When does an anti-Catholic/anti-God person become a bigot?

[Leela]

But are people who oppose implementing Catholic doctrine as laws anti-Catholic bigots

Nope. That isue is the difference between democracy and theocracy. Such people are probably democratic supporters of freedom of religion and think that everyone is free to practice their religion and that one person’s religious beliefs ought not be imposed upon another.

 

[JohnCS]

But are people who oppose implementing Catholic doctrine as laws anti-Catholic bigots (which is where I came in on this thread)?

There’s a language thing going on here - it’s one thing to say ‘I oppose gay marriage because I believe it to be immoral and a threat to values that I think I should apply (for various reasons)’ and another to drone on about ‘unnatural’ and ‘despising sins against nature’. At what point does the language used go over the border from justified opposition into ‘bigotry’? At what point does the language used raise the question of special pleading?

It depends, why are they against the implementation? Because it is a Catholic doctrine and no other reason… yes. If they attack the Church, slander the Church and/or it’s members during the debate about the law… yes, bigot. If they honestly feel that enforcing such a law is not in the best interest of the country, and they handle the debate rationally, no they not.

I do oppose gay marriage because I believe it is immoral and a threat to the values of society. But I also feel that it is unnatural. The reason the state got involved in marriage in the first place is to help enforce the procreation of the nation. They offered tax cuts, benefits etc etc to encourage the practice of marriage so that people would give birth to more hardworking citizens. It is in the best interest of the country to support these marriages and thats why they do it. What does the country get out of homosexual unions? Nothing good, only immorality, further breaking of the family nucleous, and legal battles in the future when they try to enforce the so called “equality” of these unions.

 

[Leela]

And when this sinful relationship has the power of the state behind it… what then? How many Catholic orphanages have closed down in UK because the state wanted to make them adopt out to a state protected sinful relationship?

Charities are free to have discriminatory practices just as the Boy Scouts as a private institution are. They just can’t get public funding to support their discriminatory practices.

What about when a Catholic charity hires a homosexual (because we don’t hate the sinner) and then is forced to recognize the sinful behaviour by providing health care for their mate?

It is sinful to provide health care to homosexuals? As I recall, Jesus didn’t have any rule against healing sinners. How could healing someone be sinful? But, yeah, religious beliefs can run against state interests. Of course they can. A serial killer doesn’t get off by claiming that murder is his religion, for example. If someone refused to pay taxes because it was against their religion, that would be a problem too. There are limits on freedom of religion just as there are limits on freedom of speech.

 

[Windfish]

Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the like, are all bigots, and are, quite frankly, morons, yet they still somehow appeal to people. Quentin Smith, John Searle, Jerry Fodor, Simon Blackburn, Michael Martin, are not bigots, and are very smart people who I can respect even if I don’t respect their positions.

The difference between one who is a bigot and one who is not can usually be seen by the ratio of substantive argument to ad hominem folly.

Right, these are the kinds of people that I am talking about. Bigotry is a prejudice and intolerance to other opinions/people other than one’s own, which is clearly a quality all four of the above possess.

 

[Touchstone]

Actually, it sounds more like what Touchstone said about Hitchens not being a bigot because he attacks the religion, not the people in it (paraphrased). Likewise, Catholics hate the lifestyle (sin) not the people in that life style.

Right. Animus toward the idea, or the practice is one thing. The merits of that is the really substantive question. But Catholics who preach against homosexuality as ‘sin’, even in “over the top” fashion (which, typing that, strikes me as a much more ‘Protestant’ problem than Catholic, but you get my point) aren’t ‘bigoted’ as I understand the term. It’s only once they actively work to bring official sanction down as a social weapon in service to that idea in an intolerant way (homosexuals can’t marry, blacks can’t eat at the lunch counter in the front of the store, etc.) that the ideas become ‘bigoted’.

