Post Date: 27th Feb, 2010 - 1:05pm / Post ID:
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Catholics and Mormons
I'm all for people getting along together, especially estranged or at least not particularly close "sides", but... There are too many things about this that really strike me as pretty cockeyed.
QUOTE Cardinal George spoke about the need for both religions to stand together to protect religious freedom - not simply as a set of private beliefs, but the ability of individuals and groups to practice their religion in the public square.
I presume this protection of religious (not Christian specifically, but religious) freedom they're ensuring covers Islam, Pagans, Native Americans, Voodoo, etc?
QUOTE "Any attempt to reduce that fuller sense of religious freedom, which has been part of our history in this country for more than two centuries, to a private reality of worship and individual conscience so long as you don't make anyone else unhappy, is not in our tradition,"
Again, I presume this goes for any other religious group as far as these leaders are concerned? "We know that they're expressing their own faith in their own religion while doing their calls to Mecca, being possessed by their ancestors or reading the entrails of a sheep, so while it might make us uncomfortable, in the interest of freedom of religion, we wouldn't insist they discontinue their practices. That would be hypocritical."
QUOTE "Religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the influence of Christianity in the public square without seriously jeopardizing our freedoms," said Elder Oaks, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve.
So, the important thing is to keep religion intimately interwoven with politics and actual government policy, because if there's one thing we learned, it is that, if your country has is governed by religious criteria and that same forced on you and how government is run, you must endure, because that's what the pilgrims did - they didn't just go to another country to run away from religious oppression... I think some of these new-breed Christian leaders would do well to examine which "Christians" were doing what, when, when the country was founded.
From:
Source 8 QUOTE The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. [...] The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations.
And further, from
Source 2 QUOTE Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break "the very neck of Schism and vile opinions." The "business" of the first settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, "was not Toleration, but [they] were professed enemies of it."
. . .
From:
Source 6Another religious movement that was the antithesis of evangelicalism made its appearance in the eighteenth century. Deism, which emphasized morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, found advocates among upper-class Americans. Conspicuous among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Deists, never more than "a minority within a minority," were submerged by evangelicalism in the nineteenth century.
Politico-religious control was also popular with Crusaders and Witch Trial enthusiasts.
But back to the news story:
QUOTE "It goes beyond having a common set of moral or political convictions," he said. "More than that, it's an appreciation of each other, an appreciation for the profundity of the faith "¦ and feeling that they're working together on something that God himself wills."
I think is is pretty much what anyone of any religion, or even just secular community, feels like, essentially.
QUOTE Cardinal George praised the LDS Church for its efforts alongside the Catholic Church to alleviate suffering of the poor, combat pornography, define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and protect the rights of the unborn.
So... The definition of religious freedom is to willfully curb the civil liberties and opportunities of others who do not share your views, because while they're equal - some are less equal than others?
QUOTE "There is nothing like being in the trenches together to make common cause," said Maggie Gallagher, a Catholic and president of the National Organization for Marriage. "I think we all need the courage to stand up for our core beliefs - especially the belief that our marriage tradition is good. I'm very grateful for the LDS faith community's leadership, but even more for the ordinary member's ordinary courage. We all admire it and seek to emulate it."
In the trenches. The need for courage and to stand up and fight. You'd think they were being harried by gay atheist dive bombers. I think there is something that is being missed in all these high-sounding we-must-band-together-to-survive phrases: nobody said their marriage tradition was bad - not at any time. Unless they think "our" means that exact same marriage tradition that all other US citizens share with them - that fictional one, which is actually their very own marriage tradition, which they kindly allow others to use? I doubt many people care about someone else's marriage tradition is, because it isn't any of their business, and has nothing to do with them, but the feeling is not mutual, for ineffable reasons.
Nobody is questioning their core beliefs which they say they must stand up for either. Adam and Steve getting married is not a black mark against the religious people, saying "We got married, therefore you're bad Christians." That is beyond incomprehensible how they managed to arrive at this conclusion.
And back to the article:
QUOTE "A lot of Catholics are looking at the fruit born by the LDS," he said, "not only in the way they conduct their daily affairs, (but in) the witness they gave on the marriage question, especially when they were so brutally attacked for it.
"I didn't want there to be any question about whether Catholics like me would forget about them after we'd won the war," he said.
Again with the war motif, especially when no such thing is going on? I wonder why the US is considered to be so violent and imperial.
QUOTE
Through the Proposition 8 battle banning same-sex marriage in California, Robert George said he not only developed a deeper appreciation of the LDS faith, but was strengthened in his own faith as well.
Again, this idea that denying other people you don't agree with, their rights which they should receive as citizens, somehow strengthens your faith... I think maybe this sounded better in his head than it did out loud.
QUOTE
Thanks to its global presence, the Catholic Church always has stood for family issues, whether it was opposing Nazi policies of euthanasia or speaking against abortion, he said.
I don't get this because this essentially says "except when that family has a same sex couple - then it's not a family so it doesn't count", because if family issues were important, and they considered gay couples families, it seems like they wouldn't want them unmarried...?
QUOTE
"If we do not fight it together, "¦ the difference is between winning and losing," Robert George said. "If we try to fight it separately, we will lose. The enemy is too strong, and our adversaries are too powerful."
Really - again? Fight? The enemy too strong? Adversaries too powerful? The... homosexuals and people that support their nefarious agenda of wanting equal protection and benefit under the law of any other person or couple. I'm on the "other side" of this issue so I'm probably just biased, but I could be in the room with these guys and they could explain step by step how their reasoning works and I would STILL look at them like a deer caught in headlights. It just doesn't compute.
QUOTE Fighting together does not mean abandoning core doctrines or changing theology, only coming to the realization that both religions have "a lot in common in terms of things that they're trying to defend - certain moral values that they believe are not just central to their faith, but central to the well-being of civilization, of society," said Utah Valley University President Matthew Holland, another friend of Robert George.
So... The continued...fighting... Is to "defend" values which they believe are central to the well-being of civilization and society itself, because two people of the same sex getting married... Is what the Roman Empire to fall, apparently.
QUOTE
Such staunch advocacy doesn't come without cost, and fighting for religious freedom often will make such warriors targets for retaliation and hatred, Cardinal George said.
"Warriors" targets of for retaliation and hatred... Which is one-sided on the part of the homosexual agenda, because there is no retaliation or hatred on the part of these religious "warriors" bravely making sure two gals can't get a tax break.
QUOTE
"But despite that, if we stay together and go forward, "¦ if we simply continue to talk together, (it) will in the end bear much fruit," he said.
Funny, I bet that's what homosexuals say to each other.
QUOTE
"When government fails to protect the consciences of its citizens, it falls to religious bodies, especially those formed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, to become the defenders of human freedoms."
The problem with this hierarchy is that one side is making an assumption that government is failing to protect the consciences of its citizens... Where "citizens" apparently is code for "people who think like I do" and not the more common use of the word, and so religious groups need to step in to remedy this unconscionable neglect.