Wednesday, September 26, 2012

About that Separation of Church and State.....

Obviously I'm a long-time fan of Steve Sack's work, and he hit the nail on the head with this send up of the grabby hands of the Minnesota Catholic hierarchy.

The Roman Catholic church might want to rethink putting their position to this test, given that there are so very many issues on which Roman Catholics differ significantly, emphatically, from the positions of the church establishment in practice and opinion - sexual issues like contraception, masturbation, abortion, sex outside of marriage, the role of women in the church - especially the crackdown on nuns in America. The opposition to the marriage amendment is just part of that long list of ways in which the church has failed to adequately remain in touch with the realities of their congregants and the real world of the 21st century which no longer follows out of date out of touch clerics dictating to them in such an imperious manner. The reality is that many of those who are Roman Catholic and many of those who belong to other denominations of Christianity oppose the restrictive marriage amendment -- and appropriately so, as it is not something that belongs in our state Constitution. We do not properly use government to sanction the religious beliefs of specific sectarian divisions of Christianity to limit legitimate civil rights of Minnesotans or other Americans.

The request by the Roman Catholic church in Minnesota was wrong, it was inappropriate. If the Roman Catholic church needs an issue for its attention, I suggest they spend more time and effort on protecting children from the predatory conduct of their priests. This falls under the parable of taking care of the big post in their own eye before intruding their views on the lives of others who for the most part do not follow the officially more homophobic beliefs of Roman Catholicism.

It is high time to clean up the mess of dysfunctional sexuality within the Roman Catholic church more rigorously before intruding unasked into the sexual lives and orientation of others. We have seen recent examples of that continuing to be a problem, with less than full cooperation from the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Their focus and priorities are clearly badly misplaced, especially financially, and as respects differences of conscience as demonstrated here, here, here, HERE and here.  The Roman Catholic church routinely offers support, so long as that support doesn't involve providing information, or paying anyone money - in other words, far too often it offers empty and insincere lip service and nothing more.  This is another case shaping up to be more of the same.

In case there is any confusion as to what I'm angry about, it is that the Roman Catholic church in Minnesota has frequently been obstructive in sharing information with the courts and law enforcement, has been as obstructive as possible when it comes to compensating victims of their religious hierarchy, but are quite willing to spend money, and troll for donations, when it comes to interfering with the civil rights of Minnesotans who do not share their homophobic ideology.

Just say No. NO to the Roman Catholic Church, NO to the Marriage Restriction Amendment, No to Intolerance and anachronistic religious bigotry.


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