If it wasn't so poorly worded (the ambiguous antecedant will keep this thing from being recognized by any government), it might be a clever idea. However, I think if it were carried out (even with a change in wording), it would only lead to more problems of both LGBT intolerance and religious intolerance.
I think the gist is to petition the government for religious organizations to have the ability to deny service (discriminate) against GLBT in exchange for them (religious orgs) being willing to accept in kind treatment.
Oog, the wording is kinda bad when you read it that way.
Basically, the Catholics and the Anglicans have gotten together recently to make history: They all hate the gays, and say that you're discriminating against them by insisting that they treat gays as people.
The UK government has told them to piss off.
This petition is to have the UK government reverse that decision, and let religious organisations choose to discriminate against gays - provided that those religious organisations give up all their legal protections against the same discrimination.
It's advocating that prejudice--against broad categories, mind you, not individuals--be permitted.
I'm going to loosely file it under "against people and a happy and/or functional society in general", the same way I would have filed a petition sixty-odd years ago asking that it be legal to sexually assault your husband since it wasn't illegal to do it to your wife.
Basically, the Catholics and the Anglicans ... all hate the gays, and say that you're discriminating against them by insisting that they treat gays as people.
WTF? I wasn't consulted on this.
Please: a) Link something to a reasonable source for context, and b) Ease up on the overgeneralizations about members of religions.
Catholic Church protests being required to treat gays like everyone else. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6289301.stm)
Anglican organizations have lodged similar protests in tandem with the Catholic groups. If they're not speaking for you, if you feel that the organization isn't representing your beliefs, speak up. Churches aren't democratic organizations, but as long as members of conscience fail to speak up, the vocal minority of intolerants[1] will continue to make policies and represent you. Work to stop them, or stop identifying with the organization. Neither of these require giving up your beliefs.
[1] I'm willing to be generous and assume that groups which hold these prejudices are in the minority.
Kevin's already linked to the source of this controversy - but who said anything about the members? I was just giving the official positions of the bodies in question.
(When membership in the organisation is contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader, that does tend to mean that members accept the Great Leader's positions as their own, but I didn't even address that one.)
The Catholic Church utterly condemns all forms of unjust discrimination, violence, harassment or abuse directed against people who are homosexual.
Indeed the Church teaches that they must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.
Unfortunately, they're rather undermined by what follows a little later, although in a somewhat subtle way.
He says that "to oblige our agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against the principles of Catholic teaching."
My first objection is that teaching is given authority above conscience and love here. See 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, for my opinion of that. Later, he recruits conscience in his rhetoric, blithely assuming that the conscience of Catholics must be in accord with his views and the Magisterial teaching:
We believe it would be unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics for the government to insist that if they wish to continue to work with local authorities, Catholic adoption agencies must act against the teaching of the Church and their own consciences by being obliged in law to provide such a service.
Personally, were I the administrator of such a Catholic adoption agency, I would be investigating means of the agency remaining an adoption agency while dissociating itself from the institutional Church. It is the teaching of the Church which would be the obstacle to me conducting myself in accordance with my conscience here.
The big problem in the context of the issue at hand, though, is what follows:
We recognise that some children, particularly those who have suffered abuse and neglect, may well benefit from placement with a single adoptive parent.
However, Catholic teaching about the foundations of family life ... means that Catholic adoption agencies would not be able to recruit and consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.
In other words, a homosexual member of a couple has less right to adopt than any other person the Church considers unmarried. (Gay marriage being, of course, unrecognized by the Catholic Church.) Do they deny adoption to unmarried people who are sexually active in a heterosexual sense? I doubt it; I think there would be considerable outrage if they even asked the question.
The inescapable logical consequence of this, it seems to me, is that homosexual people are not, in fact, "accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity" by those who lay down the teachings of the Church, and who dictate the rules under which Roman Catholic agencies must operate. Rather, they are considered to be committing some sin which is so abhorrent that the "pure" must be protected from their noxious influence. Well, I have my own views as to where the more noxious influences come from, and it isn't from the committed, loving gay couples; it's from narrow-minded, rule-bound, Pharisaical people who strain a fly from their drink but swallow a camel.
who said anything about the members? I was just giving the official positions of the bodies in question.
