Sure, I understand. The bishops are saying…..we don’t want you to be upset with us just because we impose our religious beliefs on your life and into our government.
Peace!

Why would they even bother to print their pathic reasonings for what they have done to our laws in governmnet in the state of CA? “We love you, but we want to preserve the man,woman in marriage. Why do Priests even bother with this? They haven’t the slightest experience in love with a mortal person. Love is felt by all couples man, woman, man, man, and woman, woman. To take this right of equality away in a country that is set up under our Constitution of equality for all people because of their religious beliefs and never mind other peoples beliefs is wrong. You are right Bishops using the words bigots and perverts are wrong. The word Bigot does fit, though. If you don’t want to be called that then don’t act the word.

Gays and lesbians are “charished members of the church” according to some of California’s top clerics. Sure, they are charished, as long as they DON’T want to act on their feelings, or want to “get married”. They are so full of STUFF!

“Sure, I understand. The bishops are saying…..we don’t want you to be upset with us just because we impose our religious beliefs on your life and into our government.”
Exactly my sentiments!

Aww…Cardinal Mahony and Archbishop Niederauer don’t wanna hurt nobody. They just wanna be friends. It’s alright, guys. I’ll break bread with you. I mean, just because your religion apparently teaches that we’re all mentally ill, diseased, perverted criminals bound for an eternity of torment for loving someone of the wrong gender doesn’t mean we can’t get along, right? Right?
Gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people of California, I urge you not to buy into this. These people do not care about you. You’re only an issue that needs to be resolved to them. And don’t listen to them when they say “oh, you guys can just get a civil union or something, it’s no big deal.” When Alabama’s Proposition Straight (known as Amendment 1) passed, we didn’t get any substitution. No unions, no partnerships, nothing. We don’t even have job security. If my boss finds out, nothing prevents him from firing me for my sexuality alone. I don’t believe for a second that the conservatives in CA will stop with marriage.

To clarify..the “They” in my last sentence…is the RCC’s clergy in California.

You are important to us, my brothers and sisters. You’re going to hell, but we will sit next to you in church until you do. Give up your sexuality and we will embrace you. We join with others that would take away not only your right to marry, but also any and all of your civil rights. But we love you. Why do I feel I’m looking into a deep dark cave, and to venture in is to encounter insanity. What an unbelievably clueless lot.

Would you mind clarifying..the “STUFF” in your last sentence, pagansis?

“We need to stop hurling names like `bigot’ and `pervert’ at each other. And we need to stop it now.”
Surely those adults who hurl the word “pervert” (or, a la the Crunchy Con blog here, “lavender brownshirts”, “cancer”, “toxin”, etc.) are intelligent enough to realize that if they stop using those kinds of words, they’d stop earning the label bigot.
Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the RCC remains in evidence for the entire world to see. Again.

What a load of bologna. If they are will to go as far as to force their beliefs on the whole state, they should just excommunicate the gay Catholics. Treating gays behind their backs like mentally disabled people that need to be regulated for their own good. So this is what the mother church means by charity for the season.
What sort of respect and dignity are you claiming to spread? The church would go as far as to object to a UN declaration against execution for crimes of being gay for a petty fear of a wisp of gay marriage. What strange bed fellows the Church willingly lies with in order to ensure this declaration fails.
Where charity and love are there is God and I feel God is no longer with the Catholic church.

What can I add that makes sense and hasn’t already been said. They want to make nice but they don’t want to support the real needs of real people. It’s much like their position on birth control and so many other things.

Ed: “he church would go as far as to object to a UN declaration against execution for crimes of being gay for a petty fear of a wisp of gay marriage.”
Is that true? That’s astounding.

Tom, I don’t use curse words on computer.(and rarely in real time). Seriously, I feel that the RCC clerics are sending a mixed message. First the clerics (the RCC in general) feel that homosexuality is “sinful”, (or acting on it is, I guess) and then tell gays and lesbians they are “cherished” and welcome in the church, BUT that is as long as they “follow the rules” set down by the RCC. Thus homosexuals are only partly accepted. Total acceptance includes the right to marry with all that includes. IOW, “we cherish you as long as you don’t act on your love”. It is a bit 2 faced…IMO. Inclusion in a church (temple, mosque etc) takes a person as they are…not as they feel they should be.

nnmns-
I do not know if the Vatican opposes the UN declaration to decriminalize homosexuality because of gay-marriage issues….or, what the reason is. But, the fact remains, the Vatican is aggressively opposing the UN measure.
Peace!

Strange, pagan. I always figured you for the acid tongue. Oh well; live and learn

I saw nothing in this article that expalined exactly HOW they are not diminished in the eyes of the RCC. Simply saying something does not make it so (except maybe at Hogwarts).Sure they having having folksin the pews, and adding to their collections. But just HOW are they fully equal, sharing fully in ALL of the sacraments? These pallid remarks have no depth, strength, or integrity.

