We are not at the Mall, after all. If he tried to wear that shirt to the Symphony, he’d be tossed out the back door with the rest of the trash.
This is the whole point. I was there when he wore the shirt, this is not about being over judgemental against fellow parishoners, I was minding my own business when this guy was walking back to the pew close to mine from communion and it
shocked me. I was not looking for controversy, it was brought to me.
Also, i believe the OP is really about the content of the message, not the fact it was on a T-shirt (seperate argument there).
For more clarification and background about the subject: I have first seen this shirt worn by the staff and followers of the The Women’s and Gender Equity Resource Center at Texas A&M University a couple years before it was handed out to student housing. This department, aside from the sociology department, in my opinion is the most liberal department on campus.
studentaffairs.tamu.edu/womensresourcecenter/index.html
Also, A&M is considered to have a much more conservative student population than most public universities. Seeing this on campus will probably raise some eyebrows and a person wearing this shirt will more than likely realize it is calling attention to himself.
There is
no doubt at all that this shirt is in fact talking about liberal progressive value systems. This shirt is telling people to embrace not only the people, but the value system of those people. The key word here being “it” in “Embrace it”.
After being shocked, I was fairly angery that a person would have the disrespect to wear this in the house of the Lord, let alone for the disrespect he showed for my own and everyone else’s belief system in church. Even if this person did not realize what he was wearing or the seriousness of it, is he not at fault for that as well? How is this an excuse?
It seems to me that there is a double standard with what we can and cant tell people. If this shirt had the most vile profanities and vulgarities in bold letters written all over it or it said ‘pedophile and proud’, would there be the same calls for charity on these forums?
I feel like we can only get upset or take action about something that everyone including most liberals get upset about, like murder, rape, pedophilia. But when it comes to a belief that is held only by the Christian or Catholic community, we must reserve ourselves to hope or pray that they will see the light by themselves, or to be super mindful of their feelings when or if we speak to them. I feel like this is weakness, not charity, especially when this thought process causes hesitancy on my part to even speak about it for fear of upsetting the person. What about the charity to those who might be influenced by these people’s expressions?
Please correct me if I am wrong and I am really being honest about this. It is because everytime I feel I dont speak out about something like this to the offense itself (the person expressing these values) that has the possibility to influence people who do not know what to believe, whether it is in my college classes, or in a place that has even more significance like church, I feel like a little bit of my dignity dies and I become weaker. Like I did not stand up for God. This is what my conscience tells me. Is it wrong or misguided?
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