The Glade 4.0

Being raised Catholic, as a child I did not hear any bad things about gay people at home, church, or school.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

I said as much above as well but no one wants to address it. When did Catholicism become the posterboy for gay-bashing?

:roll:

Or maybe because Muslim gay killings have little to no effect on American life, while Catholic prejudices against homosexuality do influence American policies and attitudes?

No, it's probably the "we aren't constantly screaming at Muslims" thing.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

http://pewforum.org/publications/reports/poll2002.pdf

Don't blame that **** on us, that is more a Protestant/Puritanical thing.

I never said that Catholics were the biggest problem, only that their views (unlike Muslims, which Uncle Fester seemed to shoehorn in arbitrarily) actually hold influence in our society.

And what's the context for that graph you've posted? The only thing I've come across in the PDF you posted is that it's measuring what denomination the answerers are.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Taly, I am coming to be eating your childrens

Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.

Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner.

I wouldn't be so quick to villify the parents in this case. They both went to Catholic school and were raised in the Catholic faith: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx? ... &catid=339
Having been raised Catholic myself and gone to Catholic school for a portion of my education, I can say that as a parent, having your children denied entry is a very big deal. Its does not sound to me like these parents are using their children as political placards or whatever, it sounds like they are fighting for the right of their children to have access to the same theological and educational background that they did. As a parent, I want my child to have the same positive experiences that I did as a child and it would appear that this couple wishes the same for their children.
As for the notion that their children would suffer more in a Catholic school because of their parents being gay, that is absolutely ridiculous. Being raised Catholic, as a child I did not hear any bad things about gay people at home, church, or school. I doubt it will be any different for these children if they were allowed to attend the Catholic school, and in fact, based on my personal experiences, probably less social ostracism and teasing than if they went to a regular public school.
Thats just my opinion.

lots of stuff

The fact of the matter is, however, that we don't know whether the women are Catholic or not..

The following is a message from the parents
of two children being denied re-enrollment
at Sacred Heart of Jesus School
We are normal people. We have two children, a nice house, and a dog. We both hold
professional jobs in the community. You would likely pass us on the street and not take much notice.
We work hard, and enjoy spending time with our family, traveling, and being outdoors. What makes us
different is that we are a lesbian couple. We are not activists by nature. You have never seen us at
protests or marching in parades. Up until this point, we have taken the typical passive approach of
voting for candidates that represent our viewpoints and directing our charitable donations to
organizations whose missions we support. We live in a liberal community, where we have always felt
safe, comfortable, and accepted.
Certainly over the years there have been times when our sexuality has been an issue, but they
have been relatively minor. We had to hire a lawyer to ensure both of our names were on our children’s
birth certificates, to protect our rights to inherit each others assets, and establish medical durable power
of attorney. Luckily, we had the financial means to pay the thousands of dollars to do all of this. In the
years that we have been in Colorado, laws have since been changed to protect some of these basic
rights. We file our taxes as single. We filled out our census as ‘unmarried partners living together’ since
we are not able to legally marry. Upon returning from vacation, US Customs would not process us
together because we ‘did not qualify as a family’. These are things that gay and lesbian people deal
with every day.
Recently, we found ourselves in the middle of a political firestorm. We went to enroll our oldest
child in kindergarten at Sacred Heart of Jesus School, and were told that our children would not be
welcome to continue their education there long term because of our sexual orientation. This came as a
shock to us because our children had been attending preschool at Sacred Heart for three years. We had
been open about our family situation from the start, and had always felt welcomed by parents and
teachers. The past weeks have been very difficult for our family. We were initially very hurt and angry.
We met with school and church administrators to discuss the situation. We were told that families and
students need to uphold church doctrine in order for children to be admitted. We were also told that our
children would feel uncomfortable when taught about the “family unit”, and teachers might feel too
intimidated by their presence to teach church beliefs. Our answer to this is that there are many families
that do not live their lives according to church doctrine. There are divorced parents, children of parents
born out of wedlock, non-Catholics, and non-practicing Catholics. Their eligibility has not been
questioned. There seems to be a subjective rating system of which sins are more unacceptable.
Regarding the school’s teaching about the ‘family unit’, we are unconcerned. Our children know that
their family is different than most. They are well aware that many families have a mom and a dad, and
we discuss different family models openly. We have a good understanding of the church’s position on
gay and lesbian people. We have never sought approval from the church of our relationship and we
would never ask that the school modify its teachings to accommodate our family. We are not threatened
by our children hearing different points of view on any issues. Perhaps our biggest objection to the
School’s decision is that we think that it is wrong to punish a child for who the child’s parents are. We
do not think that this reflects what Jesus would have done. Jesus said, “bring the children to me.”
Our initial thought was that it would be least disruptive for our children to deal with this
privately, and focus our energy on securing other educational options for them. However, word of our
situation got out to the Sacred Heart community at a teacher staff meeting and quickly spread. Many
people at Sacred Heart were outraged with the decision. A teacher reported it to the local news outlets.
We found our story on the front page of the paper and in the headlines of the local news. It quickly
spread nationally and has been the subject of many online blogs. We have chosen to speak up at this
time to clarify many misconceptions.
Some have suggested that we enrolled our children at Sacred Heart to make a political point.
This could not be further from the truth. We were both born and raised in the Catholic faith. One of us
went to Catholic school from preschool through high school, and the other attended a prestigious
Catholic University. Our children’s grandmother and aunt were catholic school teachers for many
years. Furthermore, our children are Catholics. They have both been baptized, and we take them to
church regularly at Sacred Heart. When we were allowed to have our children baptized (as
recommended by the 2006 document ‘Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines
for Pastoral Care’), we made a promise to raise our children in the Catholic faith. We now feel like our
attempts at fulfilling this promise are being undermined by the Church itself. Although we do not see
eye to eye with the Catholic Church on the issue of gay and lesbian relationships, we value what a
Catholic education can offer our children from an academic, religious, and moral standpoint. As
parents, our number one priority is and always has been the well-being of our children. We would
never intentionally seek to further our own political beliefs at their expense.
Clearly this is an issue that strikes a nerve for many people. If any good can come out of all of
this, perhaps it is getting people thinking and discussing issues of faith and sexual orientation. Our
case is not unique. There are many other gay couples who have families and are struggling to reconcile
their sexual orientation with their religious beliefs. We do not believe that homosexuality and
organized religion need to be mutually exclusive. We have been touched by the outpouring of support
from the Sacred Heart community and the community at large. Many of the people who stood up for
us publicly did so at some risk to themselves and their families. We are humbled by their courage. We
hope that in the future when we witness an injustice, we are brave enough to stand up to it like so
many people did for us.
Our family will persevere. We have well-adjusted, intelligent, beautiful children who are deeply
loved. We have chosen to move forward with our lives, not with hearts filled with hate and bitterness,
but with hope that in part due to this controversy there might be some positive changes in the hearts
and minds of others. It is easy to have ideas and opinions when they are abstract. When you meet the
real people you are judging, you sometimes see things differently. We never intended consciously for
our family to be active gay rights advocates, but by living happy, successful lives it appears that is
what we have become. We will continue to raise our children with strong Catholic values and hold
faith that through our actions, we are doing our part to create a more loving, inclusive world.
To learn more about community response to this issue, please visit boulderpride.org or call 303-499-5777

