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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

THE CHURCH AS THE PROMOTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS

To hear those who want to promote same sex marriage tell it, the Catholic Church and all other world religions who understand marriage between a man and woman (for us, one man and one woman and for a life-time)are bigoted in their beliefs and must be marginalized in our secular society as liberal politicians and godless secularists push the agenda of same sex marriage world right under the guise of "human rights."

Because these secularists, some of whom say they profess the Catholic Faith, want to promote a form of human rights that marginalizes orthodox Christians and those of other religions who hold fast to heterosexual monogamy and prohibitions on sexual intercourse outside of marriage as sinful, (and unnatural sex between husband and wife also as sinful)they wish to shunt us to the private and not allow us any say in the public square.

So Catholics who promote traditional Catholic morality now will be seen by this cabal of secular engineers in the same category and George Wallace, Lester Maddox and the fictional character Archie Bunker only this time it will be our opposition to same sex marriage and our promotion of sexual chastity outside of marriage and sexual chastity within marriage (fidelity to one's spouse).

Finally, if you read Hilary Clinton's complete speech here of which I print a portion below, who can argue with some of her sentiments? For the most part, people of good will don't want homosexuals to be mistreated, abused or denigrated. However, does the promotion of heterosexual marriage and chastity in and outside of marriage foment violence on homosexuals? I think there are many who would beg to differ.

Hilary Clinton recently gave a speech on "gay" rights. This is what she said in part:

And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It proclaims a simple, powerful idea: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. And with the declaration, it was made clear that rights are not conferred by government; they are the birthright of all people. It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.

In the 63 years since the declaration was adopted, many nations have made great progress in making human rights a human reality. Step by step, barriers that once prevented people from enjoying the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity have fallen away. In many places, racist laws have been repealed, legal and social practices that relegated women to second-class status have been abolished, the ability of religious minorities to practice their faith freely has been secured.

In most cases, this progress was not easily won. People fought and organized and campaigned in public squares and private spaces to change not only laws, but hearts and minds. And thanks to that work of generations, for millions of individuals whose lives were once narrowed by injustice, they are now able to live more freely and to participate more fully in the political, economic, and social lives of their communities.

Now, there is still, as you all know, much more to be done to secure that commitment, that reality, and progress for all people. Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse. They are denied opportunities to work and learn, driven from their homes and countries, and forced to suppress or deny who they are to protect themselves from harm.

I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time. I speak about this subject knowing that my own country's record on human rights for gay people is far from perfect. Until 2003, it was still a crime in parts of our country. Many LGBT Americans have endured violence and harassment in their own lives, and for some, including many young people, bullying and exclusion are daily experiences. So we, like all nations, have more work to do to protect human rights at home.

Now, raising this issue, I know, is sensitive for many people and that the obstacles standing in the way of protecting the human rights of LGBT people rest on deeply held personal, political, cultural, and religious beliefs. So I come here before you with respect, understanding, and humility. Even though progress on this front is not easy, we cannot delay acting. So in that spirit, I want to talk about the difficult and important issues we must address together to reach a global consensus that recognizes the human rights of LGBT citizens everywhere.

The first issue goes to the heart of the matter. Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct; but, in fact, they are one and the same. Now, of course, 60 years ago, the governments that drafted and passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not thinking about how it applied to the LGBT community. They also weren’t thinking about how it applied to indigenous people or children or people with disabilities or other marginalized groups. Yet in the past 60 years, we have come to recognize that members of these groups are entitled to the full measure of dignity and rights, because, like all people, they share a common humanity.

It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.

Universal human rights include freedom of expression and freedom of belief, even if our words or beliefs denigrate the humanity of others. Yet, while we are each free to believe whatever we choose, we cannot do whatever we choose, not in a world where we protect the human rights of all.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

BE careful, Frajm. This is not a rational discussion and you are being drawn into a negotiation and debate they will use to simply exhaust you.

They want us to participate in this fantasy, sitting in the pews applauding their actions. And even after that they will not be satisfied. The Self never is.

rcg

Gene said...

The only proper response to this nonsense is ridicule: "There once was a fairy named Croom/Who took a lesbian up to his room/They argued all night/Over who had the right/To do what, and with which, and to whom..."

Templar said...

Human Rights from from God not Government's and must conform to God's Laws of Nature. He provided the sexual reproduction process to us so that we might eb fruitful and multiply. Any sexual acts which are not open to procreation within the bounds of a oath bound married couple are sinful because they fly in the face of God's Laws of Nature. To propose any other rights based on Man's Laws is to start down the slippery slop. If Man gives the right to marriage to two humans of the same gender, the next logical step is that humans who want the "right" to marry multiple wives must be protected, and then humans who want the right to marry their pets, etc etc.

Jenny said...

From the perspective of having known and worked with many homosexual persons (AIDS medicine clinic), I can tell you that under ALL the rhetoric, political activism and general "acting-out" is the basic cry for human dignity. This begs the real question: How does one gain dignity and from where? Most of us here know the answer; most of "them" do not, although I know a handful who do understand (interestingly and not surprisingly, they are celibate).
In the words of a favorite priest of ours, "...let's KISS--Keep It Simple, Stupid": Dignity does not come from other humans or human endeavors or institutions.
Folks, we simply each need to live and model our God-given dignity before others. Such is all God really requires of us. In doing this, we WILL reflect the Light of Christ before men, and in this find our peace and joy. As Mother Teresa put it: "The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”... and her famous non sequitor: “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”

Robert Kumpel said...

