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macnumpty
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I promised myself I wouldn't make this post......but my head will explode if I don't, so it'll just have to be made. It's a long one, I'm afraid.
If I hear the phrases 'gay adoption' and 'Catholic Church' put together in the same sentence once more, I will not be responsible for my actions. Really, I won't. I've reached the end of my tether.
I don't see myself adopting - mainly as there is a very real possibility of me leaving little James Alexander or Rachael Pristina (yes, I have named hypothetical children) at the supermarket door when I realise that I've left the Oven Chips at the checkout, then heading straight to the bus stop without realising what I've just left behind in order to retrieve part of my dinner - but who knows? I might in the future should I meet a partner who, unlike me, has a fully functioning short-term memory. But even if I do, it probably wouldn't even occur to me to visit a Catholic adoption agency. Why should it? There are many Catholics in my family (mostly on my mother's side) but I'm not one of them and never have been, so the Catholic Church only really appears on my radar for distant cousins' weddings and elderly relatives' funerals.
Aside from the purely selfish motive for not caring about the RC Church's position on adoption by gay couples, though, there's a principle at work for me. Namely, I am confident and comfortable enough about my sexual orientation not to care what a handful of clergymen think about people like me. Why have so many other people - gay or straight, but the most vocal and prominent critics have been heterosexual - got so worked up about them?
The Catholic Church appears to think that homosexual relationships are sinful, and so they assume I'm going to Hell. I think that the Catholic Church's image of the family unit is outdated, that it's obsession with the 'sanctity' of marriage has been fundamentally pointless ever since weddings could take place outwith churches with not a clergyman in sight, that its opposition to contraception (and so potentially condemning its own followers to STIs and unwanted pregnancies) is dangerous. We agree to disagree. If they want to cite religious reasons for not letting me seek to adopt a child with a hypothetical future partner, then fine, I'll go somewhere else. I still adopt a child, they still have to find homes for the children on their books, so they lose out, not me. As long as they also turn away all single people, for seeking a child while out of wedlock, then I won't protest as I'm not really losing anything.
I like Social Liberalism. It means that I can be who I am, without fear of repercussion. It means that I can live the life I wish to lead, and to declare that openly. I'm glad that Social Liberalism is the way of this country. What I detest is extremism, which is why I'm terrified of a new phenomenon which I call Extremist Liberalism. So that I can go to lengths to which I'd never really bother to go to express who I am, devout members of various faiths (and the gay adoption issue is just one example of this, which is why I've pluralised that sentence) are no longer free to express their deeply-held religious principles. In short, in our quest to be ever more liberal, we have become illiberal. We are on a dangerous course: we must stop now.
The consequences? They could be felt as early as May, when some Christian parties produce a distorted view of their own faith, and campaign on a manifesto which opposes the supposed (and non-existant) domination by the LGBT Community of the political establishment. They will spread hate in order to advance an equally extremist view of their faith, one which was meant to be founded on tolerance. Every vote for these parties will be a hammer-blow to the LGBT Community. And by forcing the Catholic Church to comply to rules when in reality it represents very little skin off our noses if they are exempt, we are playing into the homophobes' hands. They might not win seats, but they will gain votes, and it will be our fault.
And what of the LGBT Community, what's the big issue for us? It's not this. We are fortunate to live in a place where this is the big question in terms of equality, and where the Establishment (or part of it, at least) looks upon the Catholic Church as backward in this regard. We are fortunate that we live in a place where the Catholic Church are the bad guys for not wanting to be one provider of a service that we could seek elsewhere. Yuri Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow, has criminalised Pride Parades in his city. He has described the last one as 'satanic'. In one of the most important cities in the world, we are not allowed to express who we are, and take pride in that. Have we noticed this disgrace? No, we're too busy screaming from the rooftops about how the Parish of St. Ignatius won't let us look after a baby for them. Now, again, what Luzhkov thinks of me isn't important, but then, I don't live in Moscow: this man has his hands on levers of power, so for the Muscovite LGBT Community, his thoughts are real worries.
