Why can't liberal gay activists see that we would leave them alone if they would stop attacking the Catholic Church?

[Stephen168]

**Slander and stereotype Christians; **

I see a lot of that rhetoric in the posts of the “indoctrination tangent” on this very thread. Clearly made by people who have been indoctrinated by homosexual activists.

 

[PRmerger]

I can’t recall telling either of my children to simply believe any of the maths they were taught.

Ah. So here’s another straw man you’ve created.

“I believe that Catholics should tell their children to ‘simply believe’ [insert any religious belief] and to never question!” said…nobody on this forum…ever.

 

[PRmerger]

Oh, and don’t be precious about quoting someone. If my post follows yours and I comment on what you’ve said, I think most people would understand that it was referring to you. You didn’t seem to have a problem understanding that.

Just learn how to use the quote feature, Bradski. :yup:

When you’ve been on the CAFs a while you will realize that sometimes people post randomly, even if it follows another member’s post, and he’s referring to a different comment.
In fact, you may have been posting to someone, and as you were typing, someone else inserted a post.

So don’t take the correction personally, Bradski. It was just some helpful advice.

 

[Lochias]

Well, he must have felt that what he wrote didn’t accurately reflect what occurred, because he retracted it. Which I might say showed some mettle.

You’re glomming over everything else I’ve written since, and I only retracted my statement because my wording was off. Retracting my statement doesn’t magically erase the fact that my Mom raised me in a religious household, with a firm hand, with no ill effects.

Nothing gets my dander up quite like deliberate obtuseness, Brad; if you want to talk and discuss here, fine. If you’re here simply to play with semantics and word-games, there are cross-word puzzles available in a fine store near you, that will spare people who have better things to do with their time than having to drudge through your petty sarcasm and woefully inadequate rhetoric for the sake of others who may be reading.

 

[atheistgirl]

:a week later a kid(probably **indoctrinated–**belong to an athiest parent I wonder!!) drowned in it.

You can talk about a kid drowning, muse if the tragic loss of an innocent life could be linked to atheist parents, although you have no clue, and stick a smilie on the end of the remark.

I stopped reading your post right there.

Sarah x

 

[Stephen168]

Any ideas on the questions I asked?

No, I’ve out grown that silly game.
I think the best horse for trail riding is the mustang. A subjective statement but I truly believe it. We didn’t want to influence our children about one breed of horse being better than the other. We wanted them to decide for themselves, so we never exposed them to horses of any kind. Now they are adults. I now ride a mustang, and they don’t ride horses of any kind.

You’ve just answered it for me, perhaps better than you’ll ever know.

…… I don’t feel the need to highlight your refusal to answer my questions.

:whacky:

 

[atheistgirl]

I went to see if I could find any saying indoctrination was a good thing and believe it or not, there weren’t any.

I found one in a second:

The Catholic faith is not an easy Church to follow, calling for observations,obligations and indoctrination into the family institution has an intrinsic part of it.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9520599&postcount=16

Which I never said there were, which is why it was puzzling we had to try and find some.

You didn’t, which is why it’s been fascinating watching this strawman erected on your behalf get chased around the forum

Sarah x

 

[atheistgirl]

:whacky:

Your silence speaks loudly enough I guess, really, although I thought I would give you another chance to actually provide an answer in your own words - rather than just writing trollish remarks.

You refuse, yet again - I guess that tells us all we need to know really.

:whacky:

Sarah x

 

[CopticChristian]

He said in that post he was “told what to believe.” He didn’t say he was “forced.” I assume his parents didn’t lock him in a closet without food & water until he confessed every last item of the faith. His parents, IOW, formed him, just as mine formed me – not only in the faith, but in the case of our family, even much more so in civic virtue and what’s sometimes referred to as ‘secular virtue’ or the everyday human virtues of responsibility, reliability, punctuality, consideration of others, industriousness, etc. In addition, we were very much formed intellectually. Education was such an icon in our household that my mother could have richly homeschooled us long before it became a (revisited) modern trend. All of that was part of my formation, and my parents considered all of it equally their duty. It wasn’t going to just “happen” without their guidance.

