink the Starbucks: supporters of homosexuality

[otm]

Anthony's Mom:

The fact of the matter is that we all know that they would NEVER print “Abortion is murder” or even, “Abortion Hurts Women” on their cups. Why? Because the Libs wouldn’t stand for it. I think that we should at least protest by way of a letter or email or phone call when we come across this kind of subtle indoctrination.

First off, hoorah for her in writing! It beats the tar out of sitting around with like minded people grousing.

Second, why do you presume they would not print something on their cups along those lines? They have said they would ( and they obviously are looking for something a bit longer that a 3 or 4 word phrase), and unless and until someone has repeatedly offered a range of statements which have been rejected, your statement sounds more like sour grapes than anything.

Start submitting - and get beyond the bumper-sticker phrasing.

 

[contemplative]

AmberDale:

So my supervisor came in with a bunch of starbucks coffee for everyone. She got them for free, apparenntly they made some mistakes and gave them to her.
Whatever sure, she took them.
I was drinking the coffee (vanilla latte) and it was quite tasty.
I looked at the cup, nothing weird.
Well I saw this quote on the other side.

The Way I see it #43
“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too damn short.”

–** Armistead Maupin**
*Auther of the *Tales of the City series and the novel The Night Listener.

I hardly ever drink coffee and this is the first time I had StarBuck’s.
I will not be buying anything from them now

I don’t want a crystal ball or fortune cards or a physic prediction to say that StarBucks will go under…disappear…vamoosh…suddenly it will be gone…signs will come down…doors will close forever…

 

[Anna_Elizabeth]

kamz:

This is often how this type of thing starts, we get slowly used to the “gay is ok” thing, slowly, we think, hey, I’m not ok with it but if it works for you, who am I to say differently, pretty soon we say, I’m not ok with abortion but who am I to say that you should not have one? It starts very small, we get comfortable and that is the gay agenda in America, start slow, don’t scare them, and pretty soon its the Norm, well, for me its not o.k. and I am not o.k, with the homosexual agenda, anything that promotes gay sex is disgusting in my opinion, why can’t they just as well say, " I’m gay but I will live my life celibate so I can be pleasing unto God" no, sadly we are not going to see that on a cup of coffee.
What I’m reading is more than just about a cup of coffee, people are slowly saying, well, I might not like it and I’m not ok with it but I can’t stop it, so, its ok, that is sad

kamz, Maybe it’s a Minnesota thing, but I am with you. You have described this perfectly, and it is especially applicable to those whom you will notice “know someone,” or “know someone who knows someone.” This hasn’t even been the frog in the gradually warming water; it’s been, as others have said, “in your face.” IMHO, and I do mean humble, as I know little about “these people,” they seem to have no real life or identity except as loudly and publicly protesting sexual beings. Thus, for them I really doubt that anything will ever be “enough,” and perhaps those that say the real agenda of their non-homosexual supporters is to destroy marriage, Christianity and especially Catholicism are on to something.

I’m surrounded by coffee shops, and left Starbucks long ago over other things they supported. I also told them why I was leaving.

Also: Will you come out for the marriage amendment bill next spring? Every year it comes up, fails in the Senate, but every year we will be back until it passes! Join us!

Anna

 

[kamz]

Anna Elizabeth:

kamz, Maybe it’s a Minnesota thing, but I am with you. You have described this perfectly, and it is especially applicable to those whom you will notice “know someone,” or “know someone who knows someone.” This hasn’t even been the frog in the gradually warming water; it’s been, as others have said, “in your face.” IMHO, and I do mean humble, as I know little about “these people,” they seem to have no real life or identity except as loudly and publicly protesting sexual beings. Thus, for them I really doubt that anything will ever be “enough,” and perhaps those that say the real agenda of their non-homosexual supporters is to destroy marriage, Christianity and especially Catholicism are on to something.

I’m surrounded by coffee shops, and left Starbucks long ago over other things they supported. I also told them why I was leaving.

Also: Will you come out for the marriage amendment bill next spring? Every year it comes up, fails in the Senate, but every year we will be back until it passes! Join us!

Anna

Send me the info about the marriage amendment bill and what I need to do to get involved.

 

[felra]

St Paul’s instruction to not eat meat offered by the unbeliever who points out that it was sacrificial meat is an issue of scandal.

If the unbeliever was to offer the meat noting that it was sacrificial offereing meat, the unbeliever would see the eating of the meat as an acceptance of and partking in the sacrifice to another god. That would give the unbeliever the opinion that the eater accepted the other god. that would give scandal, and incorrect information, to the unbeliever.

Picking up a cup of coffee that has a statement does not indicate to anyone that one accepts the statement on the cup. The cup is not offered by the barista saying “would you like a cup with a statment about homosexual activity, or one with a statement about saving the seals in Greenland?”

Just who do you suppose is the author of this deception and lie under the rubric of “inclusive exchange of ideas” that “it is okay to be gay” message? Hint: Jesus said of him “he is a liar and the father of lies”. A Christian should be growing in their ability to discern good from evil through practice and the Holy Spirit enlightenment of mind, i.e., there is often more than meets the eye in the spiritual warfare.

The barista is moving too fast to even read the cup; and it is questionable how many poeple seeing someone with a cup of Starbucks in their hand would even know there was a statement on it, let alone what the statement was. I have been drinking Starbucks on and off for years, and I didn’t even know they had a statement on the cup.

Kind of like the surreptitious subliminal advertising messages? I suppose if the unbeliever by quick of hand and angle of meat, would be able to prevent St. Paul from reading the stamped message “unnatural sexual relations with one of the same sex is okay” on the side of the meat; but maybe not.

The issue of consicence is the issue of the scandal given, not the fact that the meat had been offered.

In my take, you have all but talked around the core issue as I have pointed out. You have failed to make the case that this Starbucks’ campaign is a benign or naive attempt at an exchange of ideas, and not in reality an invite to worship a false god (belief system) that leads to death.

NAB footnote for bible quotation 1 Cor. 10: 25-30: “Paul is at pains to insist that the enlightened (my emphasis) Christian conscience need not change its judgement about the neutrality, even the goodness, of the food itself; yet the total situation is altered to the extent that others are potentially endangered, and this calls for different responses, for the sake of others”.

 

[fix]

otm:

Obviously you have not followed the history of moral theology for the last 100 years.

It is no liberal opinion as it is the liberals who went off in another direction. It is the opinion of faithful, Magisterial following theologians, who are trying to get back to where we supposedly were headed when the train jumped the tracks. If you would read theologians in the area of moral theology, you would know this.

I will take this to mean you have no proof to support your argument.

The problem we encountered subsequent to Vatican 2 was the wholesale tossing of any moral absolutes, which finds its foundation in Situational Ethics, the philosophical stew that was going on at the time in the secular world.

At least we agree here.

The thrust of your post was to smear many in the Church prior to VII as legalistic. Many said the same thing of St. Pio.

 

[estesbob]

otm:

Becaause dringking the coffee is not promoting mortal sin?

By your logic, one could not deal with any Fortune 500 company, becasuse all of them either promote issues or act in ways that are objectively a mortal sin.

The issue of Remote Material Cooperation is a fact of life as well as part of the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

But starbucks is taking my money and using a portion of it promote mortal sin.

I am very careful about where my money goes and very careful about who I accept money from in my accounting practice. For instance I REFUSE to do tax returns for anyone who has a w2 from Planned Parenthood or any other abortion mill. It has caused me some problems over the years-even some complaints to the State Board but i wont take blood money. And I wont support a company who puts pro-homosexual propoganda on their cofee cups.

 

[fix]

otm:

By using the manual, which was good for its purpose, as pretty much the sum and substance of moral theology in practice, the problems of legalism and minimalism started to creep in.

Food for thought:

George Sim Johnston has unwittingly participated in propagating a myth: the myth of the preconciliar Church. We are all familiar with this myth, so often repeated to us that we know its rhetoric by heart: The Church had retreated to “a fortified position,” a “Tridentine shell” from which she was “hurling anathemas on the modern world” couched in the categories of a neo-Thomism “ossifying into a rationalist caricature.”