All I'm saying is that if we're going to express so much outrage about LGBT issues, maybe we're wasting it on Mario Conti. Perhaps we should be looking East, and aiming our rage squarely at Yuri Luzhkov.
Just a thought.
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azzuri
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What a post.
Agreed macnumpty...
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Quite a rant 
| Quote: | | devout members of various faiths (and the gay adoption issue is just one example of this, which is why I've pluralised that sentence) are no longer free to express their deeply-held religious principles. In short, in our quest to be ever more liberal, we have become illiberal. We are on a dangerous course: we must stop now. |
I disagree, I believe that society should be engineered from play school onwards to be tolerant, open minded and liberal, having archaic institutions around spouting their backwards views should be no more tolerated than if they were spouting racism etc. If it was down to me, I would make it illegal to teach discrimination in this way, then force all churches to either re-write that part of the bible/whatever if they wish to continue preaching or close up shop and go move someplace else. We have to start removing the infrastructure that supports biggotry before we can begin to stamp it out completely.
| Quote: | | The consequences? They could be felt as early as May, when some Christian parties produce a distorted view of their own faith, and campaign on a manifesto which opposes the supposed (and non-existant) domination by the LGBT Community of the political establishment. They will spread hate in order to advance an equally extremist view of their faith, one which was meant to be founded on tolerance. Every vote for these parties will be a hammer-blow to the LGBT Community. And by forcing the Catholic Church to comply to rules when in reality it represents very little skin off our noses if they are exempt, we are playing into the homophobes' hands. They might not win seats, but they will gain votes, and it will be our fault. |
That is a good point, but these people exist allready and its best to confront them dead on in the open. I see what you are saying about people blaming the LGBT community instead of the government, but I dont think that should stop progress, im sure similar things would have occurred with the advent of Black rights or Womens rights - eventually the bigots are flushed out and society moves on all the better for it.
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macnumpty
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Sorry about the rant... I've tried to put it to one side and not bother with it, but by last night I'd just had enough and the post just sort of happened! 
Well, I for one believe that religions... complicate matters, and that modern life would be a lot easier without them. Certanly if I held the levers of power, state education would equal secular education. That would cut out one potential source of our children being spoonfed beliefs rather than developing their own.
That said, I would be wary of adding a certain set of values to the curriculum. I think we can show kids that there while there are outward differences between people - race, religion, orientation and so on - we are all the same deep down. I think that happens when kids get to meet, work and play with members of different groups (even where this isn't possible in person, even childrens' shows like Balamory have a multicultural town and a multicultural nursery, so people can see this happening from an early age), but I don't think you can (or should) teach open-mindedness. I certainly don't like the idea at teaching kids to be liberal: teaching them to subscribe to Ideology X is ot me the same as teaching them to be a member of Religion Y. Don't get me wrong, it would be better than teaching them to be conservative, but principles are something that develop from within. Even the whole idea of voting for a party because your parents did is starting to die out, so to have schools teaching an ideology is a step backwards for me.
Nor am I comfortable with the idea of ordering religions to change what they preach. I know how I would feel if homosexual sex between consenting adults were to be made illegal again tomorrow, for a part of who I am to be suppressed. For me (and I'm speaking more personally on this than on any other issue), I couldn't bring myself to support anything that meant that committed members of a faith found their identity suppressed in the same way. That's absolutely unbearable to me. As things stand, they may have little time for me and I might have little time for them, but they can practice their faith and I can pursue a relationship with a man when I want to. If I'm lucky at least. The world is still big enough for both of us.