And of the 4 children, I alone have stayed with religion. My parents didn’t express great despair when my siblings eventually drifted away. They recognized our development into adulthood and with that, autonomy & individuality. In fact, it’s been my observation as a child and as an adult that often the believer “drives” the desire for more. I know I was the one who did in my family, but if I had never been introduced to it, I would not have necessarily “discovered” it on my own. As I said elsewhere, the experience of (openness to) religion as a child is different (usually) than it is for an adult. The sense of wonder, awe, surrender, and receptivity in a child facilitates what is best and most enduring about religious experience. (As opposed to mere religious ideas.)

Nor has it affected negatively my relations with any of my family, nor with friends who have drifted away from this or all religion. Even those who have drifted away acknowledge that religious formation centered them within a base of identifiable values which included the importance of ritual and the seasons, which they still respect and gained comfort from as children.

It’s very difficult to communcate this to someone who has not had such a background.

Liz,

I agree. My sisters, 3, are of varied fervor. I believe that it has been an anchor for me and a solitude in discovering the big family experience of youth and the grounding to be repeated in the association of the OHCAC. Similarity in thinking, values, world view, etc with those of the same beliefs create almost a recreation of the family of origin in many ways.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Some comments on your interesting post, karoleck.

Exploit the “victim” status;

**Use the sympathetic media; **

**Confuse and neutralize the churches; **

**Slander and stereotype Christians; **

**Bait and switch (hide their true nature); **
**and **
Intimidation.

This strikes me as a very subjective and reactive list, indicative of how a particular person or group feels about what gay activitists are doing. I sincerely doubt that these six points form the basis of any sort of actual and/or consistent plan among activists, though I’m sure some of these points find their way into activist discussions–they’re bound to–though perhaps not in the form elucidated here.

For further analysis, we can break the list down into 3 pairs:

1–the first two represent basic public relations: Be sympathetic. And claiming to be a victim and then marketing one’s victim status can produce sympathy.
2–the second two represent the author’s own ploy at sympathy (he’s following the first two points himself!): Christians are intentional victims and are therefore sympathetic.
3–the last two represent paranoia and are thus a tactic related to the claimed victimage in the second pair which, again, arises out of the recognition of the practicality of the first pair: Things are not what they seem, you are at risk and may be a victim.

So it seems to me that only the first two points represent anything useful in terms of an analysis of general activist tactics–the remaining four are not objective in the least and actually represent counter-activist tactics arising out of the strategy elucidated in the first two points. The reactionary message? “Homosexuals aren’t the real victims here: it’s you Christians who are the victims.” That’s really all this list is doing.

In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. … The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status. … the public should be persuaded that gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. … gays should be portrayed as victims of prejudice.

Does this sound familiar? It does if one pays attention to any mainstream media coverage of these controversial issues as they play out in law and society. But the victim status requires a story to back it up. Thus, perhaps the most common lament of the garden-variety homophile revolves around the alleged “tidal wave of anti-gay” hate crimes.

From another perspective, this is why I find Michael Voris’ comments on same-sex attraction to be repugnant–he embraces homosexual victimage by making a spurious case for same-sex attracted people being special or holy victims of one sort or another. His argument is very similar to what is being decried here…except the vicitimizer isn’t supposedly “hateful” or “homophobic” people but either God or circumstance. Somehow, for Voris, that makes both their victim status and the ability to sympathize easier (possibly because he has articulated a story that allows him and others like him to sympathize *on their own terms–*it’s really very interesting–compassion becomes not something that is evoked from us by human suffering, but something we can choose to bestow on those we deem worthy of it).

Perhaps the truth of the situation lies somewhere in between the two views of victimage?