               I wish to point out only a couple of the untruths in this myth as presented by Johnston. One is the untruth of the inadequacy of neo-Thomism and the salutary role of the New Theology. Granted, even such committed Thomists as Jacques Maritain had recognized the limitations of the manuals; he and like-minded Thomists were working to improve the situation. A leader among them, a close friend of the Maritains, was Rev. Labourdette, who directed the French *Revue Thomiste*. In the years 1946 to 1948, this Dominican journal engaged the New Theology, pointing out its flaws and forecasting its possible consequences for the Faith, whose forecasts are eerily prophetic when read today. Maritain, too, was very worried about the New Theology of Danielou—the movement’s enfant terrible—and about de Lubac, whom he found to have the worst kind of pride: the intellectual that disguises itself as virtue. Maritain’s wife, Raissa, recoiled from the New Theology, calling it “horrid,” as she wrote to Father Labourdette. It was clear to this group that this new theology sought to dethrone the Angelic Doctor in Catholic seminaries and more generally in theology, and that this would have disastrous consequences.

               This aspect of the myth is expressed as follows in Johnston’s article: “[The] personalist approach is especially helpful with such issues as contraception.... The old manualist arguments...do not convince the modern mind; it is more effective to talk in the language of ‘person’ and ‘gift.’” Yet the contrast between modern minds’ reception of *Humanae                    Vitae *(1968, by Paul VI) and that of *Casti Connubii*                    (1930, by Pius XI) points rather to a failure of the new approach.

crisismagazine.com/may2004/letters.htm

and this:

“The Second Vatican Council was a call to full spiritual maturity. It was a time to take off the training wheels…. The pre-Vatican II Church…wasn’t spiritually creative. The [Second Vatican] council…focused on the human person, rather than on dogmatic truths about the divine order….” Ah, yes, Catholicism isn’t really about God, it’s about me, me, me.

Says Johnston: “Sts. Paul and Augustine taught that the fruit of Christian conversion is a new freedom wherein the rules (important as they are) hardly matter. This is the only possible meaning of Augustine’s ‘Love God and do what you will.’ But this was not the message of Tridentine Catholicism, and…[in the post-Vatican II Church] not since Augustine has there been so much emphasis in sound Catholic theology on personal freedom…. Complaints about the Church are mainly about its moral teachings, which are perceived as putting a lid on everyone’s freedom. This problem isn’t going to be solved by a further insistence on the rules, but rather by a call to holiness and a positive vision of the human person and the uses of his freedom.” Well, how wonderfully in step with the Spirit of the Times! “No rules” is the cry of postmodern man. It’s so, so easy to “love God and do what you will.”newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=1004-notes-johnston

 

[kamz]

estesbob:

But starbucks is taking my money and using a portion of it promote mortal sin.

I am very careful about where my money goes and very careful about who I accept money from in my accounting practice. For instance I REFUSE to do tax returns for anyone who has a w2 from Planned Parenthood or any other abortion mill. It has caused me some problems over the years-even some complaints to the State Board but i wont take blood money. And I wont support a company who puts pro-homosexual propoganda on their cofee cups.

Good for you, that is so awesome!! If more christians would take your exact attitude in the whole world and stand up for their beliefs and say “I’m not taking this anymore” can you imagine the huge impact we could have.
Sometimes it takes one baby step at a time and maybe it doesn’t even make a big difference in the world, but God knows, he knows that you are trying to make the difference no matter how big or small, and that is what really counts!!!

 

[Anthony_s_Mom]

otm:

Second, why do you presume they would not print something on their cups along those lines? They have said they would ( and they obviously are looking for something a bit longer that a 3 or 4 word phrase), and unless and until someone has repeatedly offered a range of statements which have been rejected, your statement sounds more like sour grapes than anything.

Start submitting - and get beyond the bumper-sticker phrasing.

