Well, since they didn’t, why should we say they did? I was absolutely repulsed by the sacrilege committted by ACT UP ten years ago at St. Patrick’s Cathedral–that’s just plain wrong. If it’s any comfort to you, ACT UP is no longer a force in AIDS politics, mostly because their members have all died.
Still, given that the Catholic church’s “no condoms” stance and its behavior toward AIDS victims in the early days of the epidemic, not to mention the recent conduct of Cardinal Law and other princes of the church, you might want to move away from any notion of a Catholic moral high ground.
Guin, why are you inventing fiction scenariaos? I’m talkiong about real events that have actually happened. But then it’s some much more convenient for you to invent a situation where the gay people are the villains preaching against the poor innocent Christians.
Well, apparently you missed this thread. There are others, like this one cached at Boardreader but lost last winter.
I am becoming more and more convinced that religion is the greatest perversion of the Tao taught by Jesus, Buddha and the other sages of past and present.
I have to agree with this statement. People surely do abandon their faith, but it’s no more their choice than it was to adopt that faith in the first place. We don’t choose our beliefs. I’m an atheist because I cannot believe differently. Most Christians are probably Christians because they cannot believe differently. You can’t just wake up one morning and say, “Gee, I think I’ll start believing in God today.” Beliefs are the product of experiences, availability of facts, and our reasoning skills. The stone has no choice but to fall when I drop it, and so man has no choice but to hold the beliefs he has. So I won’t buy into the distinction that religioius affiliation is different than race/gender, neither is chosen.
Ah, the “religious moderates” argument… that gays having the courage to spit back in the faces of our oppressors will drive away the religious moderates, and thus our oppressors will win.
Bullshit. The moderates, those who don’t actively fight the bigots who lead the filthy fundamentalist “Christian” movement, are just as guilty as the hardcore bigots. This is a two-sided issue: there is no neutrality. Anyone who is not actively fighting the fucking Southern Baptist Convention, and its pals, and their anti-gay agenda is a collaborator, and just as evil as the bigots themselves.
To quote the president, “You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” Anyone who doesn’t stand up, shout, pitch a fit and cause a scene at every instance of anti-gay whatever in whatever church they attend – or do the proper thing and leave those filthy hate cults – is in their silence supporting the bigotry, and thus just as much my enemy as Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Fred Phelps or the Vatican.
Good to know that, because I don’t fit your particular standard for fighting anti-gay bigotry, I’m supporting those three men and that church.
:rolleyes:
Sometimes, Kirk, there are more worthwhile things to do than get red in the face and sore in the throat from yelling at everyone. Being able to calmly discuss something, for example, generally garners more respect than going apeshit.
So you’re not happy with just changing people’s views, you’ve got to recruit them into the pot-banging brigade? M’kay. I have news for you though; your battle is not going to be won at some protest, or in a service where a bigoted preacher is holding forth, your battle is in changing the majority of people’s opinions. If you give people the choice of hating you or throwing paint on priests, I’m afraid they aren’t going to be all that keen. There was a reason no-one bought Bush’s line of “with us or against us”, and that’s because it was complete rubbish.
Anyway, in the meantime I shall be holding you personally responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong in China. I hope that’s alright with you. You commie.
Oh, and the sharia rulings in Nigeria. Them too.
And about the Russian and Chechen atrocities in Chechnya; your fault.
Like the Bible, iampunha, “stand up, shout, pitch a fit, etc” was supposed to be a metaphorical, standing in for a general “fight.”
Though I believe the fights should be public – to shame those who don’t also fight for equality – I don’t mean to literally say that you should be screaming at the pastor/bigot-in-charge/priest/whatever. Nor that crap that ACT UP and other groups used to do (do they still do that throwing-communion wafers thing, because that’s really really wrong).
But to not do anything, to not fight – and saying “gee, I don’t agree with that” to a friend afterwards is NOT fighting, fighting has to involve actual efforts to change the situation, by engaging the evil people themselves – is just as evil as outright supporting the bigotry.
I haven’t slept in like 22 hours, though, so I’m not sure any of the above is actually in English, much less any clearer than my first attempt. Oh well, at least I’m fighting to get my point across.
