Spoken Word Homophobia

This is just...awful, weird and creepy, and full of the usual lies about sexuality. The up camera angles are very 1984. I'm sure the young peoples of the hood were deeply touched. Update: wrong video... Please recommend this post

Gay is the Word

I was in the gym tonight when Toronto Archbishop Tom Collins came on the television.  The Ontario government is currently fine tuning proposed anti-bullying legislation, which of course affects catholic schools.  The legislation would allow students to form anti-bullying, anti-homophobic groups, sometimes known as Gay-Straight Alliances.  The issue right now seems to be the use of the word gay in the groups name.  I had a hard time understanding this at first, but that's it. (Well, that and the existence of the groups themselves.) The government wants to head off the obvious tactic of the local catholic boards disallowing students to use the word gay in their group name. Ironically, such a rule would in itself be a form of bullying.

Collins struck me as glib and narcissistic. He claims these groups and their name amounts to religious persecution. Perhaps he should read some of Amnesty International's reports to put his suffering in better context. The Cardinal thinks the word gay is a distraction in the process of stopping the bullying of gay teens. I don't think they're even trying any more to sound logical.

Collins was followed by a female trustee with a spacey smile who informed us that we can't very well accept the title Gay Straight Alliance because it is a political movement which seeks to inject politics in a political way. We know how much Catholics hate that kind of thing.  Out Heroding Herod, she added that it was an American political thing.

At that point I had had enough and walked away from the television.  I spent the rest of the night thinking thoughts that would most certainly constitute persecution of the Cardinal's religious liberty.  I couldn't help it.

Collins, many trustees, and some Conservative MPPs maintain that the local boards should be able to deal with this on their own.  I think this legislation would be an obvious sign that this has not, or will not happen.  It would have been nice if the Southern American States had desegregated themselves without the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and  fairly aggressive enforcement by federal law agencies.  In retrospect that collision was inevitable.  It's not an entirely unfair comparison.

As far as Alberta goes, i'm pretty sure this controversy is coming our way.  And in the past the PC Party Government has sided with religious groups against those who are being discriminated against.


Please recommend this post

Minnesota Archbishop: Opposing Marriage Equality Is Not Anti-Gay

Via ThinkProgress:

Archbishop John C. Nienstedt: “The Minnesota Catholic Conference, made up of the seven Catholic bishops from the state, support this amendment not for prejudicial or political reasons, but rather for reasons that are theological, biological and pastoral.”

(Original news item.)

Lets assume for a second that the Archbishop's homophobia is not born of prejudicial or political reasons (which no intelligent person would believe for a second). That leaves his pseudo-humanist argument that it's about theology biology, and pastoral authority or care.

Theology isn't a useful factor here because there are many different theologies. Some theologies actually acknowledge the whole person and accept gay people as equal and normal. Shock! Aside from that theology is a useless guideline for public policy.

Biology has no relevance to gay marriage, or the legalization of it. The Archbishop still thinks he lives in a world where his distortions of modern science are actually relevant to society at large.

That leaves us with Pastoral authority or care. This only applies to Catholics. Leave the rest of us and public policy out of it.

(Shakes angry atheist fist up to the sky) Please recommend this post