Gentle readers:
Is all external criticism of the LGBT community necessarily inspired by bigotry, intolerance, or homophobia? Of course not. No community (regardless of its identity) ought to be exempt from principled criticism. This much I think we can all agree upon.
In fact, the LGBT community is often critical of its own individual leaders, organizations, trends and movements. Vigorous (if not sometimes rancorous) debate and criticism is a hallmark of many North American LGBT communities.
What I want to explore in this series is not:
principled criticism of the LGBT community;
poor (but well-intentioned) arguments against the LGBT community; or, occasional rhetorical flourishes that sometimes unfairly criticize the LGBT community.
What I want to explore is much more insidious. It is something that is structurally and systematically supported by many Catholics and the Church itself. What I want to explore is as corrosive and as unfair to LGBT citizens, as it is to Catholics. What I want to explore is anti-gay propaganda.
Members of the LGBT community are often told that Catholics love them (but that Catholics hate their sins or “lifestyle”). Members of the LGBT community are often told that Catholics and the Church believe that LGBT citizens ought to be treated with respect, and protected from any “unjust discrimination”.
What makes this message ring hollow to so many LGBT citizens is that while the Church officially proclaims its “warm and fuzzy” message of love and respect – it simultaneously permits and enables vicious anti-gay propaganda. If someone truly loves me, if someone truly respects me, if someone truly wants to protect me from unjust discrimination – then the most basic way for them to begin to show that to me is to refrain from telling deliberate and vile falsehoods about me.
In this series I will not only examine a typical example of contemporary anti-gay propaganda, but I will also deconstruct it, show you how it is deliberate, and more importantly, explain to you why I think the Church is destroying itself by facilitating the production of this stuff.
I invite your considered comments along the way.
Cheers…Martin
Is all external criticism of the LGBT community necessarily inspired by bigotry, intolerance, or homophobia? Of course not. No community (regardless of its identity) ought to be exempt from principled criticism. This much I think we can all agree upon.
In fact, the LGBT community is often critical of its own individual leaders, organizations, trends and movements. Vigorous (if not sometimes rancorous) debate and criticism is a hallmark of many North American LGBT communities.
What I want to explore in this series is not:
principled criticism of the LGBT community;
poor (but well-intentioned) arguments against the LGBT community; or, occasional rhetorical flourishes that sometimes unfairly criticize the LGBT community.
What I want to explore is much more insidious. It is something that is structurally and systematically supported by many Catholics and the Church itself. What I want to explore is as corrosive and as unfair to LGBT citizens, as it is to Catholics. What I want to explore is anti-gay propaganda.
Members of the LGBT community are often told that Catholics love them (but that Catholics hate their sins or “lifestyle”). Members of the LGBT community are often told that Catholics and the Church believe that LGBT citizens ought to be treated with respect, and protected from any “unjust discrimination”.
What makes this message ring hollow to so many LGBT citizens is that while the Church officially proclaims its “warm and fuzzy” message of love and respect – it simultaneously permits and enables vicious anti-gay propaganda. If someone truly loves me, if someone truly respects me, if someone truly wants to protect me from unjust discrimination – then the most basic way for them to begin to show that to me is to refrain from telling deliberate and vile falsehoods about me.
In this series I will not only examine a typical example of contemporary anti-gay propaganda, but I will also deconstruct it, show you how it is deliberate, and more importantly, explain to you why I think the Church is destroying itself by facilitating the production of this stuff.
I invite your considered comments along the way.
Cheers…Martin
Martin
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading your articles.
God bless you
Michael
Post away. Look forward to it.
ReplyDeleteIt puzzles me that the Church would get so aggressive on LGBT but not on divorced and remarried people. One would never critise divorced and remarried people as a whole or talk about remarried lifestyle as that would be lumping in Conrad Black and Jennifer Lopez in the same group.
It's just the social stigma that has been historically associated with non-heterosexuals but fortunately that is changing fast.
Rationalist1