An analysis of FBI statistics on hate crimes committed against homosexuals during the time period 2000-2008 shows that the probability of any individual homosexual being the victim of a hate crime during his or her entire life span is slightly more than one percent.[2] Interestingly, “gays” are more likely to commit hate crimes against “straights” than “straights” are to commit hate crimes against “gays.” According to the FBI, there are 3.98 hate crimes committed by each million heterosexuals annually against homosexuals, and there are 4.44 hate crimes committed by each million homosexuals annually against heterosexuals.[3]

These statistics and those that follow are sad indeed. Of course, the question that they ask is, “who’s the real victim here?” To me, it’s analogous to an upper middle class white man claiming that he’s the real victim of racism in America because he’s an upper middle class white man. Divorced from any specific incident, it’s little more than the whingeing of privilege. (NB: I’m making an analogy, *not *equating racism with anti-gay sentiment. Making such an equation may not be valid, but would, in any case, need to take into account a lot of history that I’m neither prepared nor particularly qualified to explicate.)

In 2011, a Fort Worth, Texas high school student was suspended from school for reportedly saying, “I’m a Christian, and I don’t think being gay is right,” during a class discussion.[7]

Leaving aside considerations of whether or not the school was justified in suspending the student (they may have been, given a history of related behavior, but that’s unlikely), this is interesting and worthy of parsing (and perhaps related either to the tactics of creating confusion or to baiting and switching). When someone says, “I’m a Christian and I don’t think being gay is right,” what in fact are they saying?

Being a Christian will not inevitably lead one to believe that “being gay is not right”–there’s not really a one-to-one relationship. Despite controversy over what the word “gay” means or implies regarding acceptance or practice of homosexual behavior, the student is objecting to “being gay,” that is, to being the sort of person who may identify or be identified as “gay.” But it’s an action that is sinful, not “being gay.” Moreover, what the student means by “right” is up for debate–does s/he mean justified? accurate? moral? Chances are the latter, given the evocation of religion at the beginning of the statement.

So the statement, “I’m a Christian and I don’t think being gay is right,” comes across as meaning something suspiciously like, “By virtue of being a Christian, I think same-sex attracted people are immoral.” Based on the teachings in the catechism, is this something that Roman Catholics can get behind? I don’t think so. Because there are a lot of problems with making such a statement (though, again, those problems may have been more appropriately dealt with by the school taking another action…or no action at all),

Also, the inference is that the school is a hothouse of homosexualism or rampant liberal “tolerance” because it took the action it did. In fact, it’s likely that the school suspended the student because it was afraid that any other lesser (though comparatively more appropriate) action would prompt another student (who identified as “gay”–and keep in mind that “gay” to random young people doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as “gay” to more conservatively inclined Roman Catholics) to sue. There’s a lot of legal fear and bureaucracy in schools, not because they’re hothouses of liberalism, but because they’re victims themselves of over-legislation and it’s not uncommon for private citizens to use state power in order to assert themselves. Schools are trying to cover their backs against all sorts of legal action. It’s a sad state of affairs all around.

Political science professor Jean Betheke Elshtain, while highlighting the dangers presented by codes against racism, also points out the difficulties associated with all punitive codes of this nature: “My hunch is that, over the long haul, the upshot of such endeavors [college speech codes] will not be a purified, racist-free, collective student consciousness, but a simmering backlog of resentment at being labeled as a racist, even if one has never committed a racist act or uttered a racist slur.”[9]

Indeed.

Now is the time to draw the line, to stand and defend our families and our rights without apology in the public square.

This sort of language always concerns me–against whom or what is the defense being mounted? Really, “against whom” is the question as “against what” is too nebulous to be a rallying cry against much–even the “war on terror” is euphemistic for a war on people (you can’t actually wage a war on terror), though who those people are may change from day to day…

Inevitably this sort of language will lead to scapegoating and violence. The process has already begun–the gist of the article is basically “we are victims. We are not able to be what we should be and behave as we should behave. Why? Because of the homosexualists. And we need to turn the tide against them.” A particular form of righteousness is being defined over against someone else–this makes that righteousness and it’s proper expression dependent on the vanquishing and victimage of that “someone else.” It will not lead to much that is good.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[karoleck]

You can talk about a kid drowning, muse if the tragic loss of an innocent life could be linked to atheist parents, although you have no clue, and stick a smilie on the end of the remark.

I stopped reading your post right there.

