Catholic School

[Blazer]

Expecting another rant about how a Catholic School treated someone badly? You've come to the wrong thread (for once. )

On Wednesday, all of my year travelled to a conference centre out of the state (for those other Aussies out there, we went from NSW to the ACT). We did the whole Catholic retreat thing (pray, get in touch with each other, get in touch with God, laugh at unintentional innuendo such as "God COMES into people" and "You come into this room and you COME into yourself") but the focus this year is basically who we are and what we do with our lives.
So the school decided to get a guest speaker in.

And I was pretty damned amazed.
The guy they got in was a 31 year old (or something like that) guy who studies sign language, has like 5 degrees and was a part of the recent budget-thingo in Australia.
Oh, and he was gay. My Catholic school DELIBERATELY (as far as I imagine) chose a gay speaker to speak to my year about how who we are doesn't mean our life has to be so different.

And people liked him.
I was expecting some homophobia, but I saw nothing. Everyone laughed at his jokes (especially at his gay ones). Everyone listened to him, even after he kept talking for 20 minutes.

And I'm incredibly proud of my year group. I'm still in the closet (up to about 15 or so now) so I was acting indifferent, but inside I was pretty damned proud.

[seadog]

YaeY! Go Catholics Way to live the love!

[Connor22]

that's really awesome cool, but was the guy talking about "and if you are gay you can change too" or was it more like "it doesn't matter who you are god loves you just the same"

[Revan]

Well my best friend who is like a sister to me is Catholic So not all Catholics suck or are bigoted.

[digsy]

I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic school and am still friends with quite a few Catholics. Almost all the Catholics, including family, school friends, etc. I know have been completely accepting of my being gay (although I still wasn't game to come out in school). We had a few openly gay teachers at school and most of the other teachers didn't care. My school once asked Michael Kirby, the only openly gay Australian high court judge, to speak to us, although I'm not sure if it was because he was gay. So I've had a pretty positive experience of Catholics and homosexuality...although obviously there are immense exceptions (THE POPE for one). What your school did is really cool though - way braver than anything my school did!

[British Lad]

About bloody time Catholics took a step to taking there heads out of the clouds and sore the real world for what it is. After all isn't god abut religion abut love?

[Blazer]

Originally Posted by Connor22

that's really awesome cool, but was the guy talking about "and if you are gay you can change too" or was it more like "it doesn't matter who you are god loves you just the same"

He said something along the lines of "if this is God's mission for me then I'll accept it and do it. It might be my mission to be gay whatever".

I'm not religious at all, but it was nice to see the damned dated religion finally change for the modern world.

[KittyBoy]

Sadly, that isn't the same in most of NSW, the rest is all backward bogan, lol. Though I went to a Jesuit school, so we never had anything like that, and we ended up discussing politics and religion in politics.

[Blazer]

Well, that's the world for ya. Any differentiation from the norm is looked down upon, sexual orientation included.

Australia's on its way, though. If only we had a decent government who isn't so incredibly biased by their own opinions. Though I guess Kevin Rudd is better than Tony Abbot (bastard).

[4 seat]

I went to a Catholic grade school and Catholic High School. It shook me for awhile figuring myself out as far as my sexuality goes, but I'm still Catholic. If anything, yeah, I'd say I've grown a little more in my faith. That's really kool that you had a gay speaker come in. One day, maybe that'll be me. Ha.