Gay Marriage Win in Catholic Ireland

Source:  Daily Mail

Dublin (AFP) - The once-dominant Catholic Church in Ireland was trying to come to terms Sunday with an overwhelming vote in favour of gay marriage, saying it needed a "new language" with which to speak to people.

As jubilant "Yes" supporters nursed their hangovers and sore bums after partying late into the night following Saturday's referendum result, the faithful attended mass to hear their priests reflect on the new social landscape in Ireland.

"The Church has to find a new language which will be understood and heard by people," Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, one of the Church's most senior figures, told reporters after mass at the city's St Mary's Pro Cathedral.

The majority of Irish people still identify themselves as Catholic but the Church's influence has waned in recent years amid growing secularisation and after a wave of clerical child sex abuse scandals.

[...]

Niall O'Connor wrote in the Sunday Independent: "The once unshakeable influence of the Catholic Church over Middle Ireland has been confronted."
(Yahoo News-AFP)

Questions for Discussion

Did the Catholic Church get what it deserved?  Horrible scandals such as the Church hierarchy shielding pedophile homosexual priests, and the discovery of a mass baby grave on church property are very serious realities that shocked Ireland and eroded the once-trusted institution's authority.

Do the hardcore activists want equal rights, or is their real agenda the toppling of all religious institutions and ultimately the destruction of traditional morality?

What would the "New Language" of Archbishop Martin sound like?  Is this a matter of hierarcy, teaching, tone, man-made rules?

What needs to change?

Based upon the Holy Bible and the early church fathers, what can be changed?  What cannot?

These questions apply to other traditional Christian denominations as well.

A Government Inquisition

You can disobey your church, but just try disobeying your government...

Many of us conservatives who also happen to be of a libertarian bent are conflicted over the whole gay marriage thing. I would prefer my church stay out of politics and focus on the Gospel, but what are they to do when a street punk who hijacked the state gets in their face and taunts them?

An ignorant woman named Lisa Miller wrote an ignorant, condescending column about America's Catholic bishops and their legal battles with Obama's government.  She presumes to speak for all Catholics, whom she characterizes as children, with the priests and bishops playing mommy and daddy.

Mommy and daddy are fighting, and the anguished children don’t know where to turn. (Lisa Miller)

Her family analogy, complete with arguing parents and frightened children is cloying and tedious

The conservative fathers — whose motto is “Do what I say” — grew ever more enraged at the doubters and ever more punitive. They directed their ire at any and all rule-breakers: pro-choice Catholics who wanted to take Communion (Lisa Miller)

Has she ever read The Acts of the Apostles?  It's full of Peter and Paul telling people, "Do what I say, imitate us, because we are imitating Christ."

Would Peter or Paul grant communion to an open abortion supporter, to avowed homosexuals? Has this unserious Obama girl read the New Testament epistles? There's a whole lot of “Do what I say” in there. That is what Christ commanded them to do!  Teach!

Bishops are teachers and moral guides. It’s their job to sort out right from wrong and lead the flock. You may disagree with the content of their message, and you are free to, but to criticize them for defending Church teaching is like criticizing the president for speaking for the US government.

It's a Liberty Thing...  Progressives Wouldn't Understand

She makes the common error of mixing two unrelated issues: The Bishops are standing for religious liberty, the ability to run their church as they see fit without government telling them what to do, and her response is to say that over 80% of Catholics see nothing wrong with birth control. Apples and oranges.  Churches are free to hold and act on their beliefs, no matter how “out of touch” a hierarchy may be with the flock. It is a matter between the leadership and the congregation, and the state had no standing in such an internal dispute.

Unlike Obama, the bishops can’t make you comply

Go ahead, disobey the bishops, get an abortion, go to Vermont and get married to your gay lover.  Torquemada is not going to drag you out of your house and twist your tits with red hot pincers. For you Protestants out there who disobey your conservative church leadership, stern puritan fathers are not going to whip you in the town square like it's 1648 and put you in the stocks for your sinfulness.