Sarah x

I read every post from woe to go, so as to understand where they are coming from.Shame that you have a closed mind(or empty maybe?) Pitty you have been indoctrinated by all the same sex militant “gay rights” propaganda!

YOU CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH!!(as one movie line put it!)

 

[karoleck]

I’ll respond to the rest later, but for right now I’m feeling reinforced for posting this ahead of yours.

(Also see post 264 on the same page, for context.)

:tiphat: great minds think alike!!(Ladies before gents,I say–or the broom before the dirt!!)

 

[karoleck]

I see a lot of that rhetoric in the posts of the “indoctrination tangent” on this very thread. Clearly made by people who have been indoctrinated by homosexual activists.

:thumbsup:Good observation,you have a shrewd mind!!

 

[karoleck]

Your silence speaks loudly enough I guess, really, although I thought I would give you another chance to actually provide an answer in your own words - rather than just writing trollish remarks.

You refuse, yet again - I guess that tells us all **we **need to know really.

:whacky:

Sarah x

Are you using the pural** we **for yourself or are you saying that you speak for all here?(are you sure that you are not suffering from some sort of grandiose illusions using the royal plural we!

Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen clearly laid out this agenda in the marching orders of the movement,** After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear & Hatred of Gays in the 90s**.[1] This volume is an absolute treasure chest of information for those pro-family stalwarts who are actively engaged against the homosexual rights agenda.

By far the most popular homophile tactic is the claim to victim status, which is a very powerful, almost paralyzing, weapon that gives them a distinct advantage in the public square. Kirk and Madsen summarize the potent effectiveness of the victim status:

“In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. … The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status. … the public should be persuaded that gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. … gays should be portrayed as victims of prejudice.” quote from the above book.

 

[karoleck]

You’re glomming over everything else I’ve written since, and I only retracted my statement because my wording was off. Retracting my statement doesn’t magically erase the fact that my Mom raised me in a religious household, with a firm hand, with no ill effects.

Nothing gets my dander up quite like deliberate obtuseness, Brad; if you want to talk and discuss here, fine. If you’re here simply to play with semantics and word-games, there are cross-word puzzles available in a fine store near you, that will spare people who have better things to do with their time than having to drudge through your petty sarcasm and woefully inadequate rhetoric for the sake of others who may be reading.

Good for you–don’t mess with a Texan I say!

 

[karoleck]

Grace & Peace!

Some comments on your interesting post, karoleck.

This strikes me as a very subjective and reactive list, indicative of how a particular person or group feels about what gay activitists are doing. I sincerely doubt that these six points form the basis of any sort of actual and/or consistent plan among activists, though I’m sure some of these points find their way into activist discussions–they’re bound to–though perhaps not in the form elucidated here.

For further analysis, we can break the list down into 3 pairs:

1–the first two represent basic public relations: Be sympathetic. And claiming to be a victim and then marketing one’s victim status can produce sympathy.
2–the second two represent the author’s own ploy at sympathy (he’s following the first two points himself!): Christians are intentional victims and are therefore sympathetic.
3–the last two represent paranoia and are thus a tactic related to the claimed victimage in the second pair which, again, arises out of the recognition of the practicality of the first pair: Things are not what they seem, you are at risk and may be a victim.

So it seems to me that only the first two points represent anything useful in terms of an analysis of general activist tactics–the remaining four are not objective in the least and actually represent counter-activist tactics arising out of the strategy elucidated in the first two points. The reactionary message? “Homosexuals aren’t the real victims here: it’s you Christians who are the victims.” That’s really all this list is doing.

From another perspective, this is why I find Michael Voris’ comments on same-sex attraction to be repugnant–he embraces homosexual victimage by making a spurious case for same-sex attracted people being special or holy victims of one sort or another. His argument is very similar to what is being decried here…except the vicitimizer isn’t supposedly “hateful” or “homophobic” people but either God or circumstance. Somehow, for Voris, that makes both their victim status and the ability to sympathize easier (possibly because he has articulated a story that allows him and others like him to sympathize *on their own terms–*it’s really very interesting–compassion becomes not something that is evoked from us by human suffering, but something we can choose to bestow on those we deem worthy of it).