I don’t think that I am “presuming” that they wouldn’t print something conservative on their cups…Starbucks has enough track-record of being liberal and that I don’t believe that they are truly openminded. In my experience it is a very, very rare case to find a liberal who is liberal-minded enough to engage the “narrow” ideas of a social conservative.
As to “sour grapes”, perhaps you are right. I don’t have much confidence in the liberal agenda to be reasonable and fair (call me crazy) but as to submitting quotes to be used by Starbucks I and all of my best friends have been systematically doing just that. As well as checking the cup before acceepting it from our local Starbucks.
My main point was…“I think that we should at least protest by way of a letter or email or phone call when we come across this kind of subtle indoctrination.” That’s what it is, they are trying to sneak it into our lives so subtely, “as normal as your morning cup of coffee”. We shouldn’t just be aware of their sneakiness, we have to let them know that we are aware of it and that we disapprove. Most of the bleeding heart liberals that I know (and I know a fair amount) hang around each other SO much that they are honestly surprized to see that there are thinking people out there who don’t just swallow the whole liberal pill without question. We just have to get it into their heads that they should just questions their ideas now and then.

 

[jay_2]

why has this thread not been closed yet because the bible says love your fellow man and its looks like alot of you are not doing that

 

[fix]

jay 2:

why has this thread not been closed yet because the bible says love your fellow man and its looks like alot of you are not doing that

Perhaps you can point out what you are referring to?

 

[estesbob]

jay 2:

why has this thread not been closed yet because the bible says love your fellow man and its looks like alot of you are not doing that

I fail to see how objecting to giving our money to a company that promotes homosexualtiy is a lack of loving our fellow man.

 

[estesbob]

Anthony's Mom:

I don’t think that I am “presuming” that they wouldn’t print something conservative on their cups…Starbucks has enough track-record of being liberal and that I don’t believe that they are truly openminded. In my experience it is a very, very rare case to find a liberal who is liberal-minded enough to engage the “narrow” ideas of a social conservative.
.

You know it wouldnt matter to me in the least if they printed some conservative quotes on their cups. SO WHAT! They still wouldnt get a penny from me.

We are not looking for “fair and balanced” You can’t offset promoting homosexuality by printing another cup promoting tax cuts! If they were smart they would just print “Starbucks” on their cups and leave it at that.

But of course you are right-you are not about to find anything remotely conservative on their cups.

 

[otm]

felra:

Just who do you suppose is the author of this deception and lie under the rubric of “inclusive exchange of ideas” that “it is okay to be gay” message? Hint: Jesus said of him “he is a liar and the father of lies”. A Christian should be growing in their ability to discern good from evil through practice and the Holy Spirit enlightenment of mind, i.e., there is often more than meets the eye in the spiritual warfare.

Kind of like the surreptitious subliminal advertising messages? I suppose if the unbeliever by quick of hand and angle of meat, would be able to prevent St. Paul from reading the stamped message “unnatural sexual relations with one of the same sex is okay” on the side of the meat; but maybe not.

In my take, you have all but talked around the core issue as I have pointed out. You have failed to make the case that this Starbucks’ campaign is a benign or naive attempt at an exchange of ideas, and not in reality an invite to worship a false god (belief system) that leads to death.

NAB footnote for bible quotation 1 Cor. 10: 25-30: "Paul is at pains to insist that the enlightened

(my emphasis) Christian conscience need not change its judgement about the neutrality, even the goodness, of the food itself; yet the total situation is altered to the extent that others are potentially endangered, and this calls for different responses, for the sake of others".Perhaps you missed the whole point. St paul was writing to a community which lived, as almost all of them did, in a siociety that worshiped one or more false gods. Depending on the god, or gods, there might be anything from a rather benign set of religious beliefs to one that countenanced homosexual activity, sacred prostitution, and any number of other bizare and immoral practices. The community was well aware that the meat that was offered to the god(s) could and would end up on someone’s table for supper.

