EPTLGBT Rights and Gender Equality Thread - Page 22
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kmpisces
United States50 Posts
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Onegu
United States9699 Posts
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Flyingdutchman
Netherlands858 Posts
On July 12 2013 12:09 Onegu wrote: Staying in thailand really opened my eyes as LGBT is much more accepted here and more open, my fiance's niece is a lesbian and no one has even the slightest problem with it. That is a little step better than here. My niece always brought her 'friend' to social gatherings. In the end everyone knew what was going on before they actually explicitly told us. They are having a baby now  | ||
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phar
United States1080 Posts
On June 30 2013 13:39 Orangered wrote: Why what about Utah? If you mean Utah is a conservative country, then this is terribly good news, especially that it seems that crowd are very approving of the proposal. I really wonder who in this modern time are still opposed to gender equality. Yes, Utah is a fairly conservative state, and more relevantly one dominated by a majority Mormon population. For more info on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints In related news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/russia-passes-anti-gay-law :\ Two steps forward, one step backwards. | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he won’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis asked. “We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society.” Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men who had deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was much more conciliatory in his first news conference as pope, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten. The comments did not signal any change in church policy. Catholic teaching still holds that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” But they indicated a shift in tone under Francis’ young papacy and an emphasis on a church that is more inclusive and merciful rather than critical and disciplinary. Gay leaders were buoyed by Francis’ non-judgmental approach, saying changing the tone was progress in itself, although for some, the encouragement was tempered by Francis talk of gay clergy’s “sins.” “Basically, I’m overjoyed at the news,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the U.S.-based New Ways Ministry, a group promoting justice and reconciliation for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. In shift of tone, Pope Francis reaches out to gays, says he won’t judge gay priests | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
Pope Francis: Who am I to judge gay people? But he condemned what he described as lobbying by gay people. "The problem is not having this orientation," he said. "We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem." | ||
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farvacola
United States18869 Posts
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jinorazi
Korea (South)4948 Posts
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On July 30 2013 03:49 farvacola wrote: Well I guess it comes down to expectations. Rewind 20 years and the notion that a Pope would ever say anything even remotely accepting of homosexuality would be met with sheer incredulity. Ultimately, I'm inclined to think that the Catholic Establishment is always going to be "wrong" in one way or another, and it is along those lines that I think this is a step in the right direction. That was my initial response, and I definitely understand it but I don't think it withstands scrutiny. Perhaps I'm too jaded, cynical even, but I think it's just a clever PR stunt which means nothing during a time when the church is clearly losing ground on the issue of gay rights and the point of the message is incidiously homophobic, intending to make them seem more reasonable in their request that they stop trying to seek equal protection. Linking lobbying for rights and protections with corporate lobbying was a very clever ploy, in my opinion. That's not to say that I don't hope I'm wrong and the language was just unfortunate. | ||
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radscorpion9
Canada2252 Posts
 . I don't want to start a religious debate, but I think the future of the church in the light of progressive secular humanist values is really fascinating. | ||
KwarK
United States44371 Posts
Seriously Mr Pope? | ||
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KwarK
United States44371 Posts
On July 30 2013 03:59 radscorpion9 wrote: I'm really curious as to whether the church will ever fully support gays in spite of what is written in the bible. Will they eventually just gloss over what was written and focus more heavily on what Jesus said in context "X"? They already seem to be ignoring the old testament, but it would be interesting to see them take it a step further. It will be funny then to inquire what their religion really is, except a string of their own personal interpretations and not the word of God . I don't want to start a religious debate, but I think the future of the church in the light of progressive secular humanist values is really fascinating.Jesus never condemned gays, he was actually pretty good about not condemning people. No further steps are needed for Catholics to stop hating gays, in fact, not hating people is pretty much the core message of Jesus. | ||
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Klondikebar
