The Catholic Church Hates Gays… Posted by DAN SAVAGE at 12:09 PM
…more than it loves babies. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The Boston Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because of a state law allowing gays and lesbians to adopt…
The state’s four Catholic bishops said earlier this month that the law threatens the church’s religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.
Here’s the really telling part: Catholic Charities 42-member board voted unanimously in December to consider gay households for adoptions. So it wasn’t lay Catholics who had a problem with gay couples adopting children, but the bishops—all conservatives, all appointed by Rome, all out of touch. And all hurting children.
When it comes to adoption, religious conservatives want us to believe that straight couples are clamoring to adopt children who are being adopted by gay couples. That’s a lie—there are more children waiting to be adopted than there are couples (or singles) willing to adopt them. Often gay couples are willing to adopt children that straight couples are not—older children, handicapped children, children with HIV, mixed-race children. So the choice isn’t between gay parents and straight parents, but between parents and no parents.
Or to put in terms the bishops can understand: if you don’t also allow gay couples to adopt children, you’re leaving a lot of kids in limbo.
And, finally, the ultimate irony: This is the Catholic Church in freaking Boston, epicenter of the sex-abuse scandal. The same bishops who refused to protect children from rampaging pedophile priests are now “protecting” children from qualified, screened, and thoroughly vetted adoptive parents who happen to be gay.
The decision by Boston's Catholic Charities to give up all adoption services because of being required by the Vatican to break state law and refuse any and all gay adopters is one of the saddest things I've heard about in a long time. A reader comments from a particular perspective:
"I was raised Catholic, but, incidentally, I'm also adopted from South Korea through none other than Catholic Charities. I would have grown up in an orphanage in Korea, as that used to be the solution to children like me who were born out of wedlock, except that my biological mother decided to put me up for adoption. Her one specific request, and I feel it's an important and notable one, given the circumstances, was that I was to be raised Catholic. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd like to think it was because of how they treated her and their reputation, both of which are sterling in terms of adoption.
My Mom's Irish and my Dad's Italian-Lithuanian and a career military doctor, so I would have to say that I feel as American as anyone else and, for all the trouble I've had with my faith, especially in recent times with all of the Church's misguided decisions, pronouncements, and corruption, I still long to actually and truly believe. But, to hear this, even though I have not grown up in a homosexual family, tells me that clearly the Church's priorities are so skewed, if not outright bankrupt, that I almost feel inclined to pursue a different branch of Christianity. It seems inconceivable that this is their excuse to dismantle such an important part of Catholic Charities, and, for a student currently studying abroad like me, it is just another push in the long chain of events that give me great misgivings about the Church, especially in America, and about our treatment of homosexuals."
…I've said it before, but I'll say it again: one day the Church will apologize to gay people for the wounds it has inflicted on their souls and psyches. Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But one day. And now, they're punishing children to maintain their doctrinal purity. May God forgive them.
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan. I asked for the proof that you claim exists and you give me politicos. All you have done is demonstrate that the state's policy is based on opinion.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
I asked for the proof which you claimed showed that being raised by homosexual parents has no developmental effect on children.
And I wanted *you* to explain it. I read through those articles and they made the same assertions with the same lack of backup0. They were opinion without compelling reasoning.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Look, there's ALSO NO "compelling reasoning" that same-sex parents harm the development of a child. I myself have known two pairs of same-sex parents who raised perfectly heterosexual kids in such a way as to cherish, affirm and celebrate those kids' HETEROSEXUALITY.
KIDS LIKE THOSE are the only valid assessors of the situation. Are you going to deceitfully claim that the Church and her paid "counselors" and "psychologists" are actually ASKING the REAL PEOPLE in the situation?--Actually asking the children who've benefited from "gay adoptions" about the care and love they've been given (which I've actually SEEN with my own two eyes)? No, you know they don't even want to hear it--and neither do you. Your mind is made up, like a bigot's always is!
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
You've known a couple of people, and your experience falls vicitm to the same problem as so many of those studies .. small sample size. And my experience has been different, encountering just what the USC study that is so critical of the other studies found in the data of those very studies, a higher incidence of sexual promiscuity and experimentation and depression.
And as always, this is where we end up. I challenge you to substantiate your position and you call me names. You claim the banner of charity, but you give geckowwjd a run for the least charitable Catholic I have ever interacted with.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
laim the banner of charity, but you give geckowwjd a run for the least charitable Catholic I have ever interacted with.