So no, “hating the sin” doesn’t strike as bigoted. I find the Catholic convictions about the sinfulness of homosexuality themselves morally reprehensible, but I don’t find them bigoted in so far as they are tolerant, and acknowledge the freedoms and rights of those (whose acitivities) they oppose.

Just like you would not like the state implementing all Catholic doctrine as laws, Catholics would not like to see the state mandating that society accept sinful unnatural behavior as good and natural.

No law can mandate or enforce such a thing. The most the state can do is tolerate and promote it with their own voice. If the law were to permit polygamous marriages, for example, that’s no mandate for that being “good and natural”. It’s just not proscribed, not something outlawed as an action with interferes with the rights and liberties of others in a free society. Tolerance is not countenance or approval, and even state approval, if it were explicit approval, cannot bind the private citizen to such an agreement.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*All sounds rather like special pleading - “being against what we think of as very, very naughty people isn’t bigotry but being against what you think of as very, very naughty people is bigotry.” *

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*That is sort of like saying that Jesus was not a Christian. Plato had a strong influence on Christianity. It would be impossible to make sense of transubstantiation for example without the Platonic notion of essence. The same sort of thinking that led Plato to discount homosexuality leads Christians to denounce it today, but few ethical philosophers today follow a natural law approach to morality. Following Plato in his ethical understanding is no better than following Aristotle in his scientific understanding. Most of us have made a lot of progress since then. Most of us think that what is moral is not what is natural but rather what contributes to human well being. *

Then let’s go with a hypothetical.

Suppose a movement should begin (as the movement for homosexual marriage began) to demand the right of adult parents and their adult children to marry. I think the argument you are making is the same argument these parents and their children would be making. They would oppose the ban on incestuous marriage because such a marriage “contributes to human well being.”

Would you mind explaining what kind of human well being that would be? And would you approve of incestuous marriage between a mother and son, father and daughter, as legitimate. And would you say anyone opposing the legalization of such a marriage would be a bigot? (That would, of course, mean all Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and a good many atheists.)

 

[Leela]

That is sort of like saying that Jesus was not a Christian. Plato had a strong influence on Christianity. It would be impossible to make sense of transubstantiation for example without the Platonic notion of essence. The same sort of thinking that led Plato to discount homosexuality leads Christians to denounce it today, but few ethical philosophers today follow a natural law approach to morality. Following Plato in his ethical understanding is no better than following Aristotle in his scientific understanding. Most of us have made a lot of progress since then. Most of us think that what is moral is not what is natural but rather what contributes to human well being.

Then let’s go with a hypothetical.

Suppose a movement should begin (as the movement for homosexual marriage began) to demand the right of adult parents and their adult children to marry. I think the argument you are making is the same argument these parents and their children would be making. They would oppose the ban on incestuous marriage because such a marriage “contributes to human well being.”

Would you mind explaining what kind of human well being that would be? And would you approve of incestuous marriage between a mother and son, father and daughter, as legitimate. And would you say anyone opposing the legalization of such a marriage would be a bigot? (That would, of course, mean all Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and a good many atheists.)

If Catholicism opposes incestuous sex, maybe you can explain what went down in the garden of eden?

Anyway, I’m not sure we really need a law preventing mothers and sons from marrying as you say. What son wants to mary his mother? What daughter wants to mary her father? Who would need to be coerced not to do that? The prohibition is probably there rather to prevent people from being coerced by their more powerful parents to enter into such relationships rather than to forbid willing sons and daughters from marrying their parents.

The bottom line is that the justification for such a law has to be expressible in terms that illustrate some harm to individuals or to society that requires the state to intervene or else the Supreme Court will strike it down. It will not be enough to simply say, “it is unnatural.” the government has no duty to preserve any natural order. Its duty is to the people.

 

[mcteague]

There is an interesting essay entitled “ok to hate the pope” that some of you may find interesting. It criticizes much of the anti-Catholic rhetoric from a liberal perspective. The article is on spiked, but you can find a link on www.aldaily.com