United States2227 Posts
When a child says 2+2=5 we don't laud them for getting it "almost right." I know human rights aren't mathematics but when the right answer is so damn obvious shouldn't we just be rolling our eyes that they still can't get it right? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On July 30 2013 04:01 KwarK wrote: Jesus never condemned gays, he was actually pretty good about not condemning people. No further steps are needed for Catholics to stop hating gays, in fact, not hating people is pretty much the core message of Jesus. It should also be pointed out that the Bible has been rewritten and translated a number of times, with oversight by the church or the ruler who requested it. People who claim it is the divine word often forget that the Bible is the longest game of telephone ever played. So when people point to that part of the bible, the normal way to deal with it is to point to the section that lets you stone your mother for sewing with two different cloths, or kill someone for working on the Sabbath. | ||
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On July 30 2013 03:46 Iyerbeth wrote: He won't judge them, but he wants them to stop lobbying for equal rights and protections. You know, be quiet and stop trying change the laws and I *guess* we won't judge you (but we will still teach your orientation is a disorder). Not buying it. Pope Francis: Who am I to judge gay people? Hmm. While Pope Francis is definitely wrong about the whole lobbying thing, it is true that there are lobbies who want to use issues like same-sex marriage as a springboard against Catholicism in general. In my province of Ontario in Canada, for instance, there was a recent controversy about implementing gay-straight alliance clubs into public schools. Now, Ontario has publicly funded Catholic education and publicly funded non-Catholic education due to some thing in the Constitution way back when we convinced the French to join us (they were afraid the English would get rid of Catholicism and stuff). Now, I'm not saying that publicly funded Catholic education is a good idea (my opinion is that any large religious group within a region should be able to have publicly funded education in the sense that they'd offer a compulsory religion course, have occasional faith-based ceremonies, etc., but would otherwise follow the curriculum to the letter like everyone else does; that's how it is for Catholic ed) but whether or not GSAs should be implemented has nothing to do with the legitimacy of Catholic education. So, when the bishops in Ontario voiced concerns about the political nature of GSAs (as they are a sort of umbrella organization from the US) there was a bit of a controversy. Now, my opinion on the matter at the time was that the CC needs to deal with the fact that gay people exist and that they shouldn't be treated any differently. In that respect, a lot of people who were complaining were doing so from fear/bigotry. That said, the actual statements of the bishops were pretty balanced IMO, and were about as good as it gets for Catholicism on the subject of homosexuality. While they did have a tendency to overemphasize nebulous notions like homosexual "agendas," and while homosexuals certainly don't have an agenda in some insidious sense, their concerns were not actually completely unreasonable, because there actually were a few atheist organizations/groups/lobbyists who were sort of funding/supporting/encouraging various students to speak about how they really wanted these GSAs (as in the exact name "Gay-Straight Alliance" rather than some other word) ostensibly for the purposes of promoting the bill. But a cursory look at the history of such organizations reveals that they have lobbied time and again for the total de-funding of Catholic ed., which, at least to me, legitimizes any suspicion people might have of their involvement viz. the very particular insistence on using a certain name. Basically, a lot of people read it as an attempt to provoke the Catholic boards into doing something defiant to the Ministry, at which point C. ed. would be put to a referendum, where it could conceivably (maybe even probably, given the current climate) fail to be endorsed. The bishops, fortunately, didn't cause much of a fuss once the bill was passed. They said they'd do what the Ministry asked, and that's that. Suddenly all of those atheist/secular groups (and no, I don't think atheism is a religion or whatever; I'm talking about groups that literally found themselves as atheism-focused political movements, and there's nothing wrong with that, anyway) stopped squawking so loudly along with the belligerent and bigoted minority of bigoted Catholic parents, and the whole thing blew over. tl;dr The point of my long tangent is that, while the Church frequently makes paranoid statements about X lobby or Y lobby, there really are lobbies which, though disconnected from a particular cause itself, latch onto these causes as a way of advancing their overarching goal of [whatever, but generally reducing whatever power they think Catholicism has]. While this isn't bad, in itself (though perhaps a little opportunistic on the part of those groups) it certainly seems reasonable that the Pope would be concerned about it, even if the lobbies happen to be right about certain (most, IMO) things, like that gay people should be allowed to get married. | ||
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Klondikebar
United States2227 Posts