I'll take that as a back-handed compliment, because, from my point of view, you're probably putting me into a group who are simply too bright and assertive to sit back and accept the mindless and cruel-minded pontifications dished out by your ilk. We WILL speak up for all those poor folk who are being demonized and excluded by your power-hungry ecclesiastical establishment, whose historical record is so God-awful!
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sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-03-11 01:24 pm
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Posted by DAN SAVAGE at 12:09 PM
…more than it loves babies. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The Boston Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because of a state law allowing gays and lesbians to adopt…
The state’s four Catholic bishops said earlier this month that the law threatens the church’s religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.
Here’s the really telling part: Catholic Charities 42-member board voted unanimously in December to consider gay households for adoptions. So it wasn’t lay Catholics who had a problem with gay couples adopting children, but the bishops—all conservatives, all appointed by Rome, all out of touch.
And all hurting children.
When it comes to adoption, religious conservatives want us to believe that straight couples are clamoring to adopt children who are being adopted by gay couples. That’s a lie—there are more children waiting to be adopted than there are couples (or singles) willing to adopt them. Often gay couples are willing to adopt children that straight couples are not—older children, handicapped children, children with HIV, mixed-race children. So the choice isn’t between gay parents and straight parents, but between parents and no parents.
Or to put in terms the bishops can understand: if you don’t also allow gay couples to adopt children, you’re leaving a lot of kids in limbo.
And, finally, the ultimate irony: This is the Catholic Church in freaking Boston, epicenter of the sex-abuse scandal. The same bishops who refused to protect children from rampaging pedophile priests are now “protecting” children from qualified, screened, and thoroughly vetted adoptive parents who happen to be gay.
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/archives/2006/03/05-11.php#a004755
And so is Andrew Sullivan:
The decision by Boston's Catholic Charities to give up all adoption services because of being required by the Vatican to break state law and refuse any and all gay adopters is one of the saddest things I've heard about in a long time. A reader comments from a particular perspective:
"I was raised Catholic, but, incidentally, I'm also adopted from South Korea through none other than Catholic Charities. I would have grown up in an orphanage in Korea, as that used to be the solution to children like me who were born out of wedlock, except that my biological mother decided to put me up for adoption. Her one specific request, and I feel it's an important and notable one, given the circumstances, was that I was to be raised Catholic. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd like to think it was because of how they treated her and their reputation, both of which are sterling in terms of adoption.
My Mom's Irish and my Dad's Italian-Lithuanian and a career military doctor, so I would have to say that I feel as American as anyone else and, for all the trouble I've had with my faith, especially in recent times with all of the Church's misguided decisions, pronouncements, and corruption, I still long to actually and truly believe. But, to hear this, even though I have not grown up in a homosexual family, tells me that clearly the Church's priorities are so skewed, if not outright bankrupt, that I almost feel inclined to pursue a different branch of Christianity. It seems inconceivable that this is their excuse to dismantle such an important part of Catholic Charities, and, for a student currently studying abroad like me, it is just another push in the long chain of events that give me great misgivings about the Church, especially in America, and about our treatment of homosexuals."
…I've said it before, but I'll say it again: one day the Church will apologize to gay people for the wounds it has inflicted on their souls and psyches. Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But one day. And now, they're punishing children to maintain their doctrinal purity. May God forgive them.
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
I never claimed to give you "proof" that the Church's policy was immoral and unnecessarily cruel. That's self-evident, to any but moral idiots.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
And I wanted *you* to explain it. I read through those articles and they made the same assertions with the same lack of backup0. They were opinion without compelling reasoning.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
KIDS LIKE THOSE are the only valid assessors of the situation. Are you going to deceitfully claim that the Church and her paid "counselors" and "psychologists" are actually ASKING the REAL PEOPLE in the situation?--Actually asking the children who've benefited from "gay adoptions" about the care and love they've been given (which I've actually SEEN with my own two eyes)? No, you know they don't even want to hear it--and neither do you. Your mind is made up, like a bigot's always is!
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
And as always, this is where we end up. I challenge you to substantiate your position and you call me names. You claim the banner of charity, but you give
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
I'll take that as a back-handed compliment, because, from my point of view, you're probably putting me into a group who are simply too bright and assertive to sit back and accept the mindless and cruel-minded pontifications dished out by your ilk. We WILL speak up for all those poor folk who are being demonized and excluded by your power-hungry ecclesiastical establishment, whose historical record is so God-awful!