Comments for Arguing LGBT “rights” at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 21 out of 20 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 20:56:39 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-14015 Dear DS, your homosexual friends in Iran and Saudi Arabia have my sympathy, but how does unjust treatments of people in general get boiled down to human rights offenses against homosexuals in muslim lands? It seems to me that your defense of what you call "unjust" discrimination is really something like special treatment. I think in the case of your thought the tail is wagging the dog. You do no homosexuals any favors by increasing the homosexualist's agenda, lifted from Marx, that he is "persecuted unjustly." In general he is not, in fact, to the contrary, he is treated with deference by the public schools, mass media, lady gaga "born that way" and by our so called 'president' and his ilk. You are on the wrong side of this issue DS and while I admire your compassion it is unteathered to sound reason and the proper order of the will. - Achilles Tue, 23 Oct 2012 03:37:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-14007 DS, I argue against elevating sexual orientation and gender identity to the level of international law. I also argue that violence against homosexual persons is immoral and must be resisted. I also argue that homosexuals are already covered extensively in existing human rights treaties. I guess I just don't follow you... Perhaps you can explain in greater detail... - Austin Ruse Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:30:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-14004 To Achilles - "Unjust" is an important qualifier and undoubtedly would be a subject for debate on these pages. In the Catholic understanding of justice, does jail or flogging simply for being in the company of a suspected homosexual qualify as unjust discrimination? (...or to use your example, does simply being in the company of a suspected drug user warrant punishment?) It happens in Saudi Arabia and Iran. To Mr. Ruse - conflating the two is the entire premise of your argument. You argue against codifying additional protections for the legitimate human rights of homosexual persons because it is impossible to separate such protections from a broader agenda, the ultimate objective of which is to normalize immoral sexual behavior. - DS Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:01:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-14002 DS, can you show me how I conflate homosexuality with homosexual acts? Thanks. - Austin Ruse Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:53:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-14001 Same sex attraction is disordered DS and to confuse unjust discrimination with acceptance is a very dangerous thing. The catechism says “unjust discrimination” not discrimination. A person who acts on same sex attraction ought to be discriminated against in the same way one ought to wisely discriminate against a heterosexual sex addict or a drug addict. To show approbation for such aberrant behavior is absurd. It is a loving act to tell those who act on their homosexual inclinations that the behavior will not be tolerated. It is self-destructive and damaging to families. Even Freud associated homosexuality with narcissism. I discriminate in the sense that my close friends are not homosexuals and my children don’t have friends that are homosexuals in the same way we don’t have friends that are drug addicts. - Achilles Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:53:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13999 Mr. Ruse, You didn't violate any catechetical teaching and I did not make that assertion. My criticism is that your column and previous ones like it conflate homosexual individuals and homogenital acts, while the Catechism, Church tradition, the bishops and moral theologians see important distinctions between them. Re. human rights, the operative words in the Catechism are "unjust discrimination." Such discrimination and related violence does indeed exist (my examples of Saudi Arabia and Iran, among others), and existing human rights structures do not adequately address it. - DS Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:33:53 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13995 DS, Really? In what way does my column violate the catechetical teaching of the church. Please do be specific. - Austin Ruse Mon, 22 Oct 2012 07:32:53 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13992 Achilles, this is the Catechism's, not the UN's, position on how homosexual persons should be treated: "They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." The Catechism makes this statement, while at the same time clearly condemning homogenital acts and violations of natural law. The Catechism has the nuance and completeness of Catholic teaching that Mr. Ruse's column lacks. - DS Mon, 22 Oct 2012 06:50:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13981 The extraordinary thing is how few actual 'hate crimes' there are as opposed to the infinitesimal number of real ones. The ones you hear about are almost always either entirely fake (meaning no actual bad incident happened) or obviously explained by another motive which is often hidden from the public at the beginning (as in the example in Austin's column). I can't believe that people fall for them anymore. By the way, if the 'hate crime' happens on a university campus there is a 100% chance it is fake. - Ben H Sun, 21 Oct 2012 07:04:17 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13980 DS- I think you are confused. You have a lot of Catholic doctrine, but unfortunately you seem to be marbling in UN declaration of human rights perversion. YOu are mucking up the waters. One of your unknowable foundational assummptions, that God made homosexuals seems to be your ground for self righteousness. I think it is sand. There is much more evidence that man makes homosexuals than God does. I don't know, but neither do you. You should try to read the article again without that assumption and try to weed out the UN stuff. Good luck. - Achilles Sat, 20 Oct 2012 20:14:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13978 Blame yourself. Since it seems the Church has constantly wanted to give power to the state - so the state can define marriage (Henry VIII married a woman - after the state but not the church recognized the divorce, and Thomas More lost his head over the issue, but today we recognize such marriages - we give sacred things to dogs and consider divorce acceptable). Since everything you mention becomes a federal issue - poverty, adoption, etc., even freedom of association - cheer for the civil rights act in the 1960s, but then when "protected groups" are what you don't happen to like, the jackboots will be there to enforce the state's definition of the letter of the law, not the Church's recognition of the spirit of righteousness and charity. A small government that keeps the peace would not have any power to worry about enforcing the rights you find objectionable. And the Church could go about providing medical care, adoption, and every other service as a charity, not from the robbery by proxy that is taxation, though it is more efficient