On July 30 2013 04:07 Plansix wrote: It should also be pointed out that the Bible has been rewritten and translated a number of times, with oversight by the church or the ruler who requested it. People who claim it is the divine word often forget that the Bible is the longest game of telephone ever played. So when people point to that part of the bible, the normal way to deal with it is to point to the section that lets you stone your mother for sewing with two different cloths, or kill someone for working on the Sabbath. Most Christians are fine ignoring the Old Testament. They like to quote Paul from the New Testament where he says gay sex is a sin. Now, if this were a rational discussion, you could point to the entire fucking chapter where Paul says slaves should love and obey their masters...or the part where he says even heterosexual sex is just an indulgence of sin and we would all conclude that Paul is not an authority on human rights or any relationships...but this is not a rational discussion. If they are like my parents they will say that those passages are open to interpretation and that those parts don't count. At which point I conclude that the only thing I can do is wait for them to die and the world will be a better place. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On July 30 2013 04:06 Klondikebar wrote: Maybe I'm too cynical but "a step in the right direction" has never really been praiseworthy for me when it comes to human rights. Look, the obvious and not bigoted thing to say is "gay people are fine, let's get back to dealing with poverty and shit" but when they say "we'll quit being mean to gays as long as they stop bothering us for their rights" it's this landmark declaration of progress? When a child says 2+2=5 we don't laud them for getting it "almost right." I know human rights aren't mathematics but when the right answer is so damn obvious shouldn't we just be rolling our eyes that they still can't get it right? You sort of have to take what you can get with the Catholic Church. You shouldn't be thrilled about it, but there is no way they are going to come out and say "Just kidding, Gay people are A-ok in our book." If you are only looking for huge changes, you will always be disappointed when it comes to the Catholic Church. They are the stone in the river, you can't move or get rid them, only wear them down with time. | ||
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Klondikebar
United States2227 Posts
On July 30 2013 04:15 Plansix wrote: You sort of have to take what you can get with the Catholic Church. You shouldn't be thrilled about it, but there is no way they are going to come out and say "Just kidding, Gay people are A-ok in our book." If you are only looking for huge changes, you will always be disappointed when it comes to the Catholic Church. They are the stone in the river, you can't move or get rid them, only wear them down with time. Yeah. But why are we acting like this Pope is super tolerant? The reaction I'm seeing on Reddit and other news sites is "THIS POPE IS AWESOME!!" No guys, this pope is slightly less evil than the last pope. We take what we can get, but stop acting like we're getting an awesome gift. | ||
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Rombur
Belgium107 Posts
On July 30 2013 03:55 Iyerbeth wrote: That was my initial response, and I definitely understand it but I don't think it withstands scrutiny. Perhaps I'm too jaded, cynical even, but I think it's just a clever PR stunt which means nothing during a time when the church is clearly losing ground on the issue of gay rights and the point of the message is incidiously homophobic, intending to make them seem more reasonable in their request that they stop trying to seek equal protection. Linking lobbying for rights and protections with corporate lobbying was a very clever ploy, in my opinion. That's not to say that I don't hope I'm wrong and the language was just unfortunate. Well reading the article from the BBC and from Reuters, I understand two different things. According to Reuters, he was just replying to a question about the gay lobby in Vatican and it looks like he's just talking about lobbying in the Vatican. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On July 30 2013 04:13 Klondikebar wrote: Most Christians are fine ignoring the Old Testament. They like to quote Paul from the New Testament where he says gay sex is a sin. Now, if this were a rational discussion, you could point to the entire fucking chapter where Paul says slaves should love and obey their masters...or the part where he says even heterosexual sex is just an indulgence of sin and we would all conclude that Paul is not an authority on human rights or any relationships...but this is not a rational discussion. If they are like my parents they will say that those passages are open to interpretation and that those parts don't count. At which point I conclude that the only thing I can do is wait for them to die and the world will be a better place. I normally just say: "Wait, you get to claim one part of your magic book is divine and then ignore the other part that you disagree with. Isn't like a 50/50 shot that you could be wrong and the other part is divine and you should have been stoning your mother and sister all this time and protesting football for touching a dead pigs skin?" It normally gets the response I am looking for in that discussion. Note: I am Protestant and my church as no problems with anyone, gay or otherwise. | ||
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