Then you should have written, "The Catholic and Anglican Churches" or something similar; the words you used were words which refer to the members of the Churches in question.
membership in the organisation is contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader
Nope, not buying it. That he says he is infalliable in pronouncements on faith and morals does not make it so, and I am neither the first nor the only Catholic to reject it categorically as being inconsistent with the divine gift of free will. They haven't excommunicated me yet!
> Is this meant to imply that religious people are not being > discriminated against today?
Of course not. It's meant to make discrimination against religions wherein the body of the faith (Church or equivalent title) discriminates against gays and lesbians legal in Britain, while also making discrimination against gays and lesbians by the aforementioned religions legal in Britain.
(I cannot help but view this as screaming "But Mooommm! Moooommmm! I don't care if you let them kick us as long as we get to kick them back! But Moooom, why should it matter if all of them and all of us aren't kicking, just a few of them or us! But Mooooom! Why aren't would you want us to stop kicking each other? Why won't you say it's okay?")
> Do you think they would agree with this description?
I certainly don't think they'd all share a viewpoint.
> (When membership in the organisation is contingent on believing in > the infallibility of the Great Leader, that does tend to mean that > members accept the Great Leader's positions as their own, but I > didn't even address that one.)
When there is such a requirement for membership, it does tend to mean that.
I know this is not the case for the Catholic Church. I am strongly suspecting it is not the case for the Anglican Church as well.
(When membership in the organisation is contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader, that does tend to mean that members accept the Great Leader's positions as their own, but I didn't even address that one.)
I don't even believe this for the Catholic church. But for the Anglican church? Porcine aviation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility points out that papal infalliability is not accepted by all Catholics and is explicitly rejected by Anglicans. Ignorance and bigotry parading as enlightenment isn't a pretty sight, no matter what direction it's coming from.
Lets suppose you manage to get into the IEEE. And lets suppose that the IEEE states publicly that they hate gays. And lets suppose for various reasons you stay in the IEEE. Does that mean that you now hate gays?
I dunno, it's more from an idealist libertarian view, that providers should be free to sell to whoever they please, and if they lose custom because they're stupid and/or don't want it, it's their problem.
Ergo, if I ever get to build my perfect utopia, then fine, but unless we can somehow remove all the idiots first, no, won't work. autopope has signed it, but he'd transplant the idiots elsewhere using convenient plot device #17 first instead.
I'll file under "aww, bless" and leave it at that I think. We'd need to abolish all anti-discrimination legislation, and that's not going to happen, so if we're having some, we'll have it all, thankee muchly.
As concerns Christian organizations, you'd expect them to share a viewpoint because the New Testament repeatedly assures us that being hated by the world is a sign that we're on the right track.
While the two churches mentioned in British press have a substantial body of teaching that postdates the New Testament, they probably won't disawov it outright. It seems likely therefore that any strong pressure on them will cause the unexpected reaction: "Yes! This means we were right all the time! Now we'll never back down!"
The Economist, a British magazine, has an interesting alternative approach in its latest issue: Take away their government subsidies as long as they demand excemption from the law, then wait to see if the theology doesn't change over time.
Well, in these specific cases the examples cited were guest house owners (normally larger family homes converted to very small hotel B&Bs) and, strangely, printers, plus church halls and, the big fuss, adoption agencies.
Guest houses tend to be run by retired ladies with time on their hand and kids left a long time ago (ie, my grandmother), and old ladies not noted for liberal tendencies in comparison to rest of population (and my old job meant I was effectively placing people in guest houses full time). There were a small number of very loud people objecting mightily.
The adoption argument has been bigger, not helped by Her Majesty's minister for equality and social inclusion being a fully paid up member of Opus fucking Dei of course. What's the point of electing a supposed socialist/social democrat govt if they put the loons in charge of child welfare anyway? At least we know the Tories are evil.
If secular/atheist/state agencies can tell relgious couples they can't adopt, and religious agencies can tell gay couples they can't adopt, then everyone is equal, but the kids are screwed. In this case, my softish libertarianism loses to my fairly hard "living in a care home is fucking awful" belief structure and I'll make sure my gay friends can give good homes to people thx...
For that sake of clarity; are you (1) making a point that, as with a particular church (which one?), membership in the IEEE is contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader, or (2) you're making a point that, as with a particular Church, membership in the IEEE is *not* contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader?
