LGBT News Cardinal: Same-sex marriage is just as immoral as slavery

"Sanctimonious male virgins have no authority on sexual & reproductive issues"

Why on earth are religious leaders of any sort tolerated at all. They've caused nothing but problems for humanity.

 

Eh, he's an old angry Scottish guy. Not much to really worry about.

 

^ I think that's right on the mark.

 

My head hurts from the stupidity of this man. Oh well. He won't be around much longer anyway, he's 74 as it is.

 

Wait... so we abolished slavery to protect those poor slaveholders from the horrible burden of being forced to own slaves?

 

people who are not allowed to have sex or marry have no place commenting on sex or marriage.

just like people who are not licensed surgens have no place operating on a heart patient.

 

This is a gross over-generalization and extremely false. Don't get pulled down to their level.

 

not really. if you focus on the history of genocide, opression, and corruption, you will find it rife with horrifying examples religious influence or direct involvement/control by religious orginizations.

the holocaust was built upon the nearly two thousand year history of catholic/christian anti-semitisem, for example... and the catholic church chose to be silent through the entirety of the holocaust, only denouncing it after the fact. Then there were the crusades, which were a thinly veiled effort to wipe out arab and persian control over mediteranian ports and shipping routes, and to profit off of taking over as much land as possible from jews and arabs, and useing them to expand the papal powerbase.

We also have a the protestant/catholic wars in europe, and some of which were still being fought in the last thirty years with the terrorisem in ireland between the two groups.

lets not also forget 9/11, which was fundementalist islamic terrorists attacking western culture because of their warpped view of their own religion.

Then there are the christian genocidings of other christians in parts of africa, which still continue to this day, but dont often get discussed.

There are the bombings of doctors clinics in the 80's and 90's, and the murders of doctors in cold blood that still happen to this day.

and leaders of such movements continue to exspouse vile, dangerous rhetoric unabated to this day.

history is filled to the brim with the consequences of abuses of religion, and the use of religion for evil, destructive, corrupt purposes.

 

What's the fact he's Scottish got to do with it?

But I agree that there's nothing much to worry about it. In fact, from his point of view, I think its an own goal. Instead of trying to hide behind the "tradition" etc argument his language reeked of pure bigotry which most people cannot stand anymore. His views are irrelevant even to Catholics. Catholics learned a long time ago to dismiss everything the Church has to say about sex. The hierarchy in the Church is so out of touch with its own members its unreal. No wonder people are leaving in droves.

 

yes, yes indeed, put it this way, it is against the law to steal, but people still do it anyways, BUT if you say to them you are going to hell for stealing, people will believe in all honesty that they will go to hell for it and stop, religion is much more powerful in condoning fear into the hearts of people, they will do what ever the priest or what ever person tells them to because its what 'God' says is correct, and by using religion as a pretense, you can even make brothers and families go against each other, even be able to make people go to war because thats what god wants apparently.

 

I think what bothered me most about this is that he is comparing love to hate and acting like they are the same thing. Slavery promoted intolerance while gay marriage catalyzes acceptance. Slavery laws ALLOWED the suffering of those considered to be second class citizens, CONDONED practices the ideals of supremacy based on belief systems and ethnicity, and DESENSITIZED the public to acts of violence against targeted groups of people. The current marriage laws are often defended by arguments with the foundation of "heterosexual marriage is supreme," "Gays are immoral and therefore their practices are below us," and "Legalizing same-sex marriage will lower the moralities of our citizens."

What I find sad about these arguments is that they never see things from our side, nor are they willing to look. The LACK of protection for same sex couples is causing more suffering than any pro-gay law ever would. The fact that most governments single out gay-love as unworthy of marriage rights promotes a sense of hetero-supremacy which in many unfortunate cases escalates to public intolerance in the form of verbal abuse and physical hate crimes.

I will never ask any church that bases its ideals in heterosexual union to accept me, but will DEMAND that they tolerate me. Their membership in the church IS. THERE. CHOICE. I respect their decisions, but even if I were to agree that homosexuality is a conscious decision (Which... based on suicide rates, my personal denial of my sexuality for years, and the testimonials of uncountable homosexuals, I do not believe it is) I would still demand the same space in this world that we allow them.

The church and it's clergy can comment on their views all they want, but they have no more place sticking their noses in our governments than we have preaching in their chapels. That Cardinal has the right to speak out against his beliefs AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN, but he is using his religious authority to back him up, and when that happens, I feel a line is crossed. Government and religion should be two separate entities that have no influence on one another so long as the religious practices adhere to a region's human rights laws.

Long story short:
Slavery= pain, racism, and intolerance <-<-<-APPLE
Gay marriage= reformed views, promoted acceptance, legal equality <-<-<-ORANGE

Cardinal <-<-< POT
Gay Marriage <-<-< KETTLE

 

This.

 

Anyone who has followers simply because they have the ability to make people fear or anticipate something that is almost certainly fictitious is pretty awful, regardless of what they are using their power for. Many, such as the specimen being discussed in this thread, actively use their fear-mongering to harm other people.

Sure, there are some religious leaders that promote morally good values. However as far as I'm concerned, if a religious leader has promoted good then they have done so from an inspiration other than religion, and would probably have had just as much influence if they dropped the religious pretence. The opposite is true for religious leaders who have done bad.

 

I was under the impression that people who would listen to this guy in the UK are below 20% of the population. He's just panicking (along with the Pope, most likely) because marriage equality is getting closer in all of Europe's catholic countries. France and Germany soon hopefully, and then I could see Austria, Switzerland and maybe even Italy (can you imagine same sex marriages going on next to the Vatican city?) and Slovenia following suit.

 

Seconded.

 

*Facepalm* And to think I used to be Catholic...

 

Want to know something I find rather amusing about this statement here? People, such as clergyman, often say we cannot compare ourselves to the civil rights movement because they went through slavery and more than we can imagine. While I won't say I think our struggle is the same as those that they went through....BUT he pretty much just said us marrying is as bad as slavery, actually comparing gay movement to slavery. In a way that to me is almost saying the opposite, that our struggle is the same. I dunno, I just feel his words in a way just compared the gay rights movement to the black rights movement. Hmm.

 

Im pretty sure the church use to use slaves!! and they backed up what they were doing with quotes from the bible!!
OMG WTF IS WRONG WITH BEING GAY!!!