Perhaps you missed the sarcasm implicit in my second-to-last post.

This is an interesting situation, and based on the statement issued by the parents one that the school comes out on the wrong side. I expected to be on the other side of the issue.

(Personally, I have a great distaste for Catholic education, but that is because I did not fit well with it. The Nuns did not want a bright, active 'tomboy' messing up their nice classrooms.)

As compared to public schools that don't want bright, active kids of any sort? They have this nasty habit of getting bored while we're trying to leave no child behind, and then needing to be put on Ritalin so as to avoid inconveniencing anyone.

Its does not sound to me like these parents are using their children as political placards or whatever, it sounds like they are fighting for the right of their children to have access to the same theological and educational background that they did.

Just that Catholics in relation to Protestant Christians are a minority.

Public schools have changed quite a bit since we were kids. Even my sons teacher admitted to that and she has been teaching for 40 years.

Wasn't this a Law & Order episode?

(emphasis mine)
At the end of the day, private things are private. For good or for ill, the Catholic church is a private organization can include or exclude whomever they will, and for any reason. To their credit, the parents don't seem to be arguing otherwise.

Somewhat OT:


Sure, but they aren't a small minority. By those figures, about 1/3 of self-identifying Christians are Catholic.

In any case, I guess it's my turn to bristle a bit at the "more a protestant thing" comment. It's not so much that I take issue with the accuracy of the statement -- the studies I've seen on the subject more or less support that statement, though not entirely. It's more a question of precision. "Protestant" covers a huge amount of territory. At best, it's trying to define something in terms of what it isn't rather than in terms of what it is. At worst, it's just an overreaching classification that creates a highly non-homogeneous population.

Moreover, the term itself is largely a misnomer at this point in history. I'd argue that it's almost, if not entirely inapplicable to many American denominations which were formed well after the Protestant reformation. Many American denominations were formed after the Civil War, and trying to define them in terms of Luther is just kind of silly. My own denomination (not that I strongly identify with denominations) at least nominally belongs to a movement which might from some perspectives be rightly termed "protestant" -- but the Catholic church was not the object of its protest. These denominations can rightly be non-Catholic with a capital 'C', but that doesn't necessarily make them Protestant with capital 'P'. And they may very well be catholic in the small 'c' sense.

In any case, I guess it's my turn to bristle a bit at the "more a protestant thing" comment. It's not so much that I take issue with the accuracy of the statement -- the studies I've seen on the subject more or less support that statement, though not entirely. It's more a question of precision. "Protestant" covers a huge amount of territory. At best, it's trying to define something in terms of what it isn't rather than in terms of what it is. At worst, it's just an overreaching classification that creates a highly non-homogeneous population.

Moreover, the term itself is largely a misnomer at this point in history. I'd argue that it's almost, if not entirely inapplicable to many American denominations which were formed well after the Protestant reformation -- many even after the Civil War! Trying to define them in terms of Luther is just kind of silly and outdated. My own denomination (not that I strongly identify with denominations) at least nominally belongs to a movement which might from some perspectives be rightly termed "protestant" -- but the Catholic church was not the object of its protest. These denominations can rightly be called non-Catholic with a capital 'C', but that doesn't necessarily make them Protestant with capital 'P'. And they may very well be catholic in the small 'c' sense.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin