The Catholic Church adhering to their anti-contraception-based, homophobic, traditionalist and conservative dogma deserves notice in my opinion. I may not agree with any of their ideas (not anymore, at least), something must be said for them remaining firmly dogmatic and not budging from their principles. The Church truly believes it represents God on earth and that they have always done so. As such, it would be odd to throw away dogma that has represented God in the past—it would be an outright admission of being wrong, and, thusly, not being able to be trusted ever.
Yes, in that capacity I truly take notice of the Catholic Church—as I do fundamentalists. In my opinion, it is simply fact that religion and progressive do not go together; that religion and liberal concepts do not go together; and that religion and change are two incompatible concepts as well.
That is what makes the bible such a human book—without a doubt written by humans, for humans, and containing only human concepts.
On your left you have a God who is all-knowning and omnipotent, and on your right you have a book that contains more errors than a Lindsay Lohan post-it. The left, being omniscient, omnipotent and living outside time, has no ability to change his mind; the right, being from human origin, contains more changes of opinion, mind and action than a Diana Ross show contains dress changes.
But, it is what is holy to Christians, so, being the ultimate book of truths, should be adhered to completely. In this, my disapproval of gay Christian apologists lies. You can be a gay theist—if your belief in God is strictly of a personal nature1—but to be a gay Christian apologist is to be an African-American member of the KKK. The two are of irreconcilable nature.
Unless, of course, and many will argue this, you do not take everything in the bible as strictly as you should. The selective nature of Christians when it comes to believing in the bible (and dogma) is legendary; for some reason, it is fine to ignore parts of an inerrant book. When you do not like a certain thing in your religion—and when it makes you look like a bigot, homophobe, and/or complete idiot, you are excused from adhering to it.
I may look at this too strictly, but the bible says homosexuality is wrong—end of discussion. Do not try to reconcile it with your own opinion—if you do not think homosexuality is wrong, and if you think the bible is wrong on this issue, then you are not a Christian. I never knew simple logic was too difficult for some to understand.2
It is because of this that I can take notice of Christians who are fundamentally against homosexuality—on the condition that their stance is based upon dogma, and not personal fabrications. A traditional-family group professing that same-sex marriage is against God is dogmatically right; one that proclaims that same-sex marriage will destroy society and will negatively impact children is simply (sociologically) wrong. I should not have to explain this, really.
However, and in the end, when my rambling cools down, comes my twist, I will never—never—tolerate, honour or respect it.3 4 5
Footnotes
- Which is, in fact, impossible. [↩]
- I feel the same about other issues. For instance: In American politics, you are either a conservative, or you are a liberal. A liberal conservative, and a conservative liberal are bastardisations created by the inability of people to pick a team. [↩]
- An earlier draft of this chaotic writing had “respect” in place of “notice,” until I realised—and I have realised this after years of believing I respected Christians—that to respect something really does not entail finding their beliefs to be bat-shit crazy. [↩]
- Oh, and yes, I know I am back to my rambling writing style, and that about ninety per cent of this post is about nothing. Thank you for the wake up call, but I think the Eighties are calling you to come home for supper. [↩]
- And yesagain, I know the title sucks. But at least the Lindsay Lohan reference turned out somewhat entertaining. [↩]
"Hey, I just wanted to — Wait. Where did the commenting form go?"
So, I stopped doing comments on my blog. Twitter, Facebook, and good-old e-mail do a much better job, in my experience and opinion.