than asking for more in the collection plate. Perhaps we can arm nuns and ushers and remove the middlemen and bureaucracy. You cannot have religious freedom with a leviathan state. Ask Bob Jones University (25 years ago losing their 501c3 status over religious liberty - but that was a nasty doctrine and we are nice - but do those in power still think us nice and when "public policy" says we are now nasty?). The agenda of both the right and left - the wars on "terrorism" and "poverty" - gave more and more power to the federal government (against subsidiarity), so ultimately the Devil can corrupt a few people and all that power is his on a silver platter. And instead of asking to dismantle the Ziggaraut of Bureaus, to defuse the time-bomb of surveillance and force, you want to leave all that in place and make a futile attempt to keep different corrupt people (i.e. other than you and your own corrupt people) from taking this and using it for their own ends. Power corrupts. Absolute (unitary executive?) power corrupts absolutely. But you want to keep the corruption because you want to keep the power. - tz Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:29:59 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13977 Walter, it has always been an incremental strategy and it has not always been out in the open. it's not really out in the open yet, even in the US. The end sought is the destruction of any sexual standard by which homosexual activity could be negatively judged. But this would sound too radical if directly pursued, so other short term goals through which this can systematically be achieved, are sought, one at a time. - kristinajohannes Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:20:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13976 Dear Pat, thanks for your response,I have to say you sound rather upset? I just have a couple of questions.I have no idea what and why Love goes out of the toilet?Secondly I never mentioned "silence".Thirdly can you point out "Exactly" what commandment is broken by your "Boss" Finally statements laced with pure anger do nothing to advance the cause,I humbly submit. God Bless you and thanks again. Jack - Jack,CT Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:57:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13975 Another great piece Mr Ruse, I also realy appreciated "On Killing Baby Girls". I wonder sometimes what world will my daughter live in... it scares me. - Suzanne Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:34:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13974 The author uses one anecdote to suggest that LGBT advocates are fundamentally dishonest. This is quite a bizarre accusation. Anyone who has read a newspaper or watch TV over the last 5 years knows that the agenda is quite clear and out in the open. - Walter Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:20:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13973 In today's Daily Telegraph (UK) Damien Thompson writes about the National Council of Civil Liberties 1978 statement before Parliament which said "childhood sexual experiences WILLINGLY ENGAGED IN with adults show no identifiable damage." Couple this statement the invariable denial that homosexuality was a factor in the priest abuse scandal and enormous questions are raised about a 21st century civil rights movement. The comparison has to be made with Dr. Bernard Nathanson's admission of waging a reproductive rights campaign by lies and more lies. At Vigil Mass a few weeks ago the priest used the word "sick" to describe our culture as he discussed the true nature of men and women and marriage. Two women stood up and walked out. The parish is two miles from a suburb that has been politically and culturally taken over by the Human Rights Campaign adherents. But the more revealing response was the absolute quiet of the congregation. - Graham Combs Sat, 20 Oct 2012 09:39:20 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13972 Mr. Ruse is (again) unable to grasp the difference between an individual who is homosexual (pick your term: attraction, desire, preference, inclination) vs. practice. This distinction is at the core of the Church's teaching on sexual morality, pastoral care of homosexual persons and their human rights. Existing human rights instruments do not protect homosexual individuals. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran can and do legally arrest and punish persons solely because of their alleged homosexual identity or associations, without any proof of their having engaged in homosexual activity. Other countries condone such punishment or do not enforce existing legal protections. So if there is a pattern of violence against people simply because they are created by God as homosexual, that is a violation of fundamental human rights as understood by Catholics. One must also question whether the death penalty, which exists in many countries, meets the standard of proportionality, another Catholic concept, for those who act on their sexual impulses and engage in illicit sexual activity. If the punishment is not proportional or just, then it is incumbent upon Catholics to speak up. Mr. Ruse does make a valid point that advocates for homosexual rights want to go beyond legal protection. One approach would be to propose and support a formal clarification of true human rights against homosexual persons (ie, the right against violence because of one's identity) consistent with Catholic teaching. Perhaps that is too nuanced, complicated or threatening. - DS Sat, 20 Oct 2012 09:18:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13971 I appreciate the "love talk "Jack but if we just ignore the ultimate goal of lgbt then love goes in the toilet and your love WILL NOT BE TOLERATED,Silence is not always golden and they are counting on the relativism so many people have adopted that if it doesn't involve me than let it all be alright.No Jack Our Lord made Commandments to be obeyed and in my book He's the Boss,Jesus is Lord , not man made rules that have betrayed the Truth !! - Pat Sat, 20 Oct 2012 08:58:59 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13969 "Hate the Sin Love the Sinner",remember friend the 'minority' group does NOT choose to be hated. I feel strongly we need to pray for our brothers and sisters with deviant lives. I do believe "Hate", is still a problem in the "LGBT" community.We all are aware of a story of a hate crime aganst some of our brothers and sisters. I Love all despite there sin as we are all sinners and the only judge is our Lord. Jack - Jack,CT Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:56:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/arguing-lgbt-rights.html#comment-13968 It is very true that homosexual activists still seek to mask their real common cause with the globalist eugenicists, which is to debase marriage so much that children can be manufactured in test tubes, gestated by state-picked warm bodies, and raised in factory mode. All the rest of would-be parents can be sterilized roundup-style so as to make world population precision-controlled. Homosexuals should read Brave New World to get a clue what useful idiocy their activism is leading them into. - Sue Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:28:23 +0100