“your religion apparently teaches that we’re all mentally ill, diseased, perverted criminals bound for an eternity of torment”
My religion (Catholicism) does NOT teach that. A quick glance at Cathechism of the Catholic Church will show you that. I suggest you check it out at a library, read it, and find out what we REALLY believe.
It’s hard to believe that you can spew hate speech like that and it passes as constructive criticism on this site.

No Bob, it doesn’t teach that. It teaches that being gay is “intrinsically disordered”. (Odd, considerring Who it is that does the ‘ordering’.)
They may not officially “teach” that we’re “mentally ill, diseased, perverted criminals”, but in effect, it’s what they practice. They threaten excommunication to any politician who dares vote in favor of treating us equally before the law.
Some ‘Christian’ attitutde that is! NOT.

Oh, and Bob, if you want to read some really puke making hate speach, crawl on over to the Crunchy Con blog here on B’net, where people who claim the name of Christ are allowed/encouraged to call gay people and their relationships things like “cancer”, “marrying a plant”, (or an animal, or a child, or a corpse).
Heck, even the ‘good ‘Christian’ governor of Oklahoma gets away with saying we’re “worse than terrorists”.
We’re responsible for the destruction of Europe, dontcha know.
The lies that “Christians” tell about God’s gay and lesbian children will (or at least should) make your hair curl. They all seem to forget that bearing false witness is still a sin.

“It teaches that being gay is “intrinsically disordered”
It also teaches that a heterosexual marriage is disordered if it’s closed to the possibility of new life, as a homosexual relationship naturally is.
It also teaches that homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (CCC 2358).
In regard to excommunication, it does NOT threaten liberal politicians with such a thing unless it’s a person who continuously, over time, teaches something false about Catholic doctrine and purposely leads astray the community of the faithful, e.g. Nancy Pelosi insisting on Meet the Press that the RCC is unclear about its stance on abortion (which it is not).
In the end, a Catholic has the right to vote based on their faith, just an atheist, let’s say, has the right to vote based on ideas rooted in a rejection of faith.
In the end, if you don’t like what the RCC stands for, simply don’t go to a Catholic church. Stay home and have a coffee and a donut on Sunday morning and let the rest of us live out our faith as we have every right to do, a right guaranteed by the Founding Fathers, unlike the supposed “right” to marry, which, as I recall, is not found in the Constitution.

“unlike the supposed “right” to marry, which, as I recall, is not found in the Constitution.”
Nor is the right to breath or procreate but we’d all fight to do those things.
“It also teaches that a heterosexual marriage is disordered if it’s closed to the possibility of new life, as a homosexual relationship naturally is.”
So no eighty year olds ever get married in the RCC and, more to the point, the RCC fights to have marriages between eighty year olds made illegal? Funny we don’t hear about that! I think, Bob, you are making this up as you go along.
“Stay home and have a coffee and a donut on Sunday morning”
That is, however, excellent advice for us all.

“In the end, a Catholic has the right to vote based on their faith, just an atheist, let’s say, has the right to vote based on ideas rooted in a rejection of faith.”
Actually we all have the right to vote based on anything we want. The country, though, will be better off if we don’t vote based on rejecting logic and evidence. That was made clear during the last eight years.

The RCC follows a pattern that’s a lot like an abusive spouse or parent: vicious attacks followed by “heartfelt” apologies to the victim. In recent years, women, minorities in the U.S., Eastern Orthodoxy, Jews, and Moslems have all been on the receiving end of these self-serving mea culpas — this is just one more.

Your name 11:19
An excellent oservation! I wonder if any of their counselors might pick up on that and bring it to their attention. Of course, following the pattern they would deny it and make some “happy talk”, or try to change the subject. But this is certinaly something that makes me go “hmmmm”.
Another thing that amuses and fascinates me is that in less than 24 hours this article has received almost 25 responses Including my own) – the most in quite a while. What is it about same gender sex that gets everyone’s attnetion. Several first or infrequent responders have checked in on this. Actually, mine is a rhetorical question. Sex scares us – as do money and death. It is intimate and personal and not something we share casually. BUT there is SO MUCH MOE in the Bible – in all of its sections – that has a whole lot to do with feeding, clothing, welcoming, and comforting, and so little about condemning and casting out. If this is a poll of our interest in God’s Word and concern for God’s realm, I think our prioritites are reversed.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church is very much trying to affect the lives of those who do not share it’s religion. It should stay out of politics that affect the lives of noncatholics. What would people say if it tried to nullify marriages of those who get married in places other than a Catholic Church, which it also believes is not a true marriage?

If they are sincere about this, they should put as much effort and resources toward making gays feel loved and welcomed as they put toward “defending” marriage. I won’t hold my breath.