Perhaps the truth of the situation lies somewhere in between the two views of victimage?

These statistics and those that follow are sad indeed. Of course, the question that they ask is, “who’s the real victim here?” To me, it’s analogous to an upper middle class white man claiming that he’s the real victim of racism in America because he’s an upper middle class white man. Divorced from any specific incident, it’s little more than the whingeing of privilege. (NB: I’m making an analogy, *not *equating racism with anti-gay sentiment. Making such an equation may not be valid, but would, in any case, need to take into account a lot of history that I’m neither prepared nor particularly qualified to explicate.)

Leaving aside considerations of whether or not the school was justified in suspending the student (they may have been, given a history of related behavior, but that’s unlikely), this is interesting and worthy of parsing (and perhaps related either to the tactics of creating confusion or to baiting and switching). When someone says, “I’m a Christian and I don’t think being gay is right,” what in fact are they saying?

Being a Christian will not inevitably lead one to believe that “being gay is not right”–there’s not really a one-to-one relationship. Despite controversy over what the word “gay” means or implies regarding acceptance or practice of homosexual behavior, the student is objecting to “being gay,” that is, to being the sort of person who may identify or be identified as “gay.” But it’s an action that is sinful, not “being gay.” Moreover, what the student means by “right” is up for debate–does s/he mean justified? accurate? moral? Chances are the latter, given the evocation of religion at the beginning of the statement.

So the statement, “I’m a Christian and I don’t think being gay is right,” comes across as meaning something suspiciously like, “By virtue of being a Christian, I think same-sex attracted people are immoral.” Based on the teachings in the catechism, is this something that Roman Catholics can get behind? I don’t think so. Because there are a lot of problems with making such a statement (though, again, those problems may have been more appropriately dealt with by the school taking another action…or no action at all),

Also, the inference is that the school is a hothouse of homosexualism or rampant liberal “tolerance” because it took the action it did. In fact, it’s likely that the school suspended the student because it was afraid that any other lesser (though comparatively more appropriate) action would prompt another student (who identified as “gay”–and keep in mind that “gay” to random young people doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as “gay” to more conservatively inclined Roman Catholics) to sue. There’s a lot of legal fear and bureaucracy in schools, not because they’re hothouses of liberalism, but because they’re victims themselves of over-legislation and it’s not uncommon for private citizens to use state power in order to assert themselves. Schools are trying to cover their backs against all sorts of legal action. It’s a sad state of affairs all around.

Indeed.

This sort of language always concerns me–against whom or what is the defense being mounted? Really, “against whom” is the question as “against what” is too nebulous to be a rallying cry against much–even the “war on terror” is euphemistic for a war on people (you can’t actually wage a war on terror), though who those people are may change from day to day…

Inevitably this sort of language will lead to scapegoating and violence. The process has already begun–the gist of the article is basically “we are victims. We are not able to be what we should be and behave as we should behave. Why? Because of the homosexualists. And we need to turn the tide against them.” A particular form of righteousness is being defined over against someone else–this makes that righteousness and it’s proper expression dependent on the vanquishing and victimage of that “someone else.” It will not lead to much that is good.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

My dear friend in Christ Mark,I do not doubt your sincerity on what you have posted and I also get the thrust of your arguement and that is to show Christ like charity to those inflicted with “a same sex disorder”(as The Catholic Catechism puts it.)

I believe this question is not as simple as you have put it,however nicely.I believe that this issue is like a double sided coin(heads or tails,if you are into English coinage)

No.I The one side of the coin is how as a Catholic,I deal with a person, who is afflicted with a same sex attraction.Naturally on this score I would endorse the majority of what you have written.(as regards to my attitude to a same sex attracted person). I wish that you would see that using the word “gay”, as attached to a person, only weakens your position; as this is a battle for ideas and the militant same sex group are masters of word manipulation!It is this group that took a word which means being cheerful and gay----I mean who does not want to be portrayed as being a cheerful person.They have stolen a word and re defined it.The inference is that a person is so happy being afficted with a same sex attraction,society has been sold a lie!