It is very clever that the supporters of the homosexual agenda have cloaked their messages in the language of civil rights. But in order for there to be any "rights" there have to be "wrongs". Take free speech for instance. If Americans have a right to free speech, then we generally accept it as wrong to censor or suppress free speech.

Now apply this template to the gay rights problem. There are two ways of looking at this:

1) Homosexuality is a right and it is wrong for people to denounce it, disapprove of it or legislate against it because of religious creeds, their own heterosexuality or personal repugnance towards homosexuality

OR

2) People who believe in the structure of the traditional family according to the Judeo-Christian morality they subscribe to have a right to protect their families against any incursions that seek to redefine the family structure or normalize behaviors that the vast majority of people find unnatural and dangerous. (And the dangers of diseases from sodomy are vastly underreported)

Either one group is right or the other is. If the first group is right, then there is no God, or they are going to have to redefine God and Christian morality, which is troublesome since God is unchanging. If the second group is right, then the first group is going to have to accept that there are limitations on their perceived rights.

Of course, this comes upon us at a time when religious belief has all been reduced to "personal opinions" that should have no effect upon our behaviors and debates in the public square. The problem is, as Catholics if our religion does not affect EVERY aspect of our lives and influence how we live every moment, our faith is hollow. We cannot turn off our faith in the voting booth or stop acting as Catholics because it is not popular. Natural law does not cease because of public outcry.

We as Catholics have a duty to oppose homosexual advancements in redefining families and using our tax monies to fund immoral and unnatural behaviors. Of course, doing so will make us targets and cause us to be hated and unpopular. But then again, if we are Catholics because we are seeking human approval, then we're Catholics for the wrong reason.

Anonymous said...

"Human rights" is a euphemism for "we can do whatever we want and you have to accept it and if you don't we can make you pay/lock you up/shoot you." It's akin to the Supreme Court's idea of "fundamental rights." Both are modern perversions of legitimate, much older concepts known as natural law and natural rights, which draw heavily from Catholicism.

It bears out the truth of how Signorelli portrayed the Antichrist: he will very closely resemble Christ until subjected to closer inspection. The devil is quite literally in the details.

Thus, the unborn child has, under natural law, an indisputable right to life. But according to the Supreme Court's doctrine of fundamental rights, his mother has a literally indisputable right to kill the child and the child has no rights at all.

The "human rights" argument re gay "marriage" doesn't start out by asking what the _res_ of marriage is. Rather, it begs the question of what marriage is, assuming it to be based solely on the desires of two people who want to marry.

But all this is too logical, as anon. said.

Templar said...

I agree with you Jenny. Homosexuals, at least some of them, are crying out for dignity. Some are just crying out for the right to unnatural sex. The same goes for a lot of heterosexuals too.

In my mind there is no difference between a Homosexual demanding his right to copulate with another of the same gender, as there is of a heterosexual demanding their right to birth control, or sex without commitment. They all fly in the face of God's Law.

All of us, even Married Heterosexuals in Sacramental Marriage are called to be Chaste. Chaste means different things depending on ones station. For those afflicted with same sex attraction chaste means celibate. Regardless of "what one is" we are all called to live as God intended us to live. Those in the "Gay Rights" movement don't want to her it though, at least many don't, becasue they're clamoring for the secular rights bestowed by a Government that is really only the right not to be reminded of the sinfullness of their actions by others.

Gene said...

I find it a delicious irony that Hillary and her ilk are making such a fuss about marriage when they spent their college years on their backs, cohabiting with the NYC phone book. OHHHH...marriage was old-fashioned, middle class, unenlightened...you know, the "marriage is slavery, sex is rape, child rearing is bondage" cabal. Now, they are all about defending marriage, but only because it is now a weapon to use against the traditional and religious values they still hate. We need about ten years under a right wing Catholic dictator that makes Francisco Franco look like Mr. Rogers. I'd give up some personal freedoms to see Hillary and her crowd driven to the state "Camps for the Unpleasant."

Templar said...

Pin, I've always taken a fair bit of falk when I open my mouth and profess admiration for Franco. I'd damned sure rather have lived in Spain under Franco than in the US under Obama.

Anonymous said...

Let's vote our consciences next November.

Gene said...

Ah, Templar, you speak the truth. Remember when Spain was a haven for American retirees and tourists? Virtually no crime, our money was better than good, friendly people who welcomed you there, and actual real culture and manners. Then, there was that alcoholic, suicidal lout Hemingway who fought on the wrong side but made plenty of capitalist money off of his cheesy stories about expatriot punks and tramps. Please...

Anonymous said...

Franco and his chief collaborators were responsible for mass killings, torture, and the systematic, general and illegal detentions of political opponents.

Death squads, military courts, and other tribunals sent 114,000 people to their deaths during and after a three-year civil war in the 1930s that traumatised Spain for generations.

Nothing to admire here.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Franco certainly wasn't representing Holy Church in his actions. He was committing mortal sin.

Templar said...

And Obama and his Thugocracy sends 3000 unborn a day to their deaths.

My statement stands at I typed it. I'd rather live in Spain under Franco than under Obama in the US.

Gene said...

No, Franco was not representing the Holy Church in his actions. Franco's opponents in the civil war were responsible for the same (or worse) types of actions. Need I remind you of the St. Bartholomews's Massacre of French Protestants by the Church or her factions...prompted by the repeated attacks of the Huguenots upon Catholics and the destruction of Catholic shrines. The beat goes on...Franco was a political corrective. Most such correctives involve violence and repression. It is coming here, but it is not yet clear which side will be doing the correcting. I hope it is the "traditionalist" side...