Priest pulled after refusing to support anti-gay marriage push
Why can’t these Bishops and other Church folk let us alone? Why can’t they let the secular be secular? Live and let live?
I’m sure someone will defend the actions of the Bishop and say the Church has a right to its rules. But these Bishops aren’t trying to only rule their churches. They want to rule the state, too.
Because they believe that same sex marriage is morally wrong and bad for society, so it would be evil for them to not fight it.
Yeah…too bad they didn’t think pedophilia was morally wrong and bad for society, huh? Buncha fucking hypocrites…
I’m not entirely sure what’s being pitted here. Homebrew, are you mad at the bishops for trying to shape state law to conform to the teachings of their particular religion, or for punishing those priests who dared to disagree with them?
It may be splitting hairs, but the priest wasn’t deviating from the church on a moral issue, but a political one.
He never said SSM’s are A-OK and sanctioned by God. He simply refused to support a petition drive against SSM, and was subsequently punished for it. It’s one thing to discipline a priest who deviates from religious teachings, but this was a policy issue, implying that you can only be a good Catholic if you vote a certain way.
Despicable.
Boy, its a good thing that Jesus guy never said anything against judging others… :rolleyes:
Exactly ArchiveGuy. Preach it all you want. I don’t care if you think I’m a horrible sinner. But I’m a citizen of this nation and I deserve all the privledges, rights and responsibilities that entails. Trying to use your religion to limit my rights is wrong.
I don’t see how thinking something is morally wrong, Captain, gives them any power to infringe upon my rights. I think their whole system is morally wrong and quite harmful for society; but I’m not trying to outlaw it. I’ll thank them to return the favor.
And so are they.
Some of those privileges and rights involve the right to speak one’s mind about the issues and matters of the day, and to set church policy as they see fit.
You don’t have to like it or agree with it to recognize that they were well within their rights here.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that religious people could have no say in national policy. Nowhere in American history is such a ban evident. One of our greatest national heroes was an ordained and practicing Baptist minister, it should be pointed out.
Who said they weren’t “within their rights”?
The question is not “should the church be legally allowed to do this?”, it’s “is the church being a dick?”
How about both?
Because you and they have different views of what the role of goverment should be. You think that the role of government should be to allow people to have maximum freedom so long as they don’t hurt anyone else, and not to judge between different moral or world views. They think the role of government should be to encourage a specific moral worldview and specific social and societal values.
In other words, the Catholic Church thinks the role of the government is to enforce Catholic doctrine? Anyone with any sense, Catholics included, ought to be revolted by the idea.
If you knew how tempted I am to steal that as a sig-line, you’d hide it. 
That isn’t what I see happening. It seems more appropriate to describe this as individual Catholics and the Church having an opinion about what civil marriage ought to be.
Look, the Church through its bishops acting in their official capacity are directly lobbying politicians in opposition of gay marriage. If they cannot articulate reasons for opposing civil same-sex marriages that are not rooted in Catholic doctrine, they are absolutely attempting to have the state enforce church policy. And yet, their only argument is based on their doctrine that gays are evil unless they deny their sexuality and lead miserable, loveless lives. The RC hierarchy tried to pull this shit in Canada, too, threatening politicians with eternal damnation and the like if they supported C-38. I can’t see how it’s anything but attempting to have the state enforce Catholic doctrine. I’m sure they’d lobby for disallowing divorcees from remarrying if they thought there was a ghost of a chance they’d succeed. It seems there’s a significant element in the RC Church that looks back on the time when religious and civil authorities were entwined during the Middle Ages as the good old days. Still bitter about the 30 Years War, maybe.
Then perhaps they should read the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Preample some time.
My view of the role of government is consistent with the principles espoused by the founders. Perhaps it’s an appeal to authority to fall back on the Constitution for support; but there it is.
And is that view informed by anything other than official Church doctrine on the definition of marriage? What is the civil, non-religious argument against gay marriage? And if there is such an argument, why is the Church punishing its members over a secular matter?
Right. Your view of the role of the government is probably more consistant with the classical liberal principles espoused by the founders than that of those Catholic bishops. But that’s to be expected. The Catholic Church has condemned classical liberalism. They have different values than the founders.
One day soon the Catholic church is going to collectively awake to the fact that loving someone of the same gender is “morally wrong” in exactly the same way that eating meat on Friday is.
The institution should be grateful to Catholics like Lange and Labaire for not rushing to help enshrine such embarassingly backwards thinking in the U.S. Constitution.
Recall that the Catholic Church, or any other religious organization, does not in fact have the same rights that tax-paying individuals and institutions do to engage in political activity. From the IRS Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations:
Catholic bishops leading a signature drive for an amendment to restore discriminatory marriage laws would definitely fall under the head of political “lobbying”, AFAICT. They probably wouldn’t fail the “substantial-part” test because they aren’t spending that much time lobbying, but I think it isn’t inappropriate to start making some noises about the possibility of revoking their tax-exempt status if they go on like this.
Churches and other tax-free organizations are given their tax-exempt status precisely because they’re assumed to be devoting themselves to the public welfare in a non-partisan manner, without mixing up in specific legislative issues. If they want to use their institutional clout and resources to press for particular political outcomes, let them pay their goddamn taxes like the rest of us.