{"id":2018,"date":"2013-03-10T11:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html"},"modified":"2013-03-10T11:16:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T11:16:00","slug":"james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html","title":{"rendered":"James O’Keefe and the Curse of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It looks like James O\u2019Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine<\/a> for his video taping mission a while back. \u00a0I\u2019m sure you remember, he would go in and pose under false pretenses to extract\u00a0confessions\u00a0from such places as ACORN that they were involved in\u00a0truly\u00a0heinous and deplorable activities \u2013 such as covering for sex slave traffickers.\u00a0<\/div>\n
Well, Mr. Okeefe didn\u2019t read the fine print, and it turns out you can\u2019t video tape someone without their\u00a0consent\u00a0 \u00a0There you go. \u00a0You break the law, you pay the price. \u00a0I\u2019m OK with that. \u00a0Furthermore, I admit that the tactics of premeditated\u00a0deceit\u00a0and falsehoods in order to trap someone is starting off on a dangerous footing. \u00a0Better to find more honest and open ways. \u00a0You can still discover what\u2019s happening, it might just take a little more golly-gee-wiz on your part.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Nonetheless, Mr. O\u2019Keefe, like Lila Rose<\/a>, became a lightning rod across the Catholic blogosphere, with bloggers and commenters jumping in to smack them down as the wretched sinners that they were. \u00a0Ridiculous\u00a0threads\u00a0erupted as\u00a0some\u00a0Catholics declared their willingness to stand by and let a million babies be raped and tortured to death before they would tell a white lie to save them. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For me, it was the moment when much of the\u00a0Catholic\u00a0blogosphere jumped the shark<\/a>. \u00a0It proved that yes, Virginia, there are Catholic fundamentalists, even if they don\u2019t act and talk like their Protestant counterparts. \u00a0Because nothing screams fundamentalist like someone willing to hamstring their own brothers for the speck in their eye, even as the brothers are attempting to extract the true logs of evil out of the eye of the world. \u00a0That happened a lot in my own Evangelical tradition. \u00a0I can\u2019t tell you how many times someone with the best of intentions threw up their hands and gave up because they might have done something wrong, and it was the failure, rather than all the best intended\u00a0efforts, that everyone chose to focus on.<\/div>\n
Even that wouldn\u2019t be so bad if those who decide to unleash the gates of Hell on an eye\u2019s speck aren\u2019t then typically\u00a0inclined\u00a0to want to ignore whatever logs are in their own eyes. That James O\u2019Keefe lied is a sin for the ages, and proof of how horribly sinful all those other Catholics are who don\u2019t see his vile failings. \u00a0When I sin, of course, it\u2019s nothing of the sort. \u00a0I sin with the best of\u00a0intentions\u00a0 \u00a0I expect nothing but grace, mercy and understanding when my sins are forgiven by the Almighty. \u00a0That James O\u2019Keefe may have sinned with the best of\u00a0intentions, of course, is beside the point.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Now that Mr. O\u2019Keefe has been fined, I expected some in\u00a0the\u00a0Catholic blogosphere to rise up and say \u2018HA! \u00a0That\u2019ll show you!\u2019 \u00a0Even though the verdict had nothing to do with the sin that outraged the Catholic blogosphere, it\u00a0would\u00a0be enough to say the Curse of God is upon him for sinning in not the way I sin! \u00a0It could just as easily have been \u2018James O\u2019Keefe got run over by a\u00a0dump truck\u00a0 \u00a0HA! \u00a0That\u2019ll show you!\u2019 \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And yet, all this just went by me as nothing other than what I expected. \u00a0When I saw the headline, I knew that some bloggers would react the way they reacted. \u00a0But what did shock me is finding out that places that only recently sang the mercy and forgiveness and\u00a0understanding\u00a0for the late, great Hugo Chavez<\/a>, now find themselves removing all quarter from their take on O\u2019Keefe\u2019s fortunes. \u00a0Really? \u00a0So we praise God\u00a0because\u00a0Chavez died in the bosom of Mother Church, we pray for Chavez, and we look at Chavez as a victim of vile and\u00a0contemptible\u00a0right wing\u00a0nut jobs\u00a0in America who don\u2019t know how to be truly Catholic, but we crow over the unrelated punishments of O\u2019Keefe in order to send a message?\n

I know, I know. \u00a0I would be told that\u00a0nobody\u00a0was saying Chavez was a great guy. \u00a0We\u2019re just wanting O\u2019Keefe to follow the straight and narrow. \u00a0We all want the mercy of God for ourselves. \u00a0 But when stepping back and looking at the big picture, I just can\u2019t help but say there is certainly a disconnect with my understanding of right and wrong, and grave sin and venial sin. \u00a0I can\u2019t help but wonder if we\u2019re losing perspective, and beginning to pull a Col. Nicholson, prepared in our own righteousness to swallow a camel in order to show why those other Catholics are so wrong for straining gnats incorrectly. \u00a0I could be wrong, but at least as it seems to play out in the words and emphases in certain blogging\u00a0segments.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It looks like James O\u2019Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back. \u00a0I\u2019m sure you remember, he would go in and pose under false pretenses to extract\u00a0confessions\u00a0from such places as ACORN that they were involved in\u00a0truly\u00a0heinous and deplorable activities \u2013 such as covering for sex slave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJames O'Keefe and the Curse of God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James O'Keefe and the Curse of God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daffey Thoughts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/files\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-sAZvQIq2OfA\/UTyjraIssHI\/AAAAAAAAE6s\/jngpURUgPWw\/s400\/guinness-kwai.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html\",\"name\":\"James O'Keefe and the Curse of God\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\"},\"description\":\"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"James O’Keefe and the Curse of God\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/\",\"name\":\"Daffey Thoughts\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\",\"name\":\"Dave Griffey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dave Griffey\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"James O'Keefe and the Curse of God","description":"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"James O'Keefe and the Curse of God","og_description":"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html","og_site_name":"Daffey Thoughts","article_published_time":"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/files\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-sAZvQIq2OfA\/UTyjraIssHI\/AAAAAAAAE6s\/jngpURUgPWw\/s400\/guinness-kwai.jpg"}],"author":"Dave Griffey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dave Griffey","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html","name":"James O'Keefe and the Curse of God","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-03-10T11:16:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7"},"description":"It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/03\/james-okeefe-and-the-curse-of-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"James O’Keefe and the Curse of God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/","name":"Daffey Thoughts","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7","name":"Dave Griffey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Dave Griffey"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}