More than 1,000 priests have signed a letter voicing concerns that same-sex marriage will threaten religious freedoms in a way that was last seen during centuries of persecution of Catholics in England.
In the letter published in the Daily Telegraph, the priests claim that same-sex marriage could even lead to Catholics being excluded from some professions, such as teaching.
No, no, no. First, get down off that cross; there will be no executions, banishments, and imprisonments for Catholicism as there were during those ugly years of the Reformation. Also, while I wouldn’t be surprised if some people lost their jobs (like some fanatical pharmacists and teachers), it won’t be for being Catholic. It will be for being raging bigoted asshats.
Unless you want to argue that bigotry is a cherished sacrament in Catholicism. Well, then, I guess maybe you will find your religion treated with contempt.
Excluded from teaching? What the hell.
Yet one more good reason to establish same-sex marriage across the board. No, not to kill priests.
But scaring priests a little in what turns out to be a perfectly harmless way is good fun.
A thousand priests do belong in prisons but for child molestation, not because they oppose gay marriage.
I’d wager my life savings that no more than a hundred of the signees (out of a thousand) would be willing to sign a letter demanding the vatican open church records allowing pedophile priests to be prosecuted.
What exactly are Catholic schoolteachers teaching, that legalized gay marriage could get them fired?
I’m not sure which fantasy is pissing me off more right now: the right-wing Christians pretending they’re being thrown to the lions, or the gun nuts pretending they’re the protagonist in a Charles Bronson movie.
Canada has recognized gay marriage for, what, five years now? And sure ’nuff, the prisons are overflowing with priests, bishops, and countless lay Catholics, all for standing up for True Marriage[tm].
No wait: that didn’t happen.
Same-sex marriage will threaten religious freedoms? Good!
If a thousand priests ARE jailed, let’s hope it’s because they were tried and (justly) convicted of child rape.
How does it happen that religious freedom always ends up being about denying others their freedom?
I just lately converted to Aztecticism. If you don’t let me cut out somebody’s heart to make the sun rise, then you are denying me my religious freedom.
Where’s the letter and where do I sign?
This concern that they could be “excluded from teaching” sounds just like the sneaky equivocation tactic used by creationists — imply that someone would be prevented from teaching because of their religious beliefs when what they really mean is that they would be prevented from teaching their religious beliefs. The teacher can’t say “evolution is a lie” or “gay marriage goes against nature” — and this is a horrible travesty of religious oppression.
Are Catholics who believe homosexuality is sinful bigots? Or is Catholicism bigoted? Technically, I think it’s really the second, since you could in theory have a tolerant, open-minded person who would otherwise be just fine with gay marriage warped by the false facts fed into them by the Church. There’s not a bigoted bone in their body: their religion sucks. So leave the poor believers alone and go right after the source. Rip the faith apart and throw it away.
Is this preferable to them? I might go along with it.
Wait… gay marriage DOESN’T mean we get to tear out the entrails of priests? Not even just a dozen or so?
Bunny:
Maybe they want their own conscience clause– a teacher can’t be forced to teach a kid with gay parents.
*barf!*
Audley:
No, they want to go on teaching kids with gay parents that their parents are abominations and aren’t really married.
A thousand Catholic priests? That is just one huge bag of crazy.
The RCC hasn’t been able to get good priests for a long time. They all seem to be not too bright, twisted, mostly old men.
These days, among other reasons, no one wants to be a life long (supposed) virgin, even the priests apparently. And forgo SO’s, family, children, and so on.
In Canada at least Catholic priests are increasingly immigrants. Young Canadian born Catholics aren’t entering the priesthood in enough numbers. They’re also seeing some older men entering the priesthood as a second or third career. So the priesthood is likely going to increasingly conservative
Closer to seven. And the Catholic alternate school system is still going strong, more’s the pity.
@5 – “Canada has recognized gay marriage for, what, five years now?”
Almost ten years, actually. :)
Jailing 1000 priests is a good start. Can we start at the top with Benny, bishops and the cardinals?
Hey bigots, it’s time to stop being disingenuous: You know perfectly well that it’s not your beliefs that get you in trouble, but your actions. Don’t like gay marriage? No one’s to jail you for not getting gay-married. It’s when you persecute others for doing the things you don’t want them to do that you get censured. Being criticized for trying to persecute and execute homosexuals is not a violation of your rights to your religious beliefs or your personal religious expression.
Persecuting people simply for what they believe in their own heads? That’s so Holy Inquisition.
They don’t lose their jobs because of what they are, but because they refuse to do those jobs properly.
What!? No banishment? There goes my support for gay marriage!
I’d reconsider even for small banishments. Like, “you priests have to go stand in that corner for 10 minutes and think about what you’ve done”.
In Austria, they’re increasingly imported from Poland (and other places all the way to Nigeria). Same reasons, same effect.
I seem to remember from my history “O” level that given the chance the Catholics weren’t too shabby at the persecutiong opponents game themselves.
These Catholic Clergy really like playing the victim don’t they? They don’t seem to grasp that when you are the one trying to deny other people basic recognition of their humanity, it is pretty hard to then turn around and credibly complain that you are actually the oppressed party.
