Joan Frawley Desmund at National Catholic Register interviewed Georgetown University’s Thomas Farr several days ago, with a focus on the administration’s promotion of gay rights abroad. Farr discusses the open letter, drafted and signed by Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, and Sikhs, entitled “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together,” and addresses Clinton’s recent claim that “gay rights are human rights”:
Secretary Clinton’s speech, however, suggests a much broader agenda. Although she did not say it explicitly, it seems clear that the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered] initiative will ultimately push for same-sex “marriage.” It may even encourage the criminalization of preaching against homosexual acts. Homilies by Catholic priests that reflect longstanding Catholic teaching — i.e., that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” (Catechism, 2357) — could be construed as “hate speech.” In fact, this administration has invested a great deal of energy and resources in preparing the ground work for their LGBT foreign-policy initiative. Not long after the inauguration, the State Department established an LGBT working group. Among other things, this group explored the possibility of including LGBT rights in the department’s “Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.
Read the entire interview here
January 17th, 2012 | 5:09 pm
First of all, Mrs Clinton’s remarks were prompted by the increasing persecution of gays in areas of Africa where even the families of gays can be prosecuted for “harboring” them. Gays themselves may be eligible for life imprisonment or death in Uganda, thanks to Pastor Martin Ssempa and others.
This had nothing to do with “hate speech”. Given the recent victory of Westboro Baptist Church at the Supreme Court, does anyone here really believe that the ability of pastors to get up in front of their pulpits and continue to demonize gays (call it “preaching” if you will) is going to be curtailed in any way? I sincerely doubt it.
“Catholics have every right — indeed, I would argue they have the supreme responsibility — to enter the democratic public square, contend with the secularists and others, and prevail.”
Really? So Rick Santorum is obligated to push for the criminalization of the use of non-abortifacient birth control by married Protestant couples who don’t share his narrow and rigid ideology?
If you don’t believe the Constitution allows for married couples to make this most intimate of decisions free from government intrusion, then you may as well dispense with the First Amendment, establish a Catholic autocracy and call it a day.
January 17th, 2012 | 6:44 pm
First of all, Mrs Clinton’s remarks were prompted by the increasing persecution of gays in areas of Africa where even the families of gays can be prosecuted for “harboring” them
Wish the administration were willing to do something about Christians being slaughtered abroad.
January 17th, 2012 | 6:46 pm
Although she did not say it explicitly, it seems clear that the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered] initiative will ultimately push for same-sex “marriage.” It may even encourage the criminalization of preaching against homosexual acts.
Humanism, aka Unitarian Universalism, is as aggressive as any religion around.
It can’t coexist on an equal footing with other beliefs. It must dominate, and can only “coexist” with religions that submit (or are too minor and small to be perceived as a threat).
January 17th, 2012 | 8:40 pm
Sometimes I think it would be better for the church if we were the minority again.
January 17th, 2012 | 9:30 pm
Blake writes: “Wish the administration were willing to do something about Christians being slaughtered abroad.”
Fair enough, but let’s not forget that the former President George Bush Jr (you remember … the one whose “favorite philosopher” was Jesus) had quite friendly relations with the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia, a nation known for its hostility towards Christians. “Offenders” can be arrested and publicly beaten, if not worse.
I quite clearly Bush Jr labeling the Saudis as “allies” and “moderates”, don’t you?
I’m not trying to suggest that persecution is ever warranted. I’m simply questioning why Hillary is being taken to task by you kind folks for suggesting it’s not warranted in the case of gays. Her speech (if you read it in its entirety) did imply that persecution for one’s gender or religious beliefs should already be assumed to never be warranted.
January 17th, 2012 | 9:41 pm
Blake – That’s another cause worth attention, too. I assume you’re okay with working to end violence against homosexuals, though, right?
January 18th, 2012 | 12:58 am
I’m a bit confused here. So the Roman Catholic Church (source Archbishop of Ibadan using the Catholic Church of Nigeria website) endorses the jailing of all Gays in prison for 14 years, the banning of all freedom of association, speech, petition, protest, due process, assembly, RELIGION, and expression, but they are the persecuted entity. The Catholic Church also endorses the jailing of any private religious group in Nigeria for up to 10 years for attending a private same sex marriage ceremony. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Belize also endorses throwing all Gays in that country into prison.
January 18th, 2012 | 6:26 am
It is a violation of basic human rights to assault people, imprison them or execute them for having same-sex attractions.
It is not a violation of human rights to make it illegal to engage in same-sex activity and to impose reasonable sanctions on those who do. In many parts of the developing world, this sort of activity causes serious harm, socially and medically, to the population at large.
