Was the Catholic League of Decency racist?

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Ben_Sinner

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The Catholic League of Decency was a big supporter of the Hays Code…but one of the rules in the Hays Code was that a film should not promote interracial couples.

Under the Don’ts section of the code:

Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code

Did the League of Decency agree with this rule?
 
The Catholic Legion of Decency was not racist. If you can provide evidence that they supported that particular restriction listed in the Hays Code, I’d be interested to see it.

Peace,
Ed
 
If I remember correctly the Legion of Decency was primarily concerned with immoral subject matter being presented in movies. This included language, themes, and subject material. From my reading on them race didn’t play a role in their motivations. I’m not sure what their sensitivities to that topic were, but to say they were racist may be an overstatement. Once you say that you put them in the same league as groups like the Klan, that by most definitions of the word were racist. The Legion of Decency does not fit that bill.

ChadS
 
Ok. I assumed that they might have agreed with it because the Wikipedia page says the Code has a Catholic influence to it.

I guess it wasn’t all CLoD then.
 
The Catholic League of Decency was a big supporter of the Hays Code…but one of the rules in the Hays Code was that a film should not promote interracial couples.
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…
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Did the League of Decency agree with this rule?
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The laws of the United States permit abortion.
So are you for bringing down the United States government?

Sometimes you have to take some bad along with the good. It does no good throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
 
empther said:
The laws of the United States permit abortion.
So are you for bringing down the United States government?

Sometimes you have to take some bad along with the good. It does no good throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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So they did support anti-miscegenation or they didn’t?
 
For the Catholic League of Decency to have been racist, you would have to show that it was perfectly ok with films that showed sex relationships between two people of the same race. I’d wager money that the Catholic League of Decency was against any film that showed sex relationships, regardless of the races involved.
 
Given the time period we’re talking about here, when it says “sex relationships”, I don’t think it means pornographic material, as even same-race pornographic material would have been found problematic at the time.

I’m pretty sure it’s just talking about people being in a relationship in which sex occurs—something which “society” viewed as a relationship that required partners to be of the same-race only.
 
oldcatholicguy said:
For the Catholic League of Decency to have been racist, you would have to show that it was perfectly ok with films that showed sex relationships between two people of the same race. I’d wager money that the Catholic League of Decency was against any film that showed sex relationships, regardless of the races involved.
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Wow. That’s a pretty hefty restriction- it means no married couples and no references to parents, ever. (I thought it was obvious that the code referred to implied sexual relationships, not explicit ones.)

EDIT: I’m guessing the League did support racist things, but I’m not sure why it matters for us today. Lots of people have supported racist things, and it doesn’t do us any good to deny that.
 
The original message is a straw man, red herring, whatever logical fallacy you want to use, and here’s why: that was an era when the country still had white & colored water fountains and segregated lunch counters at the local Woolworth’s and, accordingly, Hollywood (despite stereotypes to the contrary) was scaredy-cat about putting people like Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier into any major film roles until the late 1960’s - after the MPAA’s then-new code (G, PG, R, and X) rendered the Legion of Decency less influential. Now, if logic would therefore dictate that all the major faces in movies at the time were whiter than Santa Claus’s beard, there would have not be any “miscegenation.” There would have been no basis whatsoever for the Legion of Decency to go all Jim Crow on anyone.

Please re-read Ed’s comment and his link to the Vatican’s comment on the matter.
 
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