Is anti-Catholic bigotry hate speech?

Obviously (notwithstanding DrDeth) it does not make you a bigot. But I think it’s quite subtle distinguishing what’s problematic from what’s not in the language you might use to express it.

Religious nutjob is obviously fine. Other devoutly religious people might not like it, but it’s not bigotry. Nobody could sensibly construe that as an attack on all religious people. It’s unambiguously commentary on the extreme religiously-motivated ideas held by the specific individual.

Whereas Catholic nutjob is problematic, because that seems to be implying that just being a Catholic makes you a nutjob. If your view were that a specific Catholic adhered to some extremist nutjob interpretation of Catholic doctrine, you’d have to express that some other way.

But how about if you’re referring to a smaller ideologically homogenous group that is pretty much defined by their fringe beliefs? Is calling someone an Opus Dei nutjob okay? I think it probably is. That’s not a tarring a broad and diverse cultural identity with the same brush. Although you are implicitly criticizing everyone who holds the specific set of beliefs typically associated with Opus Dei, I think it’s clear that you are doing it because they hold those specific beliefs. That seems fine to me. A parallel would be the fact that referring to Taliban nutjobs would not be anti-Muslim bigotry (a logical parallel, I’m not suggesting that Opus Dei are like the Taliban).

Of course it’s not hate speech. These two words are only used to silence the opposition. I am Catholic, by the way, and I think someone must be making the whole thing up. Where is it occurring?

? I know these interpretations are generally somewhat nuanced and subjective, and I’m not getting the same impression you are from this phrase.

To me the phrase “Catholic nutjob” (or “American nutjob”, or “environmentalist nutjob”, etc.) implies that the person is being a nutjob in a specifically Catholic (or American, or environmentalist, etc.) way. (Like, a “Catholic nutjob” might believe that the Pope is so sacred that just kissing his ring is guaranteed to cure your cancer, or something.) But it doesn’t necessarily imply that merely being Catholic (or Amer—okay, you get the idea) constitutes nutjobbery.

I’m sure that there are anti-Catholic (or anti-American, or anti-environmentalist) bigots who would automatically assume that implication, but I think that’s far from a universal reaction.

What I was envisioning was certainly someone intending this meaning. But to me, expressing it with the epithet “Catholic nutjob” does run the risk of it being interpreted as anti-Catholic bigotry.

It can be interpreted either as “a person with nutjob extremist interpretations of Catholic doctrine” (intended meaning) or “a person who is a nutjob like all Catholics” (bigotry).

Would you say “Muslim nutjob”? I don’t feel like the “punching up/down” argument is adequate to justify one but not the other here.

Whereas with something like “Opus Dei nutjob” or “Taliban nutjob”, I don’t see any bigotry in sideswiping the entire ideologically homogenous group as nutjobs for their beliefs.

Hey, just a quick question before this gets locked @DrDeth?
If Christian anti-Semitism isn’t/wasn’t a thing why are the Catholic and Methodist Churches making statements about in fucking 2015/2016?

I think anyone would call Mel Gibson a “Catholic nutjob”, considering his beliefs.

So, “religious fanatic”, according to some here, is hate speech. Does that mean it’s no longer okay to refer to David Koresh, Jim Jones, Al Qaeda, snake handlers, Marshall Applewhite, the Taliban, Westboro Baptist, David Berg, L. Ron Hubbard as “religious fanatics?”

Quite frankly, that’s probably the least hateful term I could think of to describe any of those above.

I assume that @DrDeth has now conceded that it is not, since he has refused to engage further on explaining how it would fit his own definition of hate speech, and has instead retreated into much vaguer accusations of bigotry and how he’s ashamed of us.

I’m pretty sure I agree with DrDeth when he says hate speech is hate speech without regard to historical oppression. I do not, however, agree with DrDeth that crowmanycrow’s post constituted hate speech.

“first the non-barrier methods, then the Protestants will find common ground with the evil Papist ring kissing Mary worshipers and then all artificial contraception will be declared intrinsically evil since they usurp God’s will that the daughters of Eve be punished for their Original Sin.”

In my opinion the intention was not to (unjustly) disparage all Catholics but to employ sarcasm to (justly) disparage some other Christians for being anti-Catholic bigots.

~Max

To employ sarcasm to justly disparage some Christians for being anti-Catholic bigots but not have a problem with joining with them to accomplish their goals.

I won’t be surprised to see Christians embrace Muslims in their fight against insert a group both hate here at some point.

I don’t. I agree that hateful remarks are hateful no matter who says them to whom, but “hate speech” is a technical term about particular forms of hateful behavior whose impact depends largely on historical contexts of oppression and bigotry.

It’s not really useful to apply a term like “hate speech” while trying to blur out those significant contexts, any more than it’s useful to blur out the contexts when applying a term like “racism”.

explain?

I thought I was clear in context; she’s not really Catholic to her detractors because she’s Hispanic. That makes her “other”. She might as well be following another religion. And there is a political difference between white and Hispanic Catholics.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/482394-the-catholic-church-in-america-is-more-hispanic/

The study found that Hispanic Catholics are more likely to identify as Democrats than white Catholics. And while both Hispanic Catholics and white Catholics list terrorism and health care in their top three issues of concern, white Catholics are more concerned about immigration.

My post was firmly tongue-in-cheek, though, as were others at the time. (I’m sure @Mighty_Mouse was not being sincere either saying, “ She’s not REALLY Catholic.”)

It took me a while to even remember this post, it was months ago. :stuck_out_tongue: I couldn’t even remember what I meant at first.

Of course. There’s no use pretending that there aren’t Irish- and Italian-American Catholics who think they are “real” Catholics and that Catholics of various minority groups aren’t Johnny-come-latelies who need to shut up, sit down, and just put their money in the collection plate.

I had not noticed this bigotry against other practicing Catholics in my own parish, which is half Hispanic, and on Pentecost when we often had as many different languages as we could muster reading the scriptures, we could normally find readers in not only English and Spanish but Tagalog, Portuguese, and Italian.

I wonder if members of these minority grouos would agree that they hadn’t noticed any bigotry

That is an excellent point.

However, in the case of Hispanic Catholics in California, they are so clearly the future of the church I think they can see the writing on the wall. Anglo priests are retiring and they are being replaced mainly by Latin American immigrants, often looking for an escape from a third-world life just like their immigrant constituents. My own former parish is an example – when I showed up in 1992, there were three priests there, an Italian American, an Irish American, and an immigrant from Mexico, who served the Hispanic congregation exclusively and said one Sunday Mass in Spanish. There were ever-ongoing attempts to create bridges between the two congregations – the big holy day Masses were bilingual – but culturally they were worlds apart. I remember a couple from Spain who were there one summer to teach at the university I believe. They went to one Spanish-language Mass and were appalled. “Those people are illiterate peasants” I believe they actually said.

When I left in 2018 there was one priest to serve the whole parish, and he was from Peru. I don’t know if there is still only one Spanish-language Mass and four now-thinly-attended English-language Masses but I can’t imagine that won’t change if it hasn’t already.