January 18th, 2012 | 8:36 am
Felapton – Detail the “serious harm”.
January 18th, 2012 | 8:37 am
Felapton – Oh, yeah – and what are “reasonable sanctions”?
January 18th, 2012 | 11:04 pm
…initiative will ultimately push for same-sex….may even encourage the criminalization of preaching against homosexual acts…
Yawn, this is the typical intellectual bankruptcy seen here whenever the subject of homosexuality is raised. Notice how contingent this supposed ‘oppression’ is. No one is being punished for ‘hate speech’ and no state in the US, let alone country in the world, is being forced to have SSM, or even encouraged to have it by this administration. Yet since that ‘may happen’ at some fuzzy point in the future we will pretend it’s already happened.
Ohh if only this principle could be applied everywhere. I’d be able to clock Blake in the head because, hey, at some point in the future he *may* try to mug me so why can’t I use my right to self-defense now rather than later? Of course I’m not entitled to use this principle because it’s one of intellectual affirmative action, reserved for those who have failed at nearly every other argument they’ve made for their positions so now they demand special entitlement to enjoy relaxed rules of logic for their benefit.
January 19th, 2012 | 12:11 am
Blake writes: “Wish the administration were willing to do something about Christians being slaughtered abroad.”
Fair enough, but let’s not forget that the former President George Bush Jr (you remember … the one whose “favorite philosopher” was Jesus) had quite friendly relations with the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia, a nation known for its hostility towards Christians. “Offenders” can be arrested and publicly beaten, if not worse.
I didn’t like Bush, so I’m not sure what your point is.
My point was that you don’t have to push a pro-Christian agenda to argue that Christians should not be indiscriminately murdered, so I am not sure why our government needs to be telling any other nation what rules it should have regarding what sexual activity is or is not considered acceptable.
January 19th, 2012 | 10:14 am
Blake should tell us exactly what this administration is failing to do, that other administrations did, to help Christians around the world who suffer oppression either at the hand of other Christians or non-Christians.
In the meantime, we should be aware of the stink of his moral relativism and ranking of personhood here. Blake is basically saying the US gov’t shouldn’t even bother to speak out against the indiscriminate murder and abuse of gays unless first it has addressed and countered every and any act of oppression against Christians that may be happening anywhere in the world. In other words, a gay man’s life in Nigeria is not worth any effort unless every Christian around the world is not only under no danger to their life but under absolutely no oppression at all, even the most minor.
January 19th, 2012 | 10:27 am
“Notice how contingent this supposed ‘oppression’ is. No one is being punished for ‘hate speech’ and no state in the US, let alone country in the world, is being forced to have SSM, or even encouraged to have it by this administration. Ye”
In the US at least, the oppression of gays is just as dubious. Every subculture thinks itself oppressed by every other subculture because for some odd reason it is considered fashionable to be oppressed. But it is not clear that gays come off worse socially then anyone else. Every group gets exasperated by what outsiders say about them.
As for being “forbidden marriage” all that is really meant is being forbidden civil marriage. Gays are perfectly capable of swearing eternal loyalty to each other without the government. In the modern licentious culture it is not clear that anyone will care all
January 19th, 2012 | 10:31 am
Civil Marriage as it stands contains the right of oathbreaking. Do gays so much want the right to love and honor until they get tired of each other?
January 19th, 2012 | 11:31 am
Last time I checked, ‘gays’ do not get married. Nor do ‘white’, ‘men’, ‘women’, ‘French people’ or ‘people with annoying whiny voices’. Last time I checked individuals get married. So if you seriously want to know if someone is getting married because they think it’s just a transitory state of affairs until they ‘get tired’ of their spouse the only thing you can really do is ask them yourself. I know no way of saying anything about a person based on supposed demographic averages just as I have no way how seriously you consider your marriage (if you’re married) based on the flighty marriages of other people like Kim Kardashian, Hugh Hefner or Brittany Spears.
January 19th, 2012 | 8:42 pm
Last time I checked, ‘gays’ do not get married. Nor do ‘white’, ‘men’, ‘women’, ‘French people’ or ‘people with annoying whiny voices’. Last time I checked individuals get married.
Yes, but gay marriage refers to something that isn’t a real marriage, that they want referred to as if it were.
Hence the special wording.
If gays just get married – to the person they actually intend to make a family with – we don’t call that “gay marriage”, we just call it “marriage”.
January 21st, 2012 | 12:29 pm
“Yes, but gay marriage refers to something that isn’t a real marriage, that they want referred to as if it were”
No, gay marriage is like interracial marriage and interfaith marriage. It names something that other people want to deny and prevent. Gay marriage doesn’t exist only in those states and countries that force people to lie about what their relationship really is.
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