“It also teaches that heterosexual marriage is disordered if it’s closed to the possibility to new life, as a homosexual relationship naturally is.” Bob
Apparently the RCC feels that the only reason to ge married is to procreate. What happens if the heterosexual couple is “barren?” Or uses (gasp) “artificial birth control” so the woman isn’t a “baby machine” for her entire life or until she dies having one. There are many, many reasons for marriage and only one might be to have children. It certainly shouldn’t be the only reason. I’m sure there actually might be Catholic couples who don’t want children. Does that mean they are “sinful” in the eyes of the RCC? I know the marriage vows include “accepting all the children God gives them” ie baby machine, but I know there are many thinking Catholics in this world who find that a little “archaic” and file that under ridiculous. The RCC doesn’t have to feed and clothe all those children god gives them.
As to homosexuals and their acceptance in the RCC? As I said above, they are speaking with “2 tongues”…one says “sure we want you, we even “cherish” you, and the other says, you are “disordered”! BS

Tom, the acid tongue only comes out when “necessary”! It has been known to happen. )

I’ve read about the UN declaration of executing crimes against being gay and etc. It said the Vatican would be opposed to it because of their religious beliefs. Well the last time I looked the UN was not a Church. I hope and pray that this will be passed and however distressed it makes the RCC or anyone else, they will live to get used to it, as they did slavery ending, the Blacks Race winning full equality, and womens rights to vote.

There’s old H22 dragging the “Black Race?” into the fray, I guess we’re doomed to be some folks personal flunkies forever.
I think this was a good will gesture and honorable heartfelt intent. It looks like it fell on deaf ears as the name calling immediately commenced. He took the high road while others chose differently.

Prop 8 is not a hate crime nor are homosexuals being discriminated against and when people continue to compare it to the slavery of my people or even the civil rights movement they trivialize the lives lost and the suffering endured.
Prop 8 is people saying marriage is between husbands and wives not between man and man or woman and woman or any other variation that may pop up. Homosexuals are not denied the vote as a matter of fact they voted on this topic, it’s just that the supporters cannot lose properly. They did ugly things during the voting process and they continue to do them after making ugly comments and vandalizing. The fact that the supporters would trivialize African American history and use it as a door mat shows the lack of honor in their movement.

Bob,
The “right” to marry is not in the Constitution for you betterosexuals either. But that right is bestowed on all citizens except for the gay ones. It was given to gay citizens in Mass., CA and now Connecticut. So the recent Prop H8 took away a right from a group of citizens. This will shortly be declared just as UN-Constitutional like the previous one, due to the equal protections clause.
Meanwhile, you could explain to us exactly WHY the RCC marries non-procreative heterosexuals all the time. Couldn’t you?

I would never make anyone a flunkie ck. Human rights, torture, killings are wrong, meaness and KKK is wrong. Equal rights for American Citizens whoever they were, and are is the American Way. Get over your superiority of suffering, suffering by anyone because of inequality is WRONG!!!

“….suffering by anyone because of inequality is WRONG!!! Henrietta
YES! Henrietta.

“….suffering by anyone because of inequality is WRONG!!! Henrietta
YES! Henrietta.
Yeah to ps. & H22!!
You can’t change your race, you can’t change your affectional orientation, you can’t change your eye color, you can’t change your dominant hand. Not all that long ago, 3 of 4 were considered sure sign of inferiority and perhaps even close relations with the Devil (“sinister” is Latin for left hand, and hence the meaning of the word and the persecution and retraining of southpaws). We may grow up yet, and achieve 4 for 4.

I was baptized as a Catholic as a child and was willingly and voluntarily confirmed into the faith when I was 14. After years of feeling torn, I made the decision in the last few weeks to leave the Catholic Churchforever. As a gay man, there is no place for me in the church. Whatever platitudes are used or niceties employed, the Catholic Church will never accept gay people as equals. We will always be viewed as damaged goods. Imperfect, disordered creations to be pitied and used to demonstrate the church’s infinite compassion for even the most flawed of God’s creation, but never viewed as equal. We are on par with the lepers and beggars of old. I’ve had enough of it. I am as my God made me and I am pleasing in His eyes. I do not need your prayers, charity or platitudes.

Your post was very moving,YN. Isaiah 43:4 “You are precious in my eyes…and I love you!”. A message from God to you.

Your Name at 7:46 PM:
For what it is worth I think you have made the correct decision. There are many other religions that would not only accept you but embrace you….Unitarians, United Church of Christ and others, if you wish to continue in an organized faith. Thank you for sharing your experience and I wish you the best.