Nowhere, because your attempted point is sprusious. I am not Russian, I am not Chinese, I am not Nigerian. Therefore, not being a member of any of those groups or in a position to influence them, I am not culpable for their actions.
However, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention who chooses to remain within that denomination and sit silently and idly by while it spreads its agenda of anti-gay legislation and action, is culpable for the actions of the SBC, because they have chosen to align themselves with it and not do anything to challenge its actions.
And how many of the people you’re screaming at are a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, exactly? I do apologise if your comments were aimed solely at the members of that august body, but given the context of the thread, it really doesn’t seem that that’s what you meant.
And if those are your standards, I’ll be blaming you for the deportation of Canadian citizens to Saudi Arabia, Texas’ execution rate, Rodney King, yada yada yada. The point is the same. You could draw big boundaries (human race) or small boundaries. My point, which should be obvious, is that the only meaningful boundary is around individuals, one which you seem surprisingly unwilling to allow for a man campaigning against broad judgmentalism.
As TubaDiva told me when I attempted to lead a fight against Fred Phelps, complete with website hosting, design, and data management, that would have turned GodHatesFags into an AIDS charity:
Being from, sadly, Texas, I use the SBC as an example of fundie pseudo-Christian hate cults, because they’re who I have to put up with around here, most of the time. And the only times I’ve ever really been emotionally assualted by a pseudo-Christian fundie, he was my now-former best friend, who was a member of that tumor-like “church.”
The only thing you listed there that I have any real connection to is Texas’ execution rate, and I support the repeal of the death penalty, have written about this in the press, try to vote for anti-death penalty candidates (hard in Texas) and am very forthright about my opposition to it. In other words, I do fight it.
No, meaningful boundaries can be drawn to include any group in which you have an active participatory role, a potential or active voice in, or a willing association with: ie, the religious organization you choose, the school you choose, the business you choose to work for, the state or nation you reside within (provided you have the ability to leave it, or the ability to vote to change things about it), etc.
Then why does certain posters get so regularly excoriated for making mindnumbing generalisations about Democrats/Republicans? And if it’s nations, why can’t I hold you responsible for the actions of the USA at large? Texas seems a rather arbitrarily small boundary by your criteria, and I’m presuming you’re capable of leaving the States should it come to that.
If you really are saying that your comments were only aimed at christians who are members of avowedly anti-gay groups, then perhaps you should not have said
The thrust of this thread is not that Phelps etc. are not despicable bigots, nor that the people who support them and espouse their views are not worthy of condemnation. It’s that “christians” does not well describe that subset of people. Your post did not come across as if you were saying “anti-gay christians are anti-gay unless they actively protest” it came across as “all christians are anti-gay unless they actively protest”, which simply isn’t true.
On a nicer note, you have my genuine respect for your stand against the death penalty, and I withdraw that comment with pleasure.
Ah Kirk, ever the voice of pure, calm reason. :rolleyes:
Hint: not ALL Christians/Jews/etc are “oppressors”. No-one is condemning Gobear for “spitting back in the faces” of religous intolerance and hatred. Frankly there’s a hell of a lot of it and it’s a pretty broad target.
What they’re complaining about is that Gobear seemed to be lumping ALL Christians under one roof. And specifically spitting in the faces of the people who are trying to help.* Which is a way to alienate your allies. You probably won’t drive 'em away, Guin, Poly and Lib (among others) are people of conscience, but you’re not making 'em more enthusiastic.
Like Lib said: “you might try simply aiming better.”
Fenris, waiting to be called an “appeaser” or a “homophobe” for not agreeing with Kirk.
That’s NOT what I’m doing. I would like these “people of conscience” to acknowledge that great harm has been done to many people, including gay people. But the response so far has been, “Well, I’M not doing it, therefore it isn’t happening, and how DARE you even criticize any aspect of Christianity, you hateful, intolerant anti-Christian bigot, you”.
Moreover, none of the moderate Christians seems to get the logical connect between the twin response of “Hey, the bigots are just a tiny minority” and “The moderate Christians are doing their best to change the intolerance of their congregations.” C’mon, the bigots can’t be both the majority and the minority at the same time.
Actualy, this reminds me of a parallel situation in the days of segregation, when white moderates urged blacks not to ask for their rights so stridently, so they wouldn’t alienate their “allies.”