Gawker.com reported yesterday on the competing marriage rallies held in Providence: the National Organization for Marriage versus Queer Action of Rhode Island. Check out the dude speaking in tongues.
NOM Tour Tracker: NOM supporters speaking in tongues and Providence counter-protest
Original post here.
The Church has repeatedly admitted the mistakes it has made in these scandals. However, it is being brought up here as a distraction from the real issue. Catholics aren’t hate mongers. We do what we do out of love of God and fellow human beings. Love doesn’t mean condoning sin, it means doing what is right. May God bless you Wess.
Dr. Cretella is a friend of mine and I resent you calling her crazy.
I suppose you’ve got some sources to document your claims? Wait — you never have before, why start now? Forget I asked.
Interesting that despite solid documentation of centuries of the worst crimes, the Church never admits wrongdoing. It’s always someone else’s fault, somehow, or there’s some explanation. There’s a common word for that: bullshit.
In my writeup here last year on the semi-secret list of members of NOM-RI’s Advisory Board, I was able to connect all but two of them to the RCC. (And when I say ‘connect,’ I don’t mean they show up for Christmas and Easter Mass, or eat fish on Fridays.) One I was not able to identify positively. (Dear NOM-RI: If you’re going to lobby, have the nuts to show your face. I marched in the streets, in front of TV cameras, when I could be legally fired just for showing up. And I did get fired, and worse, more than once. You hide your membership, and don’t have the courage to admit it when writing letters to the paper. As far as I’m concerned, most of you are pathetic cowards.) The other is the clearly intelligent but certifiably crazy Dr. Cretella. (Who helped start her own splinter paediatrician group of like-minded losers, because they can’t get along with the vast majority of other paediatricians in the country. Talk about people you should be afraid to leave your kids with.) Whatever the claims from their lawyers (Christopher Plante pulled down $15K this year as the only named lobbyist), NOM-RI is mostly a front for Catholic bigots and their pals. But they’re not alone, or even unusual.
In my home state of Connecticut, nearly all the active opposition to marriage equality came from Catholics — chiefly a handful (half a dozen or so) western churches peopled mostly by wealthy New Yawk carpetbaggers (pretty much the lower third of Fairfield County really is not Connecticut, properly), fueled by out of state money funneled through K of C. [Search Hartford Courant, J-I, and Advocate papers for details and original sources.] (Why the hell is their global HQ in New Haven, a city that has always hated them and always will? Does that seem smart? The National Jewish League was smart enough not to put their HQ in Birmingham. Did they notice that New Haven has razed everything within a block of that hideous tower? I hear there’s now talk of salting the earth around it.)
You can talk all you like about what’s ‘classified’ as paedophilia or who’s responsible (according to whom?), but that’s at best a smokescreen for the facts that have come to light, about how the Church repeatedly and systematically protected predatory priests, secretly rotated them into new parishes without informing the new flock of victims, and when trapped in a corner spirited high criminals like Cardinal Law off to Rome, out of reach of U.S. law enforcement — FOR DECADES. This wasn’t a set of vaguely similar cases, this was a Church-wide policy, reaching to the very highest levels. It’s a litany of evil to sicken the toughest West Side mobster, yet the Church expresses no shame. They feel none. They have none. An outfit capable of what we now know to have happened — what are they NOT capable of? But should any of this surprise us, coming from a group that tortured and killed their own people, waged war on foreign nations without provocation, and routinely distorted science and education for their own gain, for centuries? Why should anyone ever trust or believe or respect anything any Catholic official ever says again?
Why is the Church so hateful? Why are they so secretive and dishonest? Why are they so disrespectful of everyone else, of the democratically vested offices of public authority outside their control? Why are they so despicably arrogant? Why do they seem so contemptuous of their own flock? But let’s not let them off so easily, either: Why are walkaday Catholics so afraid to speak the truth, to speak up about things they readily agree are wrong? Why do they say they don’t want to ‘get involved,’ then fork over their money? (If that’s not hypocrisy, then what is?) Why do they give money to people who use it in ways they won’t divulge? (I overheard two old Catholic ladies complaining about not knowing where their tithes went. How many Rhode Island Catholics know that the Providence Diocese sent $10,000 to Maine to fight against marriage equality, instead of investing it here where it might help people in need? We only know because it’s public information under Maine law.)