No.2 The otherside of the coin, is on how as a Catholic, do I engage as a citizen of the world and to engage in a political/social manner (this is commonly known as Catholic Action) .Since this thread(which I am guilty of straying from perhaps from the “bait & switch” tactics from the supporters of a same sex active lifestyle) deals with "if the militant "gay rights “people left us alone,then Catholics” would not be put in the position of pointing out & being politically acitive in defeating a bad law ,which would redefine what a marriage is! I have found over the years within the pro life cause that there are always people who think that their way or approach is the only one.(however sincerely held)I believe that all pro life issues can be won using multiple methods and there are different charisms & gifts-graces to use your favorite word!)

The reason that I engage in this debate and have done on other threads dealing with same sex attraction is ,that I believe that The Holy Father Pope Benedict is correct, that the push for same sex “marriage” MUST be defeated.This is the “wars of ideas” that must be won, if Catholics wish to retain the human right to religious freedom(and freedom of conscience).
(every thing is grace ,sure if understood correctly; but as Catholics(including yourself within the fold of a wonderful liturgical tradition) we must also; not only recieve sacramental grace, but to use these free spiritual gifts to turn evil into good within society.)

 

[fix]

That’s easily corrected with direct evidence such as photos from the emergency services of the outcome of such action to the individual.

The same can’t be said for the claims of the truth of various religions.

Sarah x

But you are only giving credence to materialistic proof. The proof of truth depends on what the subject is. I do not use metaphysics to prove math equations why do I need materialistic proof for the truths of faith?

 

[fix]

How does a child know what it’s being told is an objective truth in regards to religion?

Reason.

Because it’s parents tell them so?

Depending on the age yes that is important unless children are simply computers.

Do Catholic parents have some type of bias when imparting the faith?

Do they have a bias in claiming 2+2=4?

Do they tell their kids this is what Catholics believe, this is what Protestants believe, this is what Jews believe, this is what Muslims believe and this is what atheists think about God - here’s the information, you think about it, and when you are of an age to rationalize these things fully, you’re free to make your own mind up?

They may discuss other faths and ideologies but they are not all equal. If you claim they are then you have already made a bias that you accuse me of.

Or do they tell them you’re free to believe as the Muslims do, but you’d be wrong since only the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth and your soul might, might, be in danger if you reject this truth now you’ve been told?

Why would all statements be seen as equally valid? Why do you value one over the other?

My guess is most parents of any faith don’t educate their children in other faiths and let them chose for themselves. They educate them in their faith, and tell them all other faiths are either outright wrong or defecient somehow, and in some cases they might be damned if they don’t believe as the parents do.

If that is true why hold the truth back?

Do you think if the Church waited until children were grown up, to receive the sacraments, that the numbers of those receiving the sacraments such as communion, penance and confirmation would be negatively affected?

I do not know but why is that the standard I should use or care about?

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Thank you for your thoughtful response, karoleck. While I will confess that I cannot completely identify with your position, I do sympathize in that it’s a difficult position (fraught with tension) to be in–navigating it is likely to be very prayerful work!

While I disagree with your characterization of same sex attraction as an affliction (in itself it is no more of an affliction than any other form of concupiscence), I appreciate that the drift of your approach to this issue is toward compassion.

I wish that you would see that using the word “gay”, as attached to a person, only weakens your position; as this is a battle for ideas and the militant same sex group are masters of word manipulation!It is this group that took a word which means being cheerful and gay----I mean who does not want to be portrayed as being a cheerful person.They have stolen a word and re defined it.The inference is that a person is so happy being afficted with a same sex attraction,society has been sold a lie!

I understand your position re: the word “gay.” I generally try to avoid it on these forums, but since that was the word used in the post I quoted, I felt I should stick to the terms already used while attempting, in my response, to understand the way in which it might be understood.

