Catholic and Enjoying It!
Whenever some social movement bent on the destruction of the Church or the infliction of great evil on some basic human good arises, it is always going to be salted with true believers who manage to honestly convince themselves that, once the movement achieves the end they are hoping it will achieve, it was stop being toxically anti-Church or inimical to human good and just disband. So, for instance, the Commies assured us that the Comunist state would just “wither away” once the eggs had been broken, the millions slaughtered and the omelette made “for the greater good”. Likewise, various terrorist movements (i.e., the IRA) were, we were assured, purely temporary, till Irish independence was achieved. “Nor further territorial claims once we achieve this limited objective” was also the assurance of Munich. It’s a refrain we hear often, and true believers always believe it, despite all the blandishments of common sense.
So I believe Andew Sullivan when he assures me, along with Jamie Kirchick, that “The goal of the Gay Rights Movement should be to cease to exist.” I’m sure he really thinks that. And I’m equally sure that he is a naive fool for thinking that the dynamics behind the movement are toward any such thing in this world. As is evident all over the place every day, the real goal of the gay rights movement is to crush and oppress the Church till no Christian is so much as allowed to *think* that homosexual practice is anything less than the source and summit of goodness in this world. So, while Andrew (between posting tendentious attacks on “Christianists” (i.e., Christians who say things he disagrees with) and dishonestly attacking Benedict any chance he gets) assures us that the gay rights movement will wither away and not go from strength to strength to assault the Church with more and more draconian force whenever it can, we see such examples of the imposition of gay power on Christian conscience here:
— A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney’s costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony.
— A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship.
— Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment.
— A Christian student group was not recognized at a University of California law school because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of traditional marriage
These are not cookie cutter cases (at least from a Catholic perspective). For instance, it is (from a Catholic perspective) morally incoherent to artificially inseminate hetero couples but draw the line at gay couples. But they all have in common, nonetheless, the insistence that these various people help facilitate what is, for them, a sin. In short, it is a demand that they lie and declare good what they believe to be wrong. There are plenty of photographers in New Mexico, lots of psychologists in Georgia and it’s not a surprise that a Christan group would be constituted to exclude members who, you know, don’t believe what the group believes. But no Jews sue Christians groups which do not allow unbelieving Jews to be members so they can come to meetings and deny the Resurrection. However, gays *do* sue Christian groups which do not admit them as members–because the goal is to crush and suppress any Christian moral teaching that does not celebrate unfetter homosex as an unmitigated good. That’s the goal. And it is perhaps Andrew Sullivan’s greatest act of self-delusion that he has managed to convince himself that this will not surely be the goal of the gay rights movement.
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