St. Mary's reverses policy on gay employment after backlash over rescinded hire

  • Thread starter Thread starter Elizium23
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
With a beginning like this, I can see that you’re not giving a serious response.
If you claim that the rights US Constitution flows from God, then the right to own slaves flows from God and the right to vote does not flow from God to women. Both of those were changed later, by humans.

If the Constitution is a reflection of God, then you have to take the whole Constitution, warts and all. Yes, that includes the right to worship other gods and not be killed:

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

– Deuteronomy 13:6-11

Funny that on one hand God explicitly takes away the right to worship other gods, and on the other hand explicitly allows it. What a strange God you have.
Of course that doesn’t challenge or invalidate the truth that rights flow from God.
Except those nasty rights, like not being a slave and voting while female that God didn’t let flow from the start.
Correct. Which was later changed. Still doesn’t change the truth that rights flow from God.
But not always and not all the time. It is evidence that God’s will is interpreted by Congress and the states. Funny sort of God you have there.

My point remains that the appointed body, in God’s Constitution, is SCOTUS, and that appointed body has decided. Are you saying that God’s Constitution was wrong to mention the Supreme Court?

rossum
 
The Costitution was never something that was suppose to show all rights. Many of the issues were practice compromises, like slavery (the south wouldn’t have joined, and the European powers would overpower the young republic).

Second, the Constitution doesn’t deny women the right to vote. The 14th Amendment, for example, says that males are not to be denied the right to vote. It doesn’t say that women are to have the right to vote, nor does it say they shouldn’t. If it said they couldn’t vote, than there woukdnt be States that allowed women to vote before the 19th Amendment.

Finally, the American philosophy teaches that all rights stem from man’s Creator. Rights are things that men have because they need them to do their duties. For example, parents have a duty to educate their children, therefore they have a right to do so. Original natural law theorist would say, contra Locke, that human nature itself has these rights intristicly, while Locke says they have them extristically: from God’s will directly.

But anyway, the God of the Constitution is vague enough to be acceptable to Christians and Deists. Or to put it another way, you are confusing rights in themselves with a State recognizing rights.

The Constitution is a human attempt to follow the principles present in the Declaration of Independence. It’s not infallible, and the fact that the Founders allowed methods to change it indicates that they understood this too.

Christi pax,

Lucretius
 
If you claim that the rights US Constitution flows from God, then the right to own slaves flows from God and the right to vote does not flow from God to women. Both of those were changed later, by humans.

If the Constitution is a reflection of God, then you have to take the whole Constitution, warts and all. Yes, that includes the right to worship other gods and not be killed:

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

– Deuteronomy 13:6-11

Funny that on one hand God explicitly takes away the right to worship other gods, and on the other hand explicitly allows it. What a strange God you have.
The Constitution is not an infallible document, nor does it pretend to be. But the fundamental concept that it is built upon is the recognition that rights flow from God, and not from man/govt. There simply is no denying this reality. That IS what the foundational principle of the Constitution is based upon. Everything else flows from that recognition of reality.

No matter how many other areas where the Constitution failed to recognize rights properly doesn’t detract from the correctness of that principle.

As for your citation of Deuteronomy, why would you expect to see a reflection of Israelite civil law under the Old Covenant reflected in the Constitution? That’s just bizarre.
 
As for your citation of Deuteronomy, why would you expect to see a reflection of Israelite civil law under the Old Covenant reflected in the Constitution? That’s just bizarre.
Indeed, it is just bizarre that you can posit a schizophrenic God who on one hand orders the death penalty (ISIS-style) for worshipping other gods, and on the other hand explicitly gives the right to worship other gods.

The God you are proposing is, shall we say, inconsistent. Is slavery allowed by God? Yes and no. Does God allow us to worship other gods? Yes and no.

You cannot arbitrarily assign all the nice bits to God while ignoring all the not so nice bits. If the document is inspired by God, then the whole document is inspired.

rossum
 
You cannot arbitrarily assign all the nice bits to God while ignoring all the not so nice bits. If the document is inspired by God, then the whole document is inspired.
I really hope nobody is saying the Constitution is divinely inspired. I don’t think they are. I believe what they are saying is that the framers of the Constitution knew that God was the source of all rights.

It’s the same basic group of people who wrote the Declaraion of Independence, including, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” (emphasis mine)

It’s not that the documents are divinely inspired, just that they are imbued with the knowledge that the government doesn’t bestow basic rights on its people, the true rights come from God. That isn’t to say that the framers got that list of rights correct, just that they understood where rights came from.

–Jen
 
Indeed, it is just bizarre that you can posit a schizophrenic God who on one hand orders the death penalty (ISIS-style) for worshipping other gods, and on the other hand explicitly gives the right to worship other gods.

The God you are proposing is, shall we say, inconsistent. Is slavery allowed by God? Yes and no. Does God allow us to worship other gods? Yes and no.

You cannot arbitrarily assign all the nice bits to God while ignoring all the not so nice bits. If the document is inspired by God, then the whole document is inspired.

rossum
@rossum
You are certainly welcome to express your views even contrary ones to the Catholic Church. Please refrain from denigrating. You may have a beef with His people but you have no beef with God. Thank you.
 
I believe what they are saying is that the framers of the Constitution knew that God was the source of all rights.
“knew”? Better to say “believed”. Many men believe many different things, and the majority of them are wrong. The writers of the Constitution were not infallible, and they knew they were not infallible. The made provisions for amending the Constitution as needed.

rossum
 
@rossum
You are certainly welcome to express your views even contrary ones to the Catholic Church. Please refrain from denigrating. You may have a beef with His people but you have no beef with God. Thank you.
I have no beef with God. I do have a beef with the strange divine entity that zz912 is proposing.

rossum
 
I have no beef with God. I do have a beef with the strange divine entity that zz912 is proposing.

rossum
Then you do have a beef with His people. God is a mystery to all. We humans will never get Him 100% but that doesn’t stop us from wanting to know Him more.
 