I think, though, that a lot of the politicization of the word is artificial. I’ve encountered the argument here (these forums) multiple times that “gay” was somehow stolen by homosexual activists in order to lend a happy cast to their orientation or affections. But the use of the word in various subcultures for hundreds of years (and based on usage of the word that goes back to Chaucer) suggests that there was no conscious hijacking going on. There’s a progression of slang meaning of the term that moves, over the past few hundred years, from “frivolous” to “licentious” / “debauched” / “decadent” to “homosexual.” Prostitutes were “gay” in the 18th century, dandies and decadents in the 19th century were “gay.” It’s clear to me that by the turn of the 20th century, it had acquired a subcultural meaning of “louche” and debauched and, it’s application to same-sex men probably came about as a result of it’s meaning of debauched and it’s association with prostitution. In the early 20th century, it was firmly ensconced as prison slang for homosexual, and young hobos who accompanied (and sexually serviced) older hobos were known in some places as “gey cats” (if I remember correctly). As the homosexual subculture became more visible, the slang terms by which the subculture already understood itself became the terms by which the popular culture began to understand it. Men like Edward Carpenter tried to popularize “Uranian” as the proper term for homosexual men, and in certain (more educated) circles, the term was apparently used…but the criminal subculture of which homosexuality was necessarily a part exercised a greater and more far-reaching influence over popular culture than someone like Carpenter and his associates ever could.

I bring all this up to point out that things are not always what they seem, and commonly-accepted rhetoric about activists appropriating words as a strategy to make something “execrable” appear more palatable doesn’t exactly tell the whole (or even the real) story.

The reason that I engage in this debate and have done on other threads dealing with same sex attraction is ,that I believe that The Holy Father Pope Benedict is correct, that the push for same sex “marriage” MUST be defeated.This is the “wars of ideas” that must be won, if Catholics wish to retain the human right to religious freedom(and freedom of conscience).
(every thing is grace ,sure if understood correctly; but as Catholics(including yourself within the fold of a wonderful liturgical tradition) we must also; not only recieve sacramental grace, but to use these free spiritual gifts to turn evil into good within society.)

I understand what you’re saying here, but I think there are a lot of problems with a “war of ideas” waged by the church. Our wtiness to the truth of the gospel is not a matter of the correctness of our ideas (though of course having the right ideas is useful), but a matter of the fierceness of our love. Which is to say, having a correct idea means very little if it doesn’t actually move us to be the people of love that God has called us to be. As John writes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” I fear that we can become too easily known by our willingness to wage a war of ideas–and that makes us not Christians, but ideologues and demagogues. Our witness becomes the war, not our love.

Moreover, if in our war of ideas we are led to behave in the same way as the people against whom we are fighting and whom we believe to be wrong (employing similar tactics, for instance), then I think something is amiss and the battle is lost. (I would go further and say that the moment that we begin identifying other people as our enemies, the battle is lost.) If religious freedom is indeed a human right, then it is not a right that can be given or taken by a government. Appealing to the government or to the principle of liberty via the state is to tacitly recognize the authority of the state to define the liberty in question, which belies its true nature. This is why the witness of the martyrs of the church is so much more compelling, honest, loving and truthful than the witness of prelates who file lawsuits. The martyrs demonstrated the power of the joy and liberty they found in Christ by facing the state, human hatred, violence and death with love and grace and, through Christ, subdued empires and conquered the world. When we use the tools of the state, or human hatred or an adversarial attitude, or violence or any of the tools of death readily available to us as fallen people, it is the world that conquers us and the Gospel is lost.

It seems that a witness of love is too often thought to amount to little more than a mindless tolerance…but that’s not what love is; such a mindless tolerance is certainly not indicative of the fierce love Christ showed us and asked us to show each other. But I fear that our unwillingness to return to a witness of love that is total, self-giving and self-sacrificial to the point of martyrdom betrays our suspicion that love isn’t enough, that we need something more “powerful.” But what could possibly be more powerful? The love of God destroyed sin and death, and we have the gall to think it’s “weak” or insufficient?

Anyway, thank you for engaging in this discussion, karoleck.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[CopticChristian]

Grace & Peace!

Thank you for your thoughtful response, karoleck. While I will confess that I cannot completely identify with your position, I do sympathize in that it’s a difficult position (fraught with tension) to be in–navigating it is likely to be very prayerful work!