Is it because they so loved ruling the world for so long, they can’t stand not being in charge any more? Is it because it’s just about the best moneymaking scheme ever? (As Heinlein said, “the world’s oldest, largest, and least productive industry.”) Or is it all just an elaborate end-run around modern democracy, a way to pull the levers of public power without having to accept public responsibility? Because those really are the most plausible theories. The next ones have to do with evil, insanity, unmitigated greed, and more evil. Which.. well, I guess that’s mostly just evil, come to think of it. Where in the hell do they get off preaching morality to anyone?
I’m sorry, I got carried away there. I guess that’s what can happen when you’ve spent most of your adult life battling for your rights against a bunch of old guys in fancy dresses who rape minors and then use their money and power to get away with it, while telling everyone they’re protecting ‘the children’.
What I really meant to ask is: Why should anyone want to listen to you?
Most of the sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church involved older children. This is not classified as pedophilia. These abuses were homosexual in nature. Fr. Codegas comments were accurate. I’m sorry that you feel abused or slandered by Catholic teaching on homosexuality, but you might want to understand that the Catholic Church does not consider you to be evil, just your chosen lifestyle. We condemn the sin, never the sinner. May God bless you.
Father Codega from East Providence was there, he claims that it’s homosexuals who committed pedophilia on children within the catholic church for decades, not that the catholic cover up is hypocritical in regards to this issue; just blame the gays.
I called my parents about this, they’re catholic. I told them that I don’t deserve the way I’ve been treated for decades by the church. I don’t deserve to be called an immoral terrorist on the family, let alone be scapegoated for the worst scandal in history.
I asked if they would tell their local priest to consider that what the church has put me through has been unfair and difficult. Regardless of what one thinks about marriage, I don’t deserve the constant slander just for the way I inherently feel. Nobody deserves the attitude I’ve gotten, directly or indirectly but this institution legitimizes all of it. Being the one who’s the bad guy for all the problems in the modern day family is just not my fault and I am not scum just because of the way I feel.
My mother hesitated, she was reluctant to get involved. She could not respond.
I always knew that any large institution would attract those with the wrong intentions, but I didn’t realize that the power actually could get in the way of a mother having concern for and protecting her son.
Any institution or philosophy that makes a mother embarrassed or afraid to say “my son does not deserve this” is clearly evil.
The intentions that have been behind this are clearly evil too. The people this comes from are evil. This is not Christian.
It’s been two days, have not heard anything from my parents, I wrote a letter to their priest about this, that was 24hrs ago and I’ve not heard from him.
I find it really fascinating though, that people bring their children there, openly call others sinners, say they’re going to hell, blame them for sexual abuse, divorce rate and expect their children to grow up with less damage than myself. Does it occur to any of these parents that their child my be taking this as personally as any kid with a same sex attraction would? But the hetero marriage people think they’re not causing any problems at all.
Amen Keelia. Even if it’s a cause I beleive in, I’m not a fan of public protests. They are undignified, confrontational and rarely help the cause they are fighting for. Forums like this are a much better way to dialog on such issues. Thanks!
I wasn’t there, so I can’t comment on anything other than this amusing video and the original post it was linked to. While I don’t agree with your assertion that “the truth is that marriage is the union of one man and one woman”, I will agree that supporters’ respectful and dignified behavior is always in the best interest of their party or cause.
Strange that you would focus on one man in the crowd and not the disruption caused by the protestors. The Queer Action folks had the audacity to later say that their protest was “respectful”. Screaming down speakers, sometimes to their face, is respectful? Nonsense like this isn’t going to help their cause. Sooner or later they will accept the truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.