This isn’t really a Pitting, per se, but rather an attempt to try and understand what exactly Susma Rio Sep is trying to say.
For some reason, Susma seems to have a bee in her bonnet about the fact that the Catholic church does not (with some exceptions) allow married priests. In this thread, it almost seems as if she’s trying now to argue that it’s discrimination that the GOVERNMENT should look into.
Nor is this the only topic Susma has started about priests, celibacy, and bishops:
Now, I’m not necessarily saying that our friend here is in the wrong, or being a jerk or whatever. But quite frankly, I smell a One Trick Pony here.
We’ve tried to refute numerous false statements she’s made regarding Catholicism-with little success. When she starts losing, she just goes and opens ANOTHER thread-witness the third link above.
However, the poster in question here also has a rather florid writing style, which makes it somewhat difficult for me to get to her point.
Let us endeavor to examine the use of multiple clauses and polysyllabic vocabulary in the neophyte’s matutinal (to coin an imperfect metaphor) missives. It is the opinion of the author that the tone employed by the aforementioned neophyte is an affectation employed to impress upon the reader a false veil (to again employ an imperfect metaphor) regarding the verity of inteligence.
In other words, the monkey thinks this chick is proof that we should slap a five day waiting period and a background check on the sales of thesauruses (thesauri?).
I’m not sure, but from context, I believe Susma may be male.
I have devoted more than enough time to trying to decipher his (or her) posts, and earned several headaches as a result. But the gender clue was something positive I picked up along with the headache.
Guin (and re: Captain Amazing), unless you have already done this, you might click on that little URL next to “IP: logged” if you feel this individual is unwilling to remove any and/or all cotton balls from betwixt the outside world and his inner ear:)
I think it’s pretty obvious that Susma is from India (people from the Subcontinent post in comp.lang.c, a Usenet group I frequent, and commonly have similar names and styles) and isn’t using his native tongue. Stilted, artificial prose is common among people who learned this language by rote, something more common in Asia than in the Western world.
It isn’t the most readable style in the world, but I’m willing to give Susma the benefit of the doubt. (Hell, I suffered through Henry James.)
As to his idee fixe, well, he’s ready to join the Chowder and Marching Society when Fenris is ready to add him.
Actually, Susma, though his style is often tendentious, is not difficult for me to understand – he’s a man who is the product of a very cloistered Catholic upbringing and education, who is “flexing his wings” beyond that, and often posts with thoughts reflecting the worldview that was inculcated in him.
Think of reading and responding to him as an exercise in consciousness raising, and you should have no problems with him as a person.
Stylistically, he seems to be trying to express his views strongly but with extreme courtesy to others. This results in some major circumlocutions that are often difficult to grasp. But it’s a welcome relief from the “it’s true because I say so” crew.
Respectfully, Polycarp, his posts in threads about homosexuality run counter to what you’ve described, IMHO.
Actually, most of his posts seem to run counter to your very charitable viewpoint.
While he is not of the level of some of our more charming posters of bannings past, I’ve found him inflammatory, intractable, and infuriating. His mind seems closed and impervious to anything that runs counter to his views, at least in the gay threads.
IMHO, Mockingbird, his perceptions of homosexuality were based on what he’d been taught, but he has the open mind to have changed his views, and he listens and grasps the points made to him (unlike certain posters of fond memory! ;)). Check it out – do a time-oriented search on the keyword and posts by him. I think you’ll find I’m accurate in this.
All that gets me is a page telling me I don’t have access to it.