While I disagree with your characterization of same sex attraction as an affliction (in itself it is no more of an affliction than any other form of concupiscence), I appreciate that the drift of your approach to this issue is toward compassion.

I understand your position re: the word “gay.” I generally try to avoid it on these forums, but since that was the word used in the post I quoted, I felt I should stick to the terms already used while attempting, in my response, to understand the way in which it might be understood.

I think, though, that a lot of the politicization of the word is artificial. I’ve encountered the argument here (these forums) multiple times that “gay” was somehow stolen by homosexual activists in order to lend a happy cast to their orientation or affections. But the use of the word in various subcultures for hundreds of years (and based on usage of the word that goes back to Chaucer) suggests that there was no conscious hijacking going on. There’s a progression of slang meaning of the term that moves, over the past few hundred years, from “frivolous” to “licentious” / “debauched” / “decadent” to “homosexual.” Prostitutes were “gay” in the 18th century, dandies and decadents in the 19th century were “gay.” It’s clear to me that by the turn of the 20th century, it had acquired a subcultural meaning of “louche” and debauched and, it’s application to same-sex men probably came about as a result of it’s meaning of debauched and it’s association with prostitution. In the early 20th century, it was firmly ensconced as prison slang for homosexual, and young hobos who accompanied (and sexually serviced) older hobos were known in some places as “gey cats” (if I remember correctly). As the homosexual subculture became more visible, the slang terms by which the subculture already understood itself became the terms by which the popular culture began to understand it. Men like Edward Carpenter tried to popularize “Uranian” as the proper term for homosexual men, and in certain (more educated) circles, the term was apparently used…but the criminal subculture of which homosexuality was necessarily a part exercised a greater and more far-reaching influence over popular culture than someone like Carpenter and his associates ever could.

I bring all this up to point out that things are not always what they seem, and commonly-accepted rhetoric about activists appropriating words as a strategy to make something “execrable” appear more palatable doesn’t exactly tell the whole (or even the real) story.

I understand what you’re saying here, but I think there are a lot of problems with a “war of ideas” waged by the church. Our wtiness to the truth of the gospel is not a matter of the correctness of our ideas (though of course having the right ideas is useful), but a matter of the fierceness of our love. Which is to say, having a correct idea means very little if it doesn’t actually move us to be the people of love that God has called us to be. As John writes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” I fear that we can become too easily known by our willingness to wage a war of ideas–and that makes us not Christians, but ideologues and demagogues. Our witness becomes the war, not our love.

Moreover, if in our war of ideas we are led to behave in the same way as the people against whom we are fighting and whom we believe to be wrong (employing similar tactics, for instance), then I think something is amiss and the battle is lost. (I would go further and say that the moment that we begin identifying other people as our enemies, the battle is lost.) If religious freedom is indeed a human right, then it is not a right that can be given or taken by a government. Appealing to the government or to the principle of liberty via the state is to tacitly recognize the authority of the state to define the liberty in question, which belies its true nature. This is why the witness of the martyrs of the church is so much more compelling, honest, loving and truthful than the witness of prelates who file lawsuits. The martyrs demonstrated the power of the joy and liberty they found in Christ by facing the state, human hatred, violence and death with love and grace and, through Christ, subdued empires and conquered the world. When we use the tools of the state, or human hatred or an adversarial attitude, or violence or any of the tools of death readily available to us as fallen people, it is the world that conquers us and the Gospel is lost.

It seems that a witness of love is too often thought to amount to little more than a mindless tolerance…but that’s not what love is; such a mindless tolerance is certainly not indicative of the fierce love Christ showed us and asked us to show each other. But I fear that our unwillingness to return to a witness of love that is total, self-giving and self-sacrificial to the point of martyrdom betrays our suspicion that love isn’t enough, that we need something more “powerful.” But what could possibly be more powerful? The love of God destroyed sin and death, and we have the gall to think it’s “weak” or insufficient?

Anyway, thank you for engaging in this discussion, karoleck.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

Deo,

So after reading what you and Karoleck have written am I correct that…

Karoleck is against Same Sex Marriage as I am

You are for Same Sex Marriage…

Is this correct…?

have mercy