But on one side, the petition advocates allowing discrimination against people who follow the doctrine of a particular provider (the Church, a provider of outlook).
On the other side, the petition advocates allowing discrimination against people who don't follow the doctrine of a particular provider, but simply are.
I am not seeing a fair balance here, where in one case there's discrimination based on discriminatory action and in the other there's discrimination based on identity.
Which is why you'll not be seeing me signing it any time soon; like I said, I can see why people support it, but I'm too cynical to believe it'd work currently.
I've signed many things on that site, and despite orries that it's leading to throwaway politics, I think overall it's a good thing (and some of the designers and maintainers are on my f-list), but this one is just not for me.
Idealist utopian libertarian dream, yes, but utopias don't work, and telling Blair to accept some forms of discrimination is just a bad idea, as he's too clueless to get the point.
You didn't specify Christian organizations, but religious people. Which of these are you discussing?
> you'd expect them to share a viewpoint because the New Testament repeatedly > assures us that being hated by the world is a sign that we're on the right > track.
Really? Where?
(I do recall that the New Testament has a few things to say about wealth making it difficult to enter heaven, but I'm not equating the lack of wealth to being hated by the world.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 04:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:03 pm (UTC)Basically, the Catholics and the Anglicans have gotten together recently to make history: They all hate the gays, and say that you're discriminating against them by insisting that they treat gays as people.
The UK government has told them to piss off.
This petition is to have the UK government reverse that decision, and let religious organisations choose to discriminate against gays - provided that those religious organisations give up all their legal protections against the same discrimination.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:06 pm (UTC)I'm going to loosely file it under "against people and a happy and/or functional society in general", the same way I would have filed a petition sixty-odd years ago asking that it be legal to sexually assault your husband since it wasn't illegal to do it to your wife.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:19 pm (UTC)Please:
a) Link something to a reasonable source for context, and
b) Ease up on the overgeneralizations about members of religions.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:40 pm (UTC)Anglican organizations have lodged similar protests in tandem with the Catholic groups. If they're not speaking for you, if you feel that the organization isn't representing your beliefs, speak up. Churches aren't democratic organizations, but as long as members of conscience fail to speak up, the vocal minority of intolerants[1] will continue to make policies and represent you. Work to stop them, or stop identifying with the organization. Neither of these require giving up your beliefs.
[1] I'm willing to be generous and assume that groups which hold these prejudices are in the minority.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 06:39 pm (UTC)(When membership in the organisation is contingent on believing in the infallibility of the Great Leader, that does tend to mean that members accept the Great Leader's positions as their own, but I didn't even address that one.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 06:52 pm (UTC)*is skeptical of spin*
*finds a link*
Ah, okay, now I can formulate a response.
In regards to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's letter to the Prime Minister of Great Britain:
Here are some fine words:
Unfortunately, they're rather undermined by what follows a little later, although in a somewhat subtle way.
He says that "to oblige our agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against the principles of Catholic teaching."
My first objection is that teaching is given authority above conscience and love here. See 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, for my opinion of that. Later, he recruits conscience in his rhetoric, blithely assuming that the conscience of Catholics must be in accord with his views and the Magisterial teaching:
Personally, were I the administrator of such a Catholic adoption agency, I would be investigating means of the agency remaining an adoption agency while dissociating itself from the institutional Church. It is the teaching of the Church which would be the obstacle to me conducting myself in accordance with my conscience here.
The big problem in the context of the issue at hand, though, is what follows:
In other words, a homosexual member of a couple has less right to adopt than any other person the Church considers unmarried. (Gay marriage being, of course, unrecognized by the Catholic Church.) Do they deny adoption to unmarried people who are sexually active in a heterosexual sense? I doubt it; I think there would be considerable outrage if they even asked the question.
The inescapable logical consequence of this, it seems to me, is that homosexual people are not, in fact, "accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity" by those who lay down the teachings of the Church, and who dictate the rules under which Roman Catholic agencies must operate. Rather, they are considered to be committing some sin which is so abhorrent that the "pure" must be protected from their noxious influence. Well, I have my own views as to where the more noxious influences come from, and it isn't from the committed, loving gay couples; it's from narrow-minded, rule-bound, Pharisaical people who strain a fly from their drink but swallow a camel.
