Well, you’ve got to accept that Pope Benedict XVI isn’t afraid to tell people what he thinks.
The recent furore about his comments that the church should be exempt from UK equality laws, because it would “impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs” is pretty chilling. Cue a shot of loads of people on the street with banners saying that Catholics should have the ‘freedom’ to discriminate against gay and transgender individuals because of their beliefs. The message: that strongly-held beliefs should exempt you from having to adhere to the same rules of equality as everyone else, and to discriminate against anyone you like so long as you believe it’s right, or that a book (or rather, your interpretation of it) tells you that it’s ok.
I’m amazed that some people can’t see the blatantly obvious flaw in this argument. If strongly held beliefs were a viable excuse for treating other people badly, then most of the atrocities in the last century could be excused too, if the people committing them truly believed their doctrine of choice advocated it. Where’s the line? I suspect the answer is ‘wherever the Pope wants it to be’.
A bigot in a fancy robe and quoting doctrine is still a bigot. There is never any excuse for treating your fellow human beings as anything other than equals, and if your religion tells you otherwise, you might want to update your thinking by, I don’t know, maybe a couple of thousand years or so. The rest of society’s moved on a tad in that time, such us not hacking each other apart with swords, or burning people at the stake for curing the local donkey. Being a decent human being to other people regardless of their race/sexual orientation etc kinda came out of that whole transition – you might want to give it a shot sometime.
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:57 pm
It’s sad there’s no like button, because I would hit it 1000 times on this post!!
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Christian version of Sharia. Sounds like the basis for a good ego-shooter.
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I’m wondering if I should campaign for my “freedom” to slap people in the head when they’re being intolerant, backward reactionaries. My beliefs on this issue are pretty strong too.
I’ve built up a healthy disrespect for most organised religeon over the years, but it’s nice of the Pope to give a potted illustrative example of the inherently divisive nature of belief and doctrine as opposed to rationale and understanding, which has long underpinned that opinion.
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
?There is never any excuse for treating your fellow human beings as anything other than equals?
Except we all do it all the time ? we discriminate against people based on their looks , social standing, health, IQ, physical abilities, a vaguely defined but an intensely private concept of attractiveness and host of other reasons.
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:36 pm
I’d like to make sure people are properly understanding both sides of this argument. Lets look at this from the Pope’s perspective and not immediately jump to conclusions that this is a bigoted and racist attack from the Catholic church.
First, the wording of his statements are pretty bad, and it’s very understandable how people are reacting to this. That said, there is very sound reasoning for the Pope’s opposition to this bill, and it’s one simple question:
If a religious faith determines that some action is against the teachings of the faith, then does it makes sense that leaders of that faith should not be practicing said actions?
What the Pope is worried about with this bill is that it could enable the government to start mandating how religious organizations work and function.
To use the example being thrown around so much, does it makes sense that the Catholic church, which teaches that actively practicing homosexuality is a sin, would hire a priest, bishop, etc to lead (side note: the bishop hired in a few years back is not practicing, that’s the difference here)? Wouldn’t that be seen by many outside the church as hypocritical?
This is what the Pope is worried about with this bill. It’s nothing to do with bigotry or racism, and everything to do with the government underhandedly forcing religious organizations to work against their teachings and faith.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:47 pm
@warmi: The old ‘everyone does it, ergo it’s right’ argument doesn’t hold water. A lot of people are are considerably more enlightened than that. And there’s a massive difference between personal taste (say, in a partner) and systematic discrimination based on broad categories of person.
@Jason: Ok, but realistically why would someone who is unilaterally condemned out of hand by a group because of their ‘teachings’ want to join them anyway? Doesn’t seem that likely to me, so I can’t see why the Pope would be realistically concerned about that. I don’t think that’s the real issue, I think that’s been the frantic defence put about to try to dampen this down.
I think the underlying issue is that the teachings in question are inherently bigoted against certain groups (if you’re gay you’re a bad person, will burn in the fires of hell, etc), and most of modern society doesn’t think that’s a reasonable position to be taking any more. I seriously doubt that there will be any practical effect on the church from the UK equality law (because why would rational people from the marginalised group want to have anything to do with them?), this is simply the Pope pointing out his real feelings on the general issue. It’s easy to see why church numbers have been falling for generations and will likely continue to fall, if it continues to hold to ideology which is no longer shared by the majority.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:17 pm
The pope just doesn’t want any “practicing” gays working in the church, just as I am sure he doesn’t want any adulterers working in the church.
What wrong with that?
Also, I am positive gay rights groups would use this law to embarrass the church. Take a look at your righteous anger, then imagine how a room full of political activists would feel.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@Steve What the public thinks or feels has no bearing on the teachings of a religion. In fact, it goes the other way, a religion or belief system is what people use to guide how they live. Every single person has a set of beliefs they hold dear to themselves which define how they live and think. Your “most of modern society” actually follows the ideology of Secularism and/or Relativism, though most will deny that they have any beliefs because there’s this aversion to “religion” in general in today’s society.