Your Name
December 12, 2008 11:48 AM
“Prop 8 is not a hate crime”
Perhaps not in and of itself, but what it encourages – discrimination – IS.
“nor are homosexuals being discriminated against”
Demonstrably false (aka the bearinng of false witness, aka a LIE).
“and when people continue to compare it to the slavery of my people or even the civil rights movement they trivialize the lives lost and the suffering endured.”
You must be ignorant of the multitudes of gay people who have lost their lives and the suffering endured (pace Gwen Araujo, Matt Shepherd, Teena Brandon, Aaron Webster, et al – who were ALL killed merely for being gay).
“civil rights”??? There are still 37 States in which one can be fired merely for being gay.
“trivializing lives”??? Right here on B’net, gay people are still compared to plants, animals, inanimate objects, “cancer”. Get over yourself.
“the supporters cannot lose properly.”
The detractors did not “win” “properly”. Constitutions cannot be changed with a mere majority vote. Taking away rights denies some people of their equal protections – very UN-Constitutional.
“They did ugly things during the voting process and they continue to do them after making ugly comments”
See above re: ugly comments about gays, and then be healed of your hate and bearing of false witness. Gay people are no strangers to being the subject of ugly comments.

H22 quote “Get over your superiority of suffering”
Gee is that another order? Every time I see someone trivialize African American history by using it to further their agenda I will point out the difference. Whatever homosexuals are going through it cannot be compared to hundreds of years the struggle African American heritage encompasses. And when White people continue to try to use us and then say “get over it” they will hear what I have to say about it.
Your Name; you accuse me of being ignorant of homosexuals who have died, and that should give you the right to compare that to my heritage so you name four people. Although it is terrible when heartless murders occur it can in no way come close to what was done to African Americans in this country. The homosexual experience is very different than that of the African American experience even today. So you don’t get to compare my heritage to the homosexual situation of today without me having something to say by pointing out your lack of knowledge and concern.
By the way there is no where in the U.S. where homosexuals can be fired for being homosexual and also white homosexuals enjoy much higher paying jobs than America’s average African American or Latin American or Native American, if you need to spread false information to move your agenda then something is wrong.

I’d be surprised if there isn’t still someplace in the U.S. where a person can be “fired” for being a homosexual. Not the given reason, certainly, but the underlying reason. Had a teacher friend who didn’t “come out” to anyone but her family because she was afraid of the consequences….that was PA. So I’m not sure that statement might not be flawed. She has since retired, with her partner to Florida.

Hi all ltns
Cknuck— what hidy hole are you living in that you think people don’t get fired for homosexuality? Yeah its not written in any report, but you know damn well that the cause was some intolerant boss who made someones personal life their own agenda. It can still happen to woman, pagans, blacks anyone where someone has an ax to grind against them.
As for the blacks having lower paying jobs, perhaps if more of them made some effort to achieve in school then perhaps they too could have better jobs. Even as young as grade school I have seen many children with chips on their shoulders and no desire to learn anything. They distrupt class and cause countless problems, but it isn’t their fault, they just have a bad life. Which is bullshit because they have opportunities which many take, but too many throw aside. I do without a lot in my life because I am paying back student loans, wish more would do the same. I don’t drive a big suv while picking up my free holiday food stuff, I pay for mine myself.
*****By the way there is no where in the U.S. where homosexuals can be fired for being homosexual and also white homosexuals enjoy much higher paying jobs than America’s average African American or Latin American or Native American, if you need to spread false information to move your agenda then something is wrong.

Ruairi….good seeing you on the boards again…Don’t be a stranger…

Ruairi It’s attitudes like yours that young Black read and people like you perpetuate the poison life in which this these kids live in, I’d have a chip on my shoulder if you were my teacher with your prejudices and preconceived notions.
Ruairi quote “Yeah its not written in any report,
If it is not written in any report then it’s your opinion.

For a laugh, check out the new Prop 8 short musical clip starring Jack Black and Neil Patrick Harris.

Bob,
Your church called us “sodomites” and burned us to death for centuries.
It now acts as an accessory to Muslims who murder gays under the guise of freedom of religion. Who the hell are you to whine about hate speech?

“Your church called us “sodomites” and burned us to death for centuries.”
Now that’s a pretty stiff accusation I’ve never seen this happen and I’m willing to bet my saving Bob or his church is not doing that

If the Bishops think that a dainty letter is going to stop us they are dead wrong. By denying us our human rights they have unleashed a dragon. Now gays and lesbians around the country will settle for *nothing* less than full marriage equality. Thankfully Niederauer’s generation will die off (hopefully sooner rather than later) leaving us with the more progressive youth vote. God hates you Bishop Niederauer. You are going straight to hell.

hate quote “God hates you Bishop Niederauer. You are going straight to hell.”
What is that?

I would like to point out that genuine Christian churches and groups respect and aim to follow Holy Bible teaching however difficult or unfashionable. The sex drive is difficult to handle for many but it works best in a long term heterosexual marriage. History can show that violence and disorder grows where discipline in sexual conduct breaks down. This sex focused age does us no favours. Discipline is hard but it is good for the soul (personality)