He admonished them that they could eat the meat, but shoud refrain in certain circustances, discussed previously in this thread.

so even without reference to your NAB footnote, I still say that most people don’t know that there is anything written on the cup that someone elese is drinking, so no scandal is given them; further, assuming the drinker has a cup on which the statement in the OP was written, others are not likely to read it unless they are prone to picking through the trash, or are sitting opposite the one drinking and the drinker did not use an insulating sleeve (at which point the discussion seems a bit moot, as it is covered).

Therefore, since most people in the vicinity of one drinking a cup of Starbucks don’t even know there are statements on the cup, would not see it, and if seeing it would have no reason to believe the one drinking it supported the statement (and there appear to be numerous statements; this is only one), no one will be scandalized by drinking a cup of Starbucks.

So it would seem that St Paul would not have a bone to pick with drinking Starbucks if he did not have a bone to pick with eating meat sacrificed to a god of a religion supporting sexual immorality.

 

[otm]

fix:

I will take this to mean you have no proof to support your argument.

There is a ton of proof out there. Try reading some of it.

fix:

At least we agree here.

The thrust of your post was to smear many in the Church prior to VII as legalistic. Many said the same thing of St. Pio.

I am not smearing anyone.

When one focuses only on the law and the obedience of the law or the failure to obey, one is much more likely to move in the direction of legalism and minimalism than when one is given the base of the law as the foundation, and then morality is shown to be much more than simply following the law.

And that is not the theory of some liberal theologian who wants to dismantle moral theology; it is right out of the Gospels. Go read the story of the young man who approaches Christ asking what he must do to gain heaven.

Christ answered him; what is necessary is to obey the
Commandments (which the young man did); then Christ said what more there was. The Commandments are the base. They are not the sum total. That was what Vatican 2 wanted Moral Theology to explore.

Moral Theology, however, got caught up in the whirl of secular philosophy in Situational Ethics, and we now suffer the results of that disaster.

Many in the Church were legalistic and many were minimalistic. And I am not talking about the saints, I am talking abvout Joe Lunchbox and Suzie Homemaker and how they were taught, and how they responded.

 

[otm]

fix:

Food for thought:

I am not going to get into a whizing contest over Thomism, or neo Thomism vs. New Theology, except to point out that Humanae Vitae and Paul 6th left a lot of people stone cold, where as John Paul 2nd has provided a teaching through his meditations collectively known as Theology of the Body that seem to be making a whole lot more sense to people trying to deal with the issue of when and how many children to have.

They both end up in the same place: no contraceptives.

It is widely known that Thomists and neo-Thomists have a really hard time with JP@'s thought, as it is not structured along Thomistic (or perhps better, Aristotelian) lines. Not that they necessarily disagree with it, but it simply is a different way at getting at things. Whether it would be categorized as New Theology, I will leave for someone else with a theology/philosophy background. There are, however, theologians who seem not to be able to think in any manner other than categories, sub categories, and sub sub ctegories until they have parsed an issue down to what they perceive as it’s finest detail; if someone else proceeds differently, they can’t follow.

 

[otm]

Anthony's Mom:

I don’t think that I am “presuming” that they wouldn’t print something conservative on their cups…Starbucks has enough track-record of being liberal and that I don’t believe that they are truly openminded. In my experience it is a very, very rare case to find a liberal who is liberal-minded enough to engage the “narrow” ideas of a social conservative.
As to “sour grapes”, perhaps you are right. I don’t have much confidence in the liberal agenda to be reasonable and fair (call me crazy) but as to submitting quotes to be used by Starbucks I and all of my best friends have been systematically doing just that. As well as checking the cup before acceepting it from our local Starbucks.
My main point was…“I think that we should at least protest by way of a letter or email or phone call when we come across this kind of subtle indoctrination.” That’s what it is, they are trying to sneak it into our lives so subtely, “as normal as your morning cup of coffee”. We shouldn’t just be aware of their sneakiness, we have to let them know that we are aware of it and that we disapprove. Most of the bleeding heart liberals that I know (and I know a fair amount) hang around each other SO much that they are honestly surprized to see that there are thinking people out there who don’t just swallow the whole liberal pill without question. We just have to get it into their heads that they should just questions their ideas now and then.

Amen.

Just don’t give up the fight on the theory (or statement, or comment) that “They would never…”.