Unlike the bishops, President Obama has the full coercive force of the federal government behind his peremptory commands; you better obey!  Or you'll have a cloud of regulatory gnats swarming you, and the IRS climbing up your wazoo with 1000 watt searchlights.  Comply or die.

The bishops must rely solely on moral suasion. That is the crux of this religious liberty argument, be it gay marriage or birth control. The Church can preach against it and refuse to participate in it, but it can’t stop the state conducting gay marriages and handing out birth control. By the same 1st Amendment token, the state may not compel the church to sanction or participate in such activities.

If you can't see both sides of that constitutional coin, you are one-eye blind.

Collectivization Leads to Mob Rule

Pope Obama of the Secular Church of State (click to embiggen)

"But I'm not anti-religion...  Some of my biggest admirers are Catholic!"

Despite the toady nun marched out by Obama to declare that all was now good, the US Catholic Bishops rejected Obama's economically ignorant and transparently tendentious sham offer. I will admit that trotting out Sister Carol Keehan was a nice touch by the president, but why did it remind me of the racist who when cornered defends himself by saying that he has black friends?

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. – Benjamin Franklin

The standard liberal/left argument in favor of Obama dictating to church-run organizations can be boiled down to tyranny of the majority:  Over 50% of citizens think businesses should give away birth control pills and abortafacients, therefore all women have a right to it.  Period.

This is an insidious line of argumentation:

The pivot point is how you see this. Is it a battle over birth control -- used by 98% of U.S. women at some time in their lives -- or over government intrusion into the right of religious organizations to live by their teachings?

58% of all Catholics agree employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception. That slides down to 52% for Catholic voters, 50% for white Catholics. (USA Today)

This contradicts more authoritative, less agenda-driven polling, but we’ll ignore that for now.

Stated another way, “If half the Catholics don’t care, then why is this an issue?”

The logical outcome of this would be that the government can overturn any lawful religious belief or practice that a majority of adherents don’t agree with. It’s an ad populum argument crafted to skirt the more fundamental constitutional issue.

This is an unconstitutional infringement on the free exercise of religion, but that is drawing the issue too narrowly. Remove “Birth Control” and replace it with “Iced Tea” and the larger problem would be the same: The government usurping the freedom of individuals by telling them what to do in their personal lives.

"A resolution to this issue cannot only cover 'religious' employers," Pavone said. "Religious freedom, which includes freedom of conscience, does not belong only to religious entities but to every American. There are many non-religious reasons to object to the administration's policy." (USA Today)

Yes! And that cuts to the issue. Government is binding your conscience, in an age and place where religion no longer can.  How the worm has turned.  It is one thing to take your tax money and spend it on wars, or abortions or wasteful green schemes. Elections revolve around such issues. It is quite another for the government to put a gun to your head and demand you buy something and give it to someone else, regardless of whether it violates your moral beliefs.

Here’s another line of liberal argumentation along the same line…

More generally, as Kevin Drum points out, one price for engaging with secular society is living by the rules of secular society. (Cohen)

Sounds good, but it is fraught with error. Who sets “the rules?” Where do they come from? What is the arbitrating authority when there is a dispute over “the rules?” What rule is the Catholic Church violating?  Is the rule valid when measured against the US Constitution?

Collectivizing our Rights 

This is really about the relentless march of collectivism. Throw all our money and liberties into the public pot so that state panjandrums and public policy poobahs can dole them back out.  As a state-sponsored bonus, it all belongs to the federal government now, not you, so the wolves have a right to vote to eat the sheep.

When health care is thus “collectivized,” when we’re “all in this together,” we’re forced to fight for every “carve-out” of liberty. (CATO)

USA Today reports that Obama’s Retreat is not enough. The article details the tangled nest of thorny problems this has opened up. What about a small-business owner who objects to providing insurance covering the morning after pill?

It’s a snarled up mess because government doesn’t belong in this arena. It has chained businesses and organizations to itself, insisting they provide services to individuals. This sets up a situation where a person is beholden to their employer for not just medical, but dental and other services that used to be the purview of the individual.