As for speaking up, that's why I'm here, right?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 06:57 pm (UTC)Nope, not buying it. That he says he is infalliable in pronouncements on faith and morals does not make it so, and I am neither the first nor the only Catholic to reject it categorically as being inconsistent with the divine gift of free will. They haven't excommunicated me yet!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 07:46 pm (UTC)> discriminated against today?
Of course not. It's meant to make discrimination against religions wherein the body of the faith (Church or equivalent title) discriminates against gays and lesbians legal in Britain, while also making discrimination against gays and lesbians by the aforementioned religions legal in Britain.
(I cannot help but view this as screaming "But Mooommm! Moooommmm! I don't care if you let them kick us as long as we get to kick them back! But Moooom, why should it matter if all of them and all of us aren't kicking, just a few of them or us! But Mooooom! Why aren't would you want us to stop kicking each other? Why won't you say it's okay?")
> Do you think they would agree with this description?
I certainly don't think they'd all share a viewpoint.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 07:49 pm (UTC)> the infallibility of the Great Leader, that does tend to mean that
> members accept the Great Leader's positions as their own, but I
> didn't even address that one.)
When there is such a requirement for membership, it does tend to mean that.
I know this is not the case for the Catholic Church. I am strongly suspecting it is not the case for the Anglican Church as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 08:11 pm (UTC)I don't even believe this for the Catholic church. But for the Anglican church? Porcine aviation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility points out that papal infalliability is not accepted by all Catholics and is explicitly rejected by Anglicans. Ignorance and bigotry parading as enlightenment isn't a pretty sight, no matter what direction it's coming from.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:04 pm (UTC)Ergo, if I ever get to build my perfect utopia, then fine, but unless we can somehow remove all the idiots first, no, won't work.
I'll file under "aww, bless" and leave it at that I think. We'd need to abolish all anti-discrimination legislation, and that's not going to happen, so if we're having some, we'll have it all, thankee muchly.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:07 pm (UTC)But who exactly would you be seeing as the "provider" of gay and lesbian services, here?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:17 pm (UTC)While the two churches mentioned in British press have a substantial body of teaching that postdates the New Testament, they probably won't disawov it outright. It seems likely therefore that any strong pressure on them will cause the unexpected reaction: "Yes! This means we were right all the time! Now we'll never back down!"
The Economist, a British magazine, has an interesting alternative approach in its latest issue: Take away their government subsidies as long as they demand excemption from the law, then wait to see if the theology doesn't change over time.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:23 pm (UTC)Guest houses tend to be run by retired ladies with time on their hand and kids left a long time ago (ie, my grandmother), and old ladies not noted for liberal tendencies in comparison to rest of population (and my old job meant I was effectively placing people in guest houses full time). There were a small number of very loud people objecting mightily.
The adoption argument has been bigger, not helped by Her Majesty's minister for equality and social inclusion being a fully paid up member of Opus fucking Dei of course. What's the point of electing a supposed socialist/social democrat govt if they put the loons in charge of child welfare anyway? At least we know the Tories are evil.
If secular/atheist/state agencies can tell relgious couples they can't adopt, and religious agencies can tell gay couples they can't adopt, then everyone is equal, but the kids are screwed. In this case, my softish libertarianism loses to my fairly hard "living in a care home is fucking awful" belief structure and I'll make sure my gay friends can give good homes to people thx...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:26 pm (UTC)On the other side, the petition advocates allowing discrimination against people who don't follow the doctrine of a particular provider, but simply are.
I am not seeing a fair balance here, where in one case there's discrimination based on discriminatory action and in the other there's discrimination based on identity.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:34 pm (UTC)I've signed many things on that site, and despite orries that it's leading to throwaway politics, I think overall it's a good thing (and some of the designers and maintainers are on my f-list), but this one is just not for me.
Idealist utopian libertarian dream, yes, but utopias don't work, and telling Blair to accept some forms of discrimination is just a bad idea, as he's too clueless to get the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:36 pm (UTC)You didn't specify Christian organizations, but religious people. Which of these are you discussing?
> you'd expect them to share a viewpoint because the New Testament repeatedly
> assures us that being hated by the world is a sign that we're on the right
> track.
Really? Where?
(I do recall that the New Testament has a few things to say about wealth making it difficult to enter heaven, but I'm not equating the lack of wealth to being hated by the world.)