Some people will never…, but others, given enough time, enough (name removed by moderator)ut by people who disagree, enough change in the social mores, will change their position. But it means never giving up the course.

 

[felra]

Perhaps you missed the whole point. St paul was writing to a community which lived, as almost all of them did, in a siociety that worshiped one or more false gods. Depending on the god, or gods, there might be anything from a rather benign set of religious beliefs to one that countenanced homosexual activity, sacred prostitution, and any number of other bizare and immoral practices. The community was well aware that the meat that was offered to the god(s) could and would end up on someone’s table for supper.

He admonished them that they could eat the meat, but shoud refrain in certain circustances, discussed previously in this thread.

The whole point was the poster who asked if any parallel seemed to exist between passages from I Cor. 10 and this topic. You appear stuck on the cultural artefact (meat offered to the worship of pagan gods) of St.Paul’s instruction, and are missing the whole point of the spiritual maxims that St. Paul is elucidating for the believers of his day and today.

I suggest you reread carefully and imagine how this applies to our current cultural props (as there is not too many folks offering meat sacrificed to pagan gods in the marketplace today) and where products in service of “false gods” and “idols” are abundantly available in the marketplace for consumption. Note that satan, the creature, is the one seeking to have others “worship” these current cultural artefacts (false gods) in societal gathering places.

You appear too quick to dismiss the relevancy of St. Paul’s instruction to our current situation that we as Christians in the “world” find ourselves in.

**IDOLATRY. **defn; Literally “the worship of idols,” it is giving divine honors to a creature. In the Decalogue it is part of the first commandment of God, in which Yahweh tells the people, “You shall have no gods except me. You shall not make yourself a carved image [Greek *eidōlon, idol] or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:4-5).

The early Christians were martyred for refusing to worship idols, even externally**, but practical idolatry is a perennial threat to the worship of the one true God. Modern secularism is a form of practical idolatry, which claims to give man “freedom to be an end unto himself, the sole artisan and creator of his own history.” Such freedom, it is said, “cannot be reconciled with the affirmation of a Lord who is author and purpose of all things,” or at least that this freedom “makes such an affirmation altogether superfluous” (Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Church**, 51).
Idolatry is always gravely sinful. Even under threat of death and without interiorly believing in the idol, a Christian may not give divine honors to a creature, thereby violating the duty of professing faith in God.

Pocket Catholic Dictionary - John A. Hardon, S.J.
Abridged Edition of the Modern Catholic Dictionary
Copyright © 2003 Inter Mirifica

so even without reference to your NAB footnote, I still say that most people don’t know that there is anything written on the cup that someone elese is drinking, so no scandal is given them; further, assuming the drinker has a cup on which the statement in the OP was written, others are not likely to read it unless they are prone to picking through the trash, or are sitting opposite the one drinking and the drinker did not use an insulating sleeve (at which point the discussion seems a bit moot, as it is covered).

Therefore, since most people in the vicinity of one drinking a cup of Starbucks don’t even know there are statements on the cup, would not see it, and if seeing it would have no reason to believe the one drinking it supported the statement (and there appear to be numerous statements; this is only one), no one will be scandalized by drinking a cup of Starbucks.

I am unconvinced by your head in the sand minimization and logic to engaging the increasing secular and pagan culture that as Chrisitians we find ourselves in.

So it would seem that St Paul would not have a bone to pick with drinking Starbucks if he did not have a bone to pick with eating meat sacrificed to a god of a religion supporting sexual immorality

.
This is a total misread of 1 Cor. 10 passages, specifically verses 25-30 which you allude to in your argument.

 

[estesbob]

otm:

felra:

So it would seem that St Paul would not have a bone to pick with drinking Starbucks if he did not have a bone to pick with eating meat sacrificed to a god of a religion supporting sexual immorality.

It would seem ,however, that he would have a bone to pick with giving money to an organization that promoted what he called an “abomination”

No one is saying drinking Starbucks Coffee is sinful. What we are sayiing is that we will not let Starbucks use our money to promote a mortal sin.