John Lennon once opined that “Everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?”. Personally, I hesitate to embrace this aphorism wholeheartedly, but it certainly appears to be the right wing point of view, where, in true Orwellian fashion, no dictionary is safe. Like Humpty Dumpty, they insist that words must do their bidding, and when they use a word “it means just what [they] choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” All too often, words ending up being the opposite of what they are.
Latest case in point from the Catholic Bishops, leaders of an institution that has become just another right wing interest group, who are bemoaning the loss of their “religious liberty” (Bishops Open ‘Religious Liberty Drive‘). How, have they lost their liberty you may ask? They have lost their liberty, they reply, because the United States government and several states have refused to pass or enforce laws that enshrine their bigoted dogma into law.
The bishops have expressed increasing exasperation as more states have legalized same-sex marriage, and the Justice Department has refused to go to bat for the Defense of Marriage Act, legislation that established the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.
Back in the olden days establishing religious law as civil law was considered a violation of religious liberty, but in this brave new world it’s precisely the opposite.
The Bishops take umbrage, as well, at the fact that several states have refused to pay the Church to engage in bigotry, and this too infringes on their religious liberty:
Bishop Lori said that in states like Illinois and Massachusetts, and in the District of Columbia, Catholic agencies that received state financing had been forced to stop offering adoption and foster care services because those states required them to help same-sex couples to adopt, just as they helped heterosexual couples.
That’s right. Religious liberty requires the state to not only tolerate religions that preach intolerance, but also requires that the state subsidize that intolerance, so long as it comes in the guise of religion. Oh how delicious it would be to hear Bishop Lori explain why his anti-gay bigotry should be subsidized when, lets say, bigotry against interracial couples, or rules against cross race adoptions, should not. I’m sure there’s a distinction without a difference in there somewhere.
We can take some solace from the fact that the good Bishop, is fighting a rear guard action, even among the “faithful”.
But as the sexual-abuse scandal largely overshadowed their agenda in the last decade, their pronouncements on politics and morality have been met with indifference even by many of their own flock. The bishops issue guidelines for Catholic voters every election season, a document known as “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” which is distributed in many parishes. But the bishops were informed at their meeting on Monday that a recent study commissioned by Fordham University in New York found that only 16 percent of Catholics had heard of the document, and only 3 percent had read it.
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