As for who would join the church, well a big issue the Church has had to deal with these days are people practicing these “sinful” actions without believing that they are in fact wrong, according to the teachings of the Church, and the Church has to make a stand and say No, you will be preaching but not practicing what you preach. This law would make such a statement illegal.
As for the statement of “violating natural law” I really don’t know what he meant by that. Our current Pope has said some very questionable things during his tenure, no doubt, and I think some of that history is also fueling this outrage.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to completely absolve him, I’ve disagreed with a lot of what he’s said in the past, and I’m not really sure how to take his current statements, I’m just giving the other side of the argument for discussion’s sake.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
@Joseph: I already covered the first point. On the second, I fail to see how a room full of activists could create more embarrassment than the Pope has just generated all on his own.
@Jason: ah, this probably identifies the fundamental and irreconcilable difference of outlook between us which explains a lot: I view religeon as man-made, a codified version of what certain members of society think & believe at a given point in time (after all, not all the major religeons in the world can be right all at once). In that mindset, condemning a group of people for their sexuality is using a historical point of view to excuse your own intolerance. BUT, of course those of the faith believe those principles come from a divine source, trickling down to society as immutable, absolute principles. We’re not going to agree on that, obviously. But it no doubt underpins why I find the church’s position impossible to relate to.
Thanks for the debate!
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Well, I look at it from a combined point of view. The Pope is not chosen because he is the “best of the Catholics” nor is he chosen by God. He is chosen in a political process by incredibly “conservative” old men (who in turn were chosen by incredibly “conservative” white men, and so on) to be the leader they would wish to follow.
Only an imbecile would vote for a person they believe is going to undermine their strongly held beliefs and the Catholic Church has alot of strongly held beliefs that draw ire from those against persecution of their fellow man. In other words, the Pope is in his position because he is the leader the upper levels of the Catholic Hierarchy would prefer to follow. Like political parties, this doesn’t mean that all Catholics share his beliefs, but enough of them at least accept his views as “reasonable” or they would have left (the Pope is infallible according to Catholic doctrine).
Personally, I think the man would be considered a right-wing whacko were it not for his religious position. He has said quite a few things now that would mark him as a person to ignore in the media were it not for his religious/political position. Compared to the previous pontiff, the man is a hot-bed of intolerance.
As for the laws, it only means churches cannot discriminate, in employment matters, on homosexuality alone. In other words, they should hire gay gardeners if they are better qualified than other applicants. Or, more importantly, they cannot really ask sexual orientation as a part of the employment process as it is irrelevant.
As for the bull-dust about hiring gay priests… if their religion allows for a person to be a practising homosexual and be a priest, then it follows that the religion is not against him being employed as a priest. If the religion doesn’t allow practising homosexual priests, then there is nothing to worry about because the employment condition “must be a priest” cannot be met by a practising homosexual. This is a doctrinal issue (complicated by the infallibility of previous Popes), not a legal one.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Poor pope. They should’ve executed Galileo when they had the chance. This Enlightenment stuff is the worst disaster for them, EVER.
(hmm, my captcha for this comnment: “the shroud”)
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:32 am
My captcha is even better: ‘the scribes’
I haven’t found a single evidence that being gay is ’sinful’ – to the contrary, actually: it seemed to be more accepted 2000 years ago than it is today. In Rome it was even considered a more honourable love than that between woman and man.
Politics and Religion doesn’t mix. My enlightenment is as good as your enlightenment.
Poo to the Pope. I prefer to leave the judgement to God himself.
Statements like that must be bad news for lots of people in the Catholic church – I am sure they are cringing.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:11 am
[Politics and Religion doesn’t mix.]
I’d hate to disagree. Religion is just politics with “God” as a stick to wield over the governed. The election of the Pope is a good example… like other “modern democracies”, you need to put in the hard yards sucking up to the people higher in the hierarchy so they will “allow” you to govern them.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
@Steve “to discriminate against anyone you like so long as you believe it’s right, or that a book (or rather, your interpretation of it) tells you that it’s ok”
and ” BUT, of course those of the faith believe those principles come from a divine source, trickling down to society as immutable, absolute principles. We’re not going to agree on that, obviously”
Okay, so obviously we not going to agree on the source, but, relating to the interpretation part, its not possible to say that people are misinterpreting that the Bible says that *practising* homosexuality is sin, as every time its mentioned in the Bible, its always explicitly labelled as a sin.
“Ok, but realistically why would someone who is unilaterally condemned out of hand by a group because of their ‘teachings’ want to join them anyway?”
