short takes from the news

[cellio]

What's wrong with this statement? "The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts." (story)

A story about reports of missing Americans in south-east Asia offers this gem: "Some callers were unclear on geography as well, reporting missing Americans in China, South Africa and even Vermont." Vermont?! From people who haven't noticed that New Hampshire is still there?

Some parents in Orange County are upset because a Catholic school allowed children of a gay couple to enroll. They are arguing that this violates church teachings. The school has so far refused to budge. It seems to me that, quite apart from any issues of gay rights or open-mindedness, the parents have it all wrong; educating those kids is precisely within church teachings. Shouldn't they be welcoming the opportunity to teach those kids their doctrine, rather than letting them go off to the Godless public schools? I thought a key component of Christianity was ministering to people who haven't yet accepted their message; here they have people they consider sinners delivering their kids up for education in the church, and they're turning down the opportunity. Sounds like a missed opportunity to me. (I am not endorsing this, merely observing.)

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

How Vermont is like Vietnam:

1. Well, they sound the same.
2. They both have weird town names, like Peru and Bangkok. Oh, wait.
3. No one ever goes there.
3b. Well, okay, maybe when the leaves are changing color.
4. Neither voted for Bush.
5. Both are landlocked islands. Except Vermont shares a border with Quebec, which is near Canada.
6. The weather sucks there 6 months of the year.
7. People who live there year-round tend to talk funny.
8. Thriving traffic in young women in skimpy clothing being paraded in front of middle-aged men. Ski lodges, slave trade, whatever.
9. They're mostly trees and mud and stuff.
10. We were fought to a standstill by the natives when we invaded. (Sort of. I count bumper-to-bumper traffic as "fought to a standstill.")

[cellio]

*laugh* Thank you. :-)

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

On the internment camp, there was this in the article:

The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the officials said.

How much will building Rover cost? Was the official named "Patrick McGoohan"?

I am not a number - I am a free man... Oooog, irony.

(http://www.totaldvd.net/features/discs/200009Prisoner.php)

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Technically, the Catholic Church doesn't teach that homosexuality is any worse than any sex outside of marriage (since gay couples can't marry within the church, it is, therefore, never acceptable behavior in the church's eyes; splitting hairs, I know, but there is a difference).
That said, many people use the (sort of) ambiguity of the church's position to bulster their own homophobia.
The sexual orientation of the students parents should really have noting to do with the education of the children.
Sick that anyone can be so wrong headed as to punish the children for a behaviour in the parents that they disagree with. Sad.
Makes about as much sense as baptists getting upset that the children of parents who have sex in a position other than missionary are going to school with their children.

[cellio]

Technically, the Catholic Church doesn't teach that homosexuality is any worse than any sex outside of marriage

Really? Thanks; I didn't know that. (I know some church members for whom that would be news.)

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

True -- in fact ask any Christian (Catholic or Protestant) to show you where the Bible condemns homosexuality and they are likely to point to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. [My pastor (when I was a teen) blatantly said that Sodom was destroyed because of the large homosexual practice there.) However, these people are missing that the use of the root sodom- for homosexual activity only came into use in the 13th Century. And refers to, according to the OED, "An unnatural form of sexual intercourse, esp. that of one male with another." So, the Bible doesn't, imho, seem to condemn homosexuality any more than heterosexuality. Then again, I could be biased.

S

[cellio]

<soapbox>
The Sodom story is about rape, IMO (and more broadly, abuse of other people, particularly visitors). Heck, the sex that's actually offered is heterosexual.
</soapbox>

The passage that's usually cited against homosexuality is Lev 18:22. (Gah. I've seen it enough that I didn't need to look that up.) You might be interested to know that there are Orthodox Jewish woman who argue strongly that it says men and lesbianism is just fine according to Torah. I'm not making a judgement; I'm just repeating an argument.

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

For the Catholic Church, all sex outside of marriage, no matter how many people are involved, or what their genders are, or how many of them are involved, is a sin.
Most of that, IIRC, goes back to Aquinas, not the Bible.

In other words, if a gay-hating person masturbates, s/he's just as bad as those horrible homosexuals.
(Disclaimer: I'm no longer a Catholic.)

[slitterst.livejournal.com]

Certainly the church condemns Onansism as much as extra-marital sex and contraception.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Besides, I think many parents see Catholic schools as a way to insulate their ever-so-innocent son or daughter from the heathens in the public school system.

Exactly

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Just like one of my friends who goes to a 'christian' college says that about a third of the students there seem to want to live in this 'bubble' for the rest of their lives that will not force them to interact with people who do not have the same values they do.


*sigh* and the Catholic church really does have a large teaching problem currently. I'd say about half of those in America who identify themselves as 'Catholic' these days have the equivalent in education about their own religion as any person who left public school around grade 4-5 has in general education. Gah, that came out clumsy but I think you can get the general idea of what I mean.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that the guy in charge of the school (the catholic-ese escapes me) said that if he were to keep them from attending the school, he'd also have to prevent children of divorce, unmarried parents, and the like away too, and that he wasn't going to do that. It seems that he, at least, understands his faith in ways that the objecting parents do not.

[cellio]

I agree. The person at the school gets it; the parents don't care about consistently-applied principle but are reacting to one hot issue.