…meanwhile, back to the topic of St. Mary’s reversing itself on gay employment…
 
Indeed, it is just bizarre that you can posit a schizophrenic God who on one hand orders the death penalty (ISIS-style) for worshipping other gods, and on the other hand explicitly gives the right to worship other gods.

The God you are proposing is, shall we say, inconsistent. Is slavery allowed by God? Yes and no. Does God allow us to worship other gods? Yes and no.

You cannot arbitrarily assign all the nice bits to God while ignoring all the not so nice bits. If the document is inspired by God, then the whole document is inspired.

rossum
I never claimed the DofI nor the Constitution were divinely inspired. You seem to have completely missed my point, and are arguing something you crafted up in your own head.
 
Indeed, it is just bizarre that you can posit a schizophrenic God who on one hand orders the death penalty (ISIS-style) for worshipping other gods, and on the other hand explicitly gives the right to worship other gods.

The God you are proposing is, shall we say, inconsistent. Is slavery allowed by God? Yes and no. Does God allow us to worship other gods? Yes and no.

You cannot arbitrarily assign all the nice bits to God while ignoring all the not so nice bits. If the document is inspired by God, then the whole document is inspired.

rossum
Hi 🙂

You seem to be mistaking God allowing something for God desiring that something.

God doesn’t want us to worship God’s, but He allows us to.

Christi pax,

Lucretius
 
God doesn’t want us to worship God’s, but He allows us to.
That is not how I read Deuteronomy 13:6-11. People who worship other gods are to be killed. That is hardly “allowing” people to worship whatever gods they want to.

… Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God …

Does that look very permissive to you? To me it looks more like ISIS.

rossum
 
That is not how I read Deuteronomy 13:6-11. People who worship other gods are to be killed. That is hardly “allowing” people to worship whatever gods they want to.

… Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God …

Does that look very permissive to you? To me it looks more like ISIS.

rossum
It’s against the Natural Law and the Divine Law to worship gods. Jews who had forsaken the covenant knew what they were doing, and their actions were dangerous, as they invited others to reject God as well (which we know from history), and they lead to practically immoral actions such as child sacrifice. However, stoning for idolatry was rare, because of the way Jewish law is set up, as well as how personal/cultural issues.

Anyway, you don’t seem to understand: God tolerates injustice all the time (otherwise Israel would be wiped off the face of the planet by now). The Catholic position is basically the balance between two principles:
  1. monotheism is true, and knowable by reason, so there isn’t a reasonable position otherwise: failure to recognize this is morally wrong, and leads to more objectionable actions,
  2. humans cannot be forced into following God (free will).
You seem to think these are mutually exclusive positions, but if I generalize them a bit:
  1. people with alternate views than you are considered wrong, in your eyes;
  2. you shouldn’t, and can’t force a person into following your view.
3 and 4 are not in contradiction, and neither are 1 and 2.

Finally, a Catholic doesn’t have to accept the Constitution or even the Declaration of Independence, which is obvious. In a sense, you are saying the Christian God and the American God are against each other.

Christi pax,

Lucretius
 
If you read the stats on the st mary’s academy web site, they charge 13K a year and their student body is only 38% Catholic.

They are just another private school and should lose their Church affiliation.

Not much of a mission statement, either…

Mission Statement
St. Mary’s Academy, a Catholic high school for young women, provides a challenging college-preparatory education in a vibrant learning environment. St. Mary’s, a diverse community, educates the whole person by nurturing spirituality, encouraging creativity, promoting justice, and inspiring a sense of global interdependence to prepare students for service and leadership.
 
If you read the stats on the st mary’s academy web site, they charge 13K a year and their student body is only 38% Catholic.

They are just another private school and should lose their Church affiliation.

Not much of a mission statement, either…

Mission Statement
St. Mary’s Academy, a Catholic high school for young women, provides a challenging college-preparatory education in a vibrant learning environment. St. Mary’s, a diverse community, educates the whole person by nurturing spirituality, encouraging creativity, promoting justice, and inspiring a sense of global interdependence to prepare students for service and leadership.
Thank you for this! I suspected as much. Why do these schools call themselves Catholic? It is very misleading to the public.
 
I don’t know why this is such a difficult problem to understand. If you don’t believe in Catholicism then don’t teach at a Catholic School.

When one of your staff is going to get “married” to a person of the same sex then you don’t believe in Catholicism.

Time for the Archbishop to remove the Catholic title of that school.
 
Spreading the Gospel is done in many ways. I prefer the instructions in Micah: ‘And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’

or as God as asked me personally to do, care for the needy, the sick, and the dying.

I have a hard time understanding how God would ask a person to ‘help others to heaven’ by pointing fingers in accusations and disdain. That’s what the Church did during the Inquisitions and my knowledge of history tells me that it didn’t work out so well. Poor methodology.

You know what DID work well? Inviting those who are hungry and suffering to the table. Turning to your neighbor and welcoming him to your home. Being gracious and showing him kindness in the name of Christ.

What is the phrase attributed to St Francis? Preach often, and when necessary, use words.
That’s not ALL we are to do. If a Christian brother/sister is causing scandal, we are not being just by sitting around and doing nothing.

A person in charge of instructing students, at a Catholic school, should abide by Catholic rules.

Aside from whether one believes in the morality of gay marriage or not, doesn’t it just make logical, practical sense?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top