The easy solution is for the government butt out

The federal government need to get its fat, intrusive ass out of this private issue and turn its attentions to creating a clean, well-policed space for a free marketplace of health insurance to bloom, independent of employer participation. Americans will be able to shop for what they want, and if a majority want birth control pills, sterilization and morning after drugs, the free market will set up a competition to see who can provide them at the lowest cost.

Women who work for Catholic organizations can be free to choose their health insurance without the church snooping on them.  That respects the liberty and consciences of all, and that is what America is all about.

Catholic Bishops: Don’t Revise; Rescind
Cartoons
WaPo - “Compromise”

Progressivism's Pernicious Holy War

A Church - State battle is now engaged...

Obama declared jihad on the Catholic Church by decreeing it must pay for birth control and abortions of its employees, and the Holy Roman Empire is striking back.

This is not just a Catholic issue, it is a religious freedom issue. Make churches pay for stuff that violates their doctrines and bedrock beliefs, and you can next force them to perform gay marriages or declare their doctrine hate speech under pain of losing their tax exempt status.

But wait, there’s more! Once the federal government establishes the precedent that it can violate this First Amendment right, it is then free to violate the free speech rights of individual citizens. First Amendment gone.  All for the greater good, dontcha know...

Libertarian Steve Chapman recalling the church's losing battle against birth control pills back in 1960's, comes to liberty's defense:

But many of those who think it's wrong to forbid Americans to buy contraceptives think it's just fine to require them to buy contraceptives. In this group, unfortunately, are President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who are hell-bent on enforcing that mandate on nearly everyone. (Chapman)

Statist Toady Joan Venocci argues for the constitution shredders:

But not all employees of Catholic institutions are Catholics. Why should their employers impose their religious beliefs on them and deny coverage for birth control and other medical care? As long as those Catholic institutions are getting taxpayer money, they should follow secular rules. That’s the Obama administration’s argument, and it makes sense.  (Boston Glob)

The obvious answer is, of course the Catholic Church is not denying them these things.  Employees of the Holy Roman Empire are free to go out and purchase them.  No inquisitions, no fear of being burned at the stake, just a free decision... Paid for with their own damned money!

All Your Cookies are Belonging to Me!

Venocci's argument encapsulates the progressive long march. As government increases, we decrease. They lure us in with favors and suborn private institutions with government money until the individual becomes indistinguishable from the state. Take government money and not only must you dance to their tune, you become government property, bought and paid for.

That is what the progressive argument hinges upon: If you take from the government pot (which consists of money confiscated from you), you surrender your rights to the state. The linchpin of this nefarious government plot is getting every little doggy's paw to reach into the pot. Progressive mission accomplished.  Checkmate. You are bought and paid for. With your own money.

* - For a deeper explanation of the legal justification progressives use to defend Obamacare and other similar incursions on our liberties, see this:  WH - Of Course Government Can Put a Gun to your Head...

Attack on Catholic Church is an Attack on the Constitution

President Obama has decreed that the Catholic Church must provide birth control and abortifacients in the health care plans it offers to its employees

Here’s a statement from government suckerfish Planned Parenthood:

“This is good health policy and good economic policy,” said Dawn Laguens, vice president at Planned Parenthood. “It increases access to affordable birth control, but it is up to an individual employee to choose it or not. That’s very much the American way.” (El Lay Times – Contraceptive Mandate)

No.  It's not the American Way, as if a statist trained monkey raised and sustained on free taxpayer money would even begin to understand the concept. This is a terrible idea because it is a federal government telling private citizens what to do when it has no authority to do so.  A true free choice is one you make on your own and then pay for on your own without picking someone else’s pocket. That’s the American Way. The constitution was written to prevent such abuse.

Kevin Drum wrote that if you take government money you march to the government’s tune. It's a valid argument.  However, the violator here is not the Catholic Church; it is the US Government that is charged by We The People to be the guardian of our God-given rights. By ensnarling every last person in its tangled web, it has created a hopeless situation for anyone wanting to order their own lives and business free from the unblinking government gaze.

