https://buy-zithromax.online buy kamagra usa https://antibiotics.top buy stromectol online https://deutschland-doxycycline.com https://ivermectin-apotheke.com kaufen cialis https://2-pharmaceuticals.com buy antibiotics online Online Pharmacy vermectin apotheke buy stromectol europe buy zithromax online https://kaufen-cialis.com levitra usa https://stromectol-apotheke.com buy doxycycline online https://buy-ivermectin.online https://stromectol-europe.com stromectol apotheke https://buyamoxil24x7.online deutschland doxycycline https://buy-stromectol.online https://doxycycline365.online https://levitra-usa.com buy ivermectin online buy amoxil online https://buykamagrausa.net

Bigotry

The dictionary defines “bigot” as:

  • a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race

Which brings us to Bishop William Lori, of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who was invited to testify before a Judiciary Subcommittee in the GOP-controlled House, to complain about how the word was being applied to the Catholic Church, simply because they want to be able to discriminate against people they don’t like, and get the law to allow them to.  Which doesn’t sound like bigotry at all, does it?

The federal Department of Justice (DoJ) has ratcheted up its attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by mischaracterizing it as an act of bigotry …

The Defense of Marriage Act said that people could be legally treated differently by the federal government because they were gay rather than straight, that, as far as the federal government was concerned, they weren’t married.  Even if a state (which is usually the body that decides who’s qualified to marry) were to allow it.  And if such a zany thing were to happen, other states weren’t required to pay attention to it.

It was clearly driven by bigotry, as there was no rationale behind it other than religious ideology and aesthetics.

Which brings us back to Bp. Lori’s true concern.

If the label of “bigot” sticks to our Church and many other churches — especially in court, under the Constitution — because of their teaching on marriage, the result will be church-state conflicts for many years to come.

You mean, unlike the church-state conflicts we’ve had for many years past?

And what does Bp. Lori want to do to avoid such conflicts?  Simple — let the church get its way within the state, to do whatever it wants, even with taxpayer money, even in how it deals with the public, in a way that would never be tolerated if, for example, we were talking about blacks, or women.

For example:

At the state level, religious liberty protections associated with the redefinition of marriage have fallen far short of what is necessary. In New York, county clerks face legal action for refusing to participate in same-sex unions, and gay rights advocates boast how little religious freedom protection individuals and groups will enjoy under the new law.

Yes, isn’t it incredible how people who are functionaries of the government — representing The People and doing the work of The People — are being legally scolded when they decided they don’t want to do something their job requires.  Town and county clerks are asked to give civil and legal approval to properly filed marriage applications, not moral approval.  Would Bp. Lori suggest that if a devout Catholic town clerk, a believer in the Church teaching that divorce is a moral wrong, chose not to sign a marriage license where one or both of the parties was divorced, that this should also be protected in the name of “religious liberty”>

In Illinois, Catholic Charities has been driven out of the adoption and foster care business, because it recognizes the unique value of man-woman marriage for the well-being of children. […]

No, Catholic Charities of Illinois (those that didn’t have to quit because they lost their insurance)  has decided to go out of that business because they were accepting public funds from the state — money from all the taxpayers — but insisting on policies and practices that didn’t abide by state rules. To wit, they were turning away unmarried couples, including gay couples in civil unions, from being foster parents.  Such people are allowed to become foster parents in Illinois, but the Catholic Charities didn’t want to support that, even though the state was paying them to do so.

From my perspective, there were two choices: (1) conform their policies and practices to what’s legal, or (2) stop taking government money, and instead use their own funds to pursue their beliefs. Instead, they sued, under the name of “religious liberty,” to be excepted from the rules that everyone else has to follow, but while still taking everyone else’s money.

They wanted everyone to pay for them to play by their own rules, and were intolerant of any argument suggesting otherwise.  That sounds bigoted to me.

We also applaud the decision of the House to take up the defense of DOMA in court after DoJ abandoned it, and we urge you to sustain that effort for as long as necessary to obtain definitive confirmation of its constitutionality.

So you applaud the defense of a bigoted policy, but you want to be called bigoted.  Sorry about that.

Now, from a legal perspective, I am willing to give religious organizations something of a break in what they do internally.  In an extreme sense, it would make no sense to require that a religious institution to hire as a pastor without regard to the candidate’s religion. That is, after all, sort of the point.

But that religious liberty (and common sense) has a very limited application, if you ask  me.  And it becomes abruptly far more limited if you’re talking about accepting public money for something.  There’s the old saw of “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” If you are going to accept taxpayer money, money paid for by all the public, then you must conform to the rules that the public set.

And I use as an example the hoary but still applicable case of race bias.  Would Bp. Lori be so quick to defend an religious adoption agency that took public money but refused to place white children with, oh, black families, under some religious principle that the races should not be mixed. Or that refused to place kids with any black parents because of the Scriptural superiority of the white race?

To my mind, such policies would be, in the face of it, bigoted.  They would be be sketchy to allow at best, even under the guise of religious liberty, but to then say that religious liberty dictates that the public pay for such a policy through support of such an agency would be arrogant beyond belief.

Religious liberty isn’t about forcing other to support you, any more than freedom of speech means the government should be required to pay to provide you with a soapbox.

Nor does religious liberty shield you from accusations of bigotry.  Someone can be faithful and still, through their faith, be a bigot.  Indeed, the true zealot, the one who believes they have found the one, authentic, exclusive faith and path to salvation, and that anyone who believes otherwise should be either converted to your creed or is doomed to eternal suffering — one might argue that’s the very definition of bigotry. Especially if that person then acts on that belief, and, even more so, insists that everyone else has to pay for it.

77 view(s)  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *