lordofdabu ([info]lordofdabu) wrote,
@ 2008-12-23 03:33:00
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"Pope puts stress on gender roles"
"Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction."

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm

While I think he was making an analogy and not trying to equate the two as the article implies (or maybe he really was, I certainly wasn't there), the point still stands. "Self-destruction of the human race." Really? It's good to see that the Catholic Church has its priorities straight, isn't it?

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(Anonymous)
2008-12-24 07:30 am UTC (link)
"Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender, and how people perceive their biological identity."

With regard to every species on the planet but our own, we accept gender-based psychological differences as inherent and biological. But then we place our own species in a bubble and theorize that any differences must come from "the roles assigned by society to individuals." It's amazing how some people can be so out of touch with nature and willfully ignorant just to advance some non-existent ideal. That being said, the church's stance on homosexuality is simply pushing against the tide and will eventually have to be renounced like so many of its past stances. It's a shame, because the more progressive Jesuit teachings are very reasonable.

-Dan

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[info]lordofdabu
2008-12-24 08:34 pm UTC (link)
The premise that the Catholic church is using, from what I understand, is that the only reason people should have sex is if they are trying to have a kid. From this their ban on birth control and ban on homosexual acts follows, given that neither can lead to a newborn.

This premise is of course absolutely ludicrous, and it amazes me the number of people who take it seriously. But to push it further and say that people not following it is a huge concern that will somehow lead to the self-destruction of man-kind is just laughable and incredibly behind the times.

I don't have a problem with most religious organizations (including most Christian denominations), but Catholicism can really get to me. I went to a Catholic high school for four years and so many of the things I heard are just way out there.

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(Anonymous)
2009-04-20 04:43 pm UTC (link)
essfully
I think it comes down to how people understand other people and how they believe they should be managed. To take it out of the American context, most conservatives of the world would say that most of the choices a person would make of their own volition would be harmful. Therefore society has the job of coming up with laws and ideas to regulate people from being able to make these choices to begin with. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, or at least the Pope's eyes, engaging in any type of sexual behavior that leads to anything other than procreation is harmful and should be prevented by use of societal means. The fact that the earth is overpopulated and certainly not going to take a turn in the opposite direction seems to have escaped the Pope, but the obsession with procreation for gays and lesbians has been around since the time of Socrates. See The Symposium whose ideas about gay procreation are echoed in the works of Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and even some contemporary authors. Surely it's not that large of a stretch to see why anyone who felt they couldn't contribute to society in any lasting way would feel unimportant, insignificant, and likely contemplate suicide. That seems like a great way to destruct a race to me.

To clarify, having children is a way of creating something that wouldn't have been there otherwise, that will outlast yourself, and likely continue to 'create' more children. In the Symposium etc. the idea is that gay men do have children. They are 'children of the mind', works of art, thought, politics, war, and general productivity that is important to society. I think it is clear that one doesn't need to be in any kind of sexual relationship to be able to have this kind of 'child' thought maybe it does help. Regardless it is clear the Pope doesn't think such 'children' from the gays or birth control using couples etc. are enough of a reason for them to be allowed to have sex and certainly not enough to keep the population from spiraling into a self annihilation vortex of doom

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