What gives the federal government the right to issue such dicta to churches? What gives it the right to command any organization or business in this way? What part of the constitution sanctions this?

The federal government is in bald-faced violation of the first amendment

You see, our rights are innumerable and bounded only by those outer limits where they interfere with the rights of others. Government’s rights are enumerated and limited; restricted by what that mandate from the people to their elected government, the US Constitution, says. This is what we need to be telling our politicians, our kids, and our family, friends, neighbors and coworkers who may have forgotten it. We also need to say it loud and proud when the smartass statist gargoyles in the press shove microphones in our faces at tea party rallies.

The US Constitution protects our God-given rights to life, liberty and property and it limits the actions the federal government may take against them. The very idea of mandating such everyday minutiae of our personal lives makes a mockery of our constitutional form of government.

Even Liberty's Defenders get it Wrong...

Oxymoronic ObamaCatholic Doug Kmiec proposes a speech Obama should give that admits the government was wrong. This phrase stuck out at me:

While the constitution doesn't mandate religious exemptions from general laws, I believe we should accommodate as many beliefs as possible and to the greatest extent possible without jeopardizing the purpose of the law. (Tim Reidy)

Firstly, we have no more general laws, as great jurists of England and the United states from centuries past would understand them. Our government no longer operates under the constitutional Rule of Law.  Rather, it now barrages us with stern commands and dictatorial edicts.

Religious Exemptions are a Warning Sign

Were our government’s lawmaking still in conformance with the constitution, there would be no requirement for “religious exemptions,” since the First Amendment bars government from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The fact that our discussions of law and regulations are now so shot through with talk of exemptions is an indictment against our government and the craven batwinged legislators and bureaucrats who haunt its once-hallowed halls.

Federalist 84 eloquently expresses this concern, as Publius argues against a Bill of Rights. He saw the danger to all our rights that would be caused by enumerating certain of them. Hamilton proved to be quite prescient:

They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. (Federalist 84)

Back when the constitution still mattered, honorable lawmakers would observe that this or that proposed legislation protrudes into the private lives of citizens, and thereby abandon the project.   Our post-constitutional government suffers no such scruples.  And the ignorant subjects stand up on their hind legs and applaud.

Obama Declares Jihad on the Catholic Church

Obama Cult "O Loko Haram"

Obama’s Holy War

Two years ago when Obamacare ordered the Catholic Church to include birth control and abortions in its health care plans, the nation’s Catholic Bishops threatened to shut down or sell off all hospitals, and it appeared that the threat had staved off our imperial government.

Catholic hospitals are an important component of our nation’s health care system, providing the only source of medical care in some areas, and only a fool would want to see them shut down.  That was the prevailing wisdom at the time.

Now, I believe that thinking was wrong, and it appears that the Obamistas do want them shut down, provoking a crisis and providing a pretext for more government intervention.  This is about the state breaking one more private institution to its will.  Progressivism is an inexorable march to absolute state control, and this is just the next step.

What’s Obama’s end game?

Employers that furnish health insurance have to cover it. But employers don't have to furnish health insurance -- and some of those with a religious mission may decide not to. When the District of Columbia passed a law that forced Catholic Charities to provide medical insurance to the same-sex partners of its employees, the agency elected to simply drop coverage for spouses.

Anyone left without health insurance under the administration's rule can go to new state-run health insurance exchanges to buy individual policies. But here again, the administration rejects freedom of conscience. The only policies available will include coverage for contraceptives -- including those the church regards as "abortion drugs" -- and sterilization. (Steve Chapman)

The end game is to herd more human cattle and sheeple into the Obamacare box canyon, while trampling our old fashioned morals and ushering in a new era of progressive utilitarianism, freed from fusty shibboleths like human dignity and sanctity of life.

And the Catholic Church, which snuggles up to big government at every opportunity instead of preaching the Catholic doctrine of Subsidiarity, should learn a lesson from all of this:

Get in bed with Uncle Sam and don't be surprised if you get more than a good night's sleep  -- Ronald Reagan

Contraception Mandate Outrages Religious Groups