You're right, by the way, we do need to tackle the bigots head on, but at the same time, why feed them? If we start questioning what right the Catholic Church has to pursue its own beliefs on this issue (however ill-founded), then we allow the bigots to question the advances we have made. I take your point about progress, but we've got we wanted in the right to adopt as a couple. We've bought the diary. The row over Catholic adoption agencies' role in all this is the little pen that comes with it, that we don't need and only works for five seconds. The progress has been made, and this unnecessary row casts a shadow over that in my opinion.
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macnumpty
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Sorry, I went off on one again. See what this thing does to me? 
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Hehe - nah ranting is good for the soul, theres nothing quite like it to get things off your chest.
| Quote: | | but I don't think you can (or should) teach open-mindedness. I certainly don't like the idea at teaching kids to be liberal: teaching them to subscribe to Ideology X is ot me the same as teaching them to be a member of Religion Y. Don't get me wrong, it would be better than teaching them to be conservative, but principles are something that develop from within. Even the whole idea of voting for a party because your parents did is starting to die out, so to have schools teaching an ideology is a step backwards for me. |
I see your point in that sense, but I dont really see open-mindedness or social liberalism (not political liberalism) as ideologies, I think of it as more of a natural state which is corrupted over time through mainstream society so I think of it as more creating a counter-balance to these influences. Of course you are right that that many people will develop from within over time if they go to university or college. Its the others I worry about that leave school biggotted (even a word?) to the max and slip into the Burberry and tracksuit culture, and im not saying that the churches have much influence over these people, but it cant be a very good signal to send out, and it must just confirm the ned mentality that theres something "wrong" with Gay couple adopting.
| Quote: | | You're right, by the way, we do need to tackle the bigots head on, but at the same time, why feed them? If we start questioning what right the Catholic Church has to pursue its own beliefs on this issue (however ill-founded), then we allow the bigots to question the advances we have made. I take your point about progress, but we've got we wanted in the right to adopt as a couple. We've bought the diary. The row over Catholic adoption agencies' role in all this is the little pen that comes with it, that we don't need and only works for five seconds. The progress has been made, and this unnecessary row casts a shadow over that in my opinion. |
True, I guess the main thing as you say is that progress has been made, and I suppose the war cant be won with one battle.
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macnumpty
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I'd go along with most of that. I do wonder if making sure that equality was taught in schools would make the blindest bit of difference to your average Burberry-clad Ned though. Maybe I'm just stereotyping them here, but most of the successful ones at School are the ones who move on: the Neds would tend not to do as well, so if they're not benefiting from school anyway, adding instruction on equality isn't going to do anything:those who would take the points from a class on board won't need them taught, and those that do need them taught won't take them on board.
Sadly, I think that as long as we have a society full of different groups, we're going to get bigoted, extremist members of those groups, who want to push their agenda ahead of, and often at the expense of, all others. The key for mainstream Society is to let moderation and balance win the day.
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| Quote: | | I do wonder if making sure that equality was taught in schools would make the blindest bit of difference to your average Burberry-clad Ned though. Maybe I'm just stereotyping them here, but most of the successful ones at School are the ones who move on: the Neds would tend not to do as well, so if they're not benefiting from school anyway, adding instruction on equality isn't going to do anything:those who would take the points from a class on board won't need them taught, and those that do need them taught won't take them on board. |
Yeah I dont think its anything that could be taught just in the classroom,or even one class - things like sex education should be made more inclusive to include talking about different sexualitys. Things like philosophy and sociology should also be compulsory, and schools should organise to involve kids in things like gay pride parades, anti war marches or doing charity work - helping disabled people in the like amongst other things - get them out there in the real world learning about real issues and learning some real values. Meanwhile knock down all the council estates and rebuild more socially inclusive housing, and make them bright colours not grey or sandstone - thats just depressing. Get rid of School uniforms aswell, they only encourage conformity. Then pass laws to stop businesses discriminating against people with tattoos, piercings or multi-coloured hair. Eventually diversity will become normal and society will be much better integrated and socially educated. Oops sorry I went off on a tangent there.
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