I Tolerate You as long as You Agree with Me

Apparently Dolce and Gabbana have been taking a lot of heat for saying that they do not support gay marriage, gay adoption or IVF and surrogacy. They said that “procreation is an act of love” and that children are born with a mother and a father. Basically, they spelled out Catholic Theology. The only difference is that they are gay. And they are now in the middle of a huge fire storm. Elton John is calling for a boycott and other celebrities are joining him in that boycott.

Gay people can’t even be against gay marriage now or they are called bigots? How does that work? They hate themselves? Isn’t it a bit authoritarian to say that everyone has to be ok with something or else? If I said everyone had to be Catholic or I wouldn’t deal with them that would be stupid. And that is why I boycott boycotts. I drink Starbucks (and had a lady at my parish try to go off on me for having a Starbucks coffee in my hand, that turned out interesting), buy girl scout cookies and no longer give a shit if  my box of Kraft Mac and Cheese has a pink ribbon on it. My way of trying to reach people is by getting to know who they are, not forcing them to agree with me in order to be blessed with my presence in their life, how prideful would that be?!

I find it crazy that so many of those who yell at Catholics to be more tolerant and stop being haters will try to flush out anyone who disagrees with their beliefs on marriage or politics. I don’t think they truly want tolerance but a knee bending worship of the ideology that they have deemed the only ideology that is acceptable. Anyone who steps out of line gets a target put on their back.

Everyone has a right to their opinions and beliefs, even those who disagree with you. Hi 5 to Dolce and Gabbana for speaking their beliefs. If they were giving the finger the to the Catholic Church by having a wedding at St. Peter’s, the world would be cheering them on, because tolerance. We all need to get over ourselves a bit.

What D&G are facing now is similar to what a lot of Catholics who identify as gay, while living according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, go through. They get told by one side that they are not good enough Catholics and told by the other that they are not good enough gays. I have seen people tell others that they shouldn’t call themselves “gay” as if it is up to any one of us to demand that someone else identify themselves by what we say they can. That is wrong on so many levels. Every Catholic should read Eve Tushnet’s book Gay and Catholic to understand what life is like for gay Catholics. I have learned a lot from reading her books along with her blog posts. In fact, I learned more about marriage in one of her blog posts than I have any other blog post on the subject because she is a wonderfully smart Catholic woman who is obedient to the Church.

Thinking we should only be accepting and kind to those who believe as we do or as we think they should, regardless of how left or right we are, damages the entire belief of encounter. It is through encounter that we come to love and if we refuse to have encounters with people who do not fall into line with what we think then we miss out on the opportunity of love. So many people will be shooting down Elton John for his call to boycott D&G without looking at their own calls to boycott because someone doesn’t fall in line with their beliefs. I have known of people who spell out what abortion is to little girls just trying to sell some cookies outside of Walgreens. That isn’t being pro-life, that is being the worshipper of an idea.

I am proud of Dolce and Gabbana,  I am sure they knew the storm that they were kicking up (who wouldn’t know that saying those things would cause one? ) and they said it anyway. They put a light in a dark place of the tolerant movement that claims to want to accept everyone for who they are, unless who they are is someone opposed to their strange gods. Then, there should be no tolerance of them, but they should be boycotted. On the flip side, Catholics need to take a long look at how much we act the same way when the tables are turned. The weapon that Jesus has given us to fight the modern day golden calves is encounter, not boycotts. It is what He used when He walked this earth. Encounter was such a big deal to God that He became Man and dwelt among us.

“Help each other to live and to grow in the Christian faith so as to be valiant witnesses of the Lord. Be united, but not closed. Be humble, but not fearful. Be simple, but not naive. Be thoughtful, but not complicated. Enter into dialogue with others, but be yourselves.”   

– Pope Benedict XVI, Genoa, Italy, May 18, 2008