Friday 28 September 2012

Pope Decides Gay People Aren’t Fully Developed Humans

Pope decides gay people aren't fully developed humans

The Pope’s comments were made during a September 21 speech at Castel Gandolfo, whereby he reportedly told his assembled religious brethren that “The family is threatened in many places by a faulty conception of human nature.” Some translations have him saying the word “defective,” in fact.

...

Perhaps most startling of his remarks on gay marriage and secularization was his saying the Church must “promote those values that permit the full development of the human person.”
Another article here.
And it's attitudes like that which lead to the kind of tragedies where authoritarian religious followers take matters into their own hands and do things like kill their own family members over religion and politics.  Not to mention the millions of suicides, murders (Matthew Shepard comes to mind) and kids being kicked out of their own homes and ending up in homeless shelters, in prostituion or dead.
My parish is having a series of debates on the broader issue of sexuality but everybody knows that's a bunch of tap-dancing and the real issue is gay marriage because everything has been pretty much settled.

The main problem is going to be trouncing the homophobes because they've got their talking points all memorized and they sound really good to somebody who doesn't know what they're up to.  Even before this came out (pun intended) my approach was going to be that gay people are fully functioning, not "intrinsically disordered" and hence worthy of all the rites and sacraments of the Church.  My ammunition was going to be logic, this blog and the Bible (of all things).

My tools:
  • rules on how to have a discussion
  • list of logical fallacies
  • printouts of the source documents, the original scriptures (they're in pretty rough shape)
  • the "clobber verses" rebuttal
  • deconstruction of the Regnerus study
Wish me luck.

Neil Armstrong - RIP

RIP = Requiem in Pacet

Us boomers have fond memories of Neil Armstrong.

Unfortunately, the Phelps clan doesn't.

Goban Van Rompay@GobinetVanRompa
God gave Neil Armstrong 82 years to obey. He ignored God’s law with his proud adultery. It is not going well for him now!