There is also a lot of projection going on here – if only they still had the power to do so without consequence, I bet that a good number of those thousand priests would happily start torturing and executing homosexuals at the first opportunity. They know what they would do to the many social groups they hate if they could get away with it, and so ironically they assume that gay people – whom they hate for their differing sexual orientation – are just the same as them in this regard, and are just biding their time for the opportunity to launch a bloody anti-catholic pogrom.
Like a great many religious fundamentalists of all stripes, they simply cannot imagine the existence of anyone who isn’t as twisted, power hungry, and hate-filled as they are.
Reposted because Matt G deserves 12 Mollies for this.
Technically speaking, with the Aztecs’ religion, you were not allowed to sacrifice the sacrifice if they were unwilling. The only exceptions were incompetent slaves who were sold to the priests specifically for sacrifice, or children (and in the latter, only with the explicit consent of their parents). So, in other words, if a person didn’t feel ready or willing to feed their bodies to the Gods, then they could be excused, as the Gods could only derive sustenance from those mortals who were willing to offer up their lives so the Universe may continue existing.
Plus, the Aztecs (and their vassals and enemies) only cut out the hearts of men. Women were either strangled, had their throats slashed or beheaded, and children had their throats slashed. I mean, the people who romanticize about the evil Aztec priests never bother to understand how or why the Aztecs sacrificed humans, let alone bother to wonder how someone can cut out a woman’s heart with that big, fat, squishy breast blocking the way.
Catholic schools regularly sack teachers who express views which don’t conform to the Holy Doctrine, though.
This pathetic attempt to blackmail a democratically elected government should be ignored.
It’s quite OK for Catholic schools to sack terachers who express views which are contrary to Catholic dogma, though. They don’t seem to have any problem with that.
It’s the usual stinking hypocrisy.
It’s this part that amuses me the most:
The bishop of Portsmouth, the Right Rev Philip Egan, one of the signatories, told the Telegraph: “I am very anxious that when we are preaching in church or teaching in our Catholic schools or witnessing to the Christian faith of what marriage is that we are not going to be able to do it, that we could be arrested for being bigots or homophobes.”
Well, yes, if bigotry and homophobia is against the law, and you plan to preach bigotry and homophobia, then it’s reasonable to conclude that you will be breaking the law. And ‘I got it all out of this Book’ is hardly an excuse for a grown man in full possession of his wits.
If this works we can expect a follow-up demand that they be allowed to incite their congregations to kill witches and stone adulterous women.
Last time I checked, it was gay people and not catholics who weren’t allowed to teach at many, many schools. Or work at many other jobs (unless of course they concealed their offensive gayness).
[by the way, the spellchecker insists on “Catholics” with a capital C, no way]
The BBC reported this as “almost a quarter of Catholic priests sign…”.
Which means over three quarters of Catholic priests didn’t sign it. From what I know of English Catholics (my cousin is a priest- I know which side he is on) that’s about the socially progressive/ reactionary split. Liberation theology still lives, and I’ll go with the liberation.
The RCC has founds a sure fire way to identify the 1000 dumbest priests. They also have generated a list of priests ready for promotion and/or teaching jobs in Catholic universities and seminaries.
You mean all the priests that have f-ked children DON’T Threaten their religious freedom. Or the other reasons people are saying.
Paula Murray:
You can spell fucked here. We all know what it is and we won’t faint.
They’re afraid of a tenth of their jailing and persecution will come home to roost?
No, we’re not going to jail them like they did us. That’s not what we’re asking.
What hypocrisy. No one whose institution sanctioned an Inquisition has any right to whine about “persecution.” You kiddy-fiddling fucks want persecution? Come my way; I will give you a taste of the Hell you love to drool over.
So they’re worried that they’ll be subject to the same discrimination that gays were?
Not ironic at all. No, no.
Matt G
Can we jail the ones who are guilty of bank fraud too?
I’d like to voice my concern that basing laws off what catholic priests want us to do will threaten religious freedoms in a way that was seen during the twelve centuries of persecution, torture and murder of catholics and non catholics by the catholic church.
There are none who more loudly cry,”You are persecuting me!” than those who persecute others for the sake of their own illusions.
jand #28
Why shouldn’t it? The church that calls itself ‘Catholic’ isn’t universal, as the 1000 signatory priests just demonstrated, so it should be used as a proper noun, not a descriptor when talking about this sect.
And they can always be conveniently referred to as the Raping Children Church (with my apologies for not remembering who coined that handy acronym, which I’ve seen around these parts)
Some see it as a wrong that pedophile US citizens who rape children abroad are violating the law in the US. I don’t.
I wish there was a similar law for the US citizens trying to pass the Uganda Kill the Gays Bill so they could be charged with hate crimes and murder.
I gotta agree with some of what the priests are saying here. I mean, look at the way the Ku Klux Klan has been somewhat marginalized in society ever since the civil rights movement. Their rights were slowly whittled away. Those government clerks against miscegenation, for example, were FORCED to violate their sincere and religiously motivated beliefs and provide marriage licenses to mixed-race couples. Nowadays, people with those views are often socially ostracized and afraid to express them in the workplace for fear of losing their jobs. Slippery slope people!
They say that like it’s a bad thing.