Some people are in denial that the Bible condemns practising homosexuality and so want to be made leaders. In fact some practising homosexuals have been made leaders in churches where people don’t follow the Bible or Jesus, but still wan’t to be call Christian. Therefore the government could legally force churches who follow the Bible and Jesus to be hypocritical.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I still don’t buy it. I’m with B. Tolputt here, I don’t think there’s a realistic chance of this ‘forced hypocrisy’ at all, because it would be like saying an animal testing laboratory has to employ an animal rights activist, or that a school has to employ someone who refuses to teach the curriculum – neither of which is part of the equality law. Those are practical work-place issues, and a priest that doesn’t teach the ‘official’ ideology is in a similar position. That’s not discrimination, that’s just incompatibility with the job in question.
It becomes discrimination when they refuse to hire a gay gardener, cleaner etc regardless of whether it has any fundamental bearing at all on the job, as B. Tolputt says – which IS what the equality law addresses. What the Pope is saying is that they should be exempt en masse from equality laws, which is not the same thing at all. He’s justifying broad-brush discrimination because of a single kind of potential conflict (which is not that likely IMO – a gay Christian has far more attractive places to go than the Catholic church), and that doesn’t wash with most people who live in the 21st rather than 16th century.
Of course, I think all religion was written down, rewritten, edited and translated by human beings anyway and thus any absolutes in it are inherently challengeable – even if you accept a divine original source (which I don’t), that’s a lot of potential conversion error. But that I know is a lost argument.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
For the record – I did seminary and the original language of the Bible is against the act of “sodomy” or, as my wife so eloquently put it one day, “bum-sex”. The word “homosexual” was first ‘interpreted’ into the Bible in the 1946 Revised Standard Version (RSV) New Testament, because there is no equivalent term in the biblical Hebrew & Greek that equates to the definition given.
Like the Jehovah’s Witness interpretation of the New Testament leading them to forbid blood transfusions, the fact that god forbade homosexuality (rather than just ‘bum-sex’) is an interpretation man has overlayed on the historical text. It may or may not be right, but the original text is vague enough to claim lee-way.
That, of course, is not the argument of this blog nor one I am going to win against someone with a rock-solid “faith” (which, by definition, is a belief in things unseen or unprovable). However, stating that there is definite proof that homosexuals are anathema in “God’s sight” or similar is far from given when reading the Bible in the original language. Generations of men have interpreted and translated the Bible with more flexibility than would be acceptable in, say, a court of law.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:29 am
@B. Tolputt “However, stating that there is definite proof that homosexuals are anathema in “God’s sight” or similar is far from given when reading the Bible in the original language”
Like I said, *practising* homosexuality is a sin, i.e. the act of homosexuality is a sin.
The definition of sodomy, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy) and Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sodomy), is slightly more that just anal sex, as they both include oral sex. For a biblical quote you could add the destruction of Sodom which happens just after the quote mentioned in the Merriam-Webster quote or Romans 1:26-27, which I’ve quoted further below from the King James Version only because it pre-dates 1946, although I’m guessing its not the 1611 version, otherwise it would probably be harder to read.
“Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French sodomie, from Late Latin Sodoma Sodom; from the homosexual proclivities of the men of the city in Gen 19:1–11
Date: 13th century
: anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex; also : copulation with an animal”
Merriam-Webster
“26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”
Romans 1:26-27 (King James Version)
@Steve “Of course, I think all religion was written down, rewritten, edited and translated by human beings anyway and thus any absolutes in it are inherently challengeable”
Having old copies of the Bible, like Codex Sinaiticus (http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/) and others, makes this argument hard.
February 8th, 2010 at 12:59 am
You use “english” definitions for biblical phrases translated from ancient Hebrew & Greek. As I have stated before, there are translation issues concerned here. Especially when considering the Biblical origin of the term “Somomite”, i.e. citizen of Sodom or similarity thereof.
If you read the actual phrases in the bible talking about the incident in question – both the men AND women were threatening to RAPE the angels serving as guests Lot’s household. Recall also that hospitality was (and to a large part still IS) an almost sacred concept in that part of the world. A person’s security is the responsibility of the host, even if the guest is one’s mortal enemy.
In other words, there is as much evidence in the Bible that God is against the RAPE of men as anything else from that story. Ignoring, of course, that Lot had sex with his daughters (no Godly or man-initiated repercussions), that rape is OK so long as one marries the woman (Deuteronomy), and that Jesus only ever used Sodom & Gomorrah as examples of ‘inhospitality’ (fancy that!). Every mention of homosexuality &/or sodomy and it being a sin in the New Testament is from people that were NOT Jesus.
But I will no longer pursue this debate here. This is a blog more about computers and “general” social issues. We are delving into Biblical interpretation (which I have shown to be less “fixed” than you imply). As I have already mentioned though – there is no convincing people who have “strong faith”, because you already fully embrace the unprovable. The last word is yours…