Posted on 04/25/2002 10:00:49 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Get It Straight
The hypocrisy of blaming gays for sexual abuse by priests.
By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, April 24, 2002, at 2:01 PM PT
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The one thing everybody knows about the Roman Catholic Church is that you're supposed to confess your sins. Everybody, that is, except the church's leaders. First they failed to come clean about sexual abuse by priests. Then they failed to come clean about having covered up the abuse. Every time they assured the public that nothing else would come out, something else came out.
Now the bishops, the cardinals, and conservative interest groups have a new story. The problem, they say, is homosexuality. If the church gets rid of gay priests, everything will be fine. But the more questions you ask about this story, the more contradictions you find. The cardinals' problem isn't that they can't keep the priesthood straight. The problem is that once again, they can't keep their story straight. Here are four key points on which their new alibi doesn't add up.
1. Profiling. The Family Research Council, the Traditional Values Coalition, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Roman Catholic Faithful, and numerous priests and bishops suggest that the church should weed out gay priests because a disproportionate share of sexual abuse cases involving priests are male-on-male. Credible reports say 90 percent of the victims are boys. Conservatives don't care that most gay priests don't molest kids. Their view is that it's fair to presume that an individual is dangerous if he's part of a high-risk group.
Unless, of course, we're talking about priests as a whole. In that case, conservatives point out the unfairness of judging the group on the basis of a few bad apples. Consider the FRC's April 5 statement, "Media Hides Homosexuality Connection in Sex Abuse Scandal." According to the FRC, the "connection" is that "most cases" of abuse by priests are male-on-male. The standard for blaming a crime on a group, in other words, is what percentage of the crime is committed by the group. But in the same statement, FRC scolds the media for besmirching the Catholic clergy, when in fact the abusers are "a very small number of priests." Suddenly, FRC's standard for blaming a crime on a group isn't what percentage of the crime is committed by the group—that would be inconvenient, since 100 percent of sex abuse by priests is committed by priests—but what percentage of the group commits the crime.
How do gays measure up to that standard? What percentage of gay priests have sexually abused children? The FRC doesn't say. Why not? Well, according to last Friday's New York Times, there are 46,000 Catholic priests in the United States; 30 percent to 50 percent of Catholic seminarians are gay; and lawyers for victims "claim to have lists of more than 1,000 priests accused of abuse in the United States." If you assume the worst—that only 30 percent of priests are gay, that 2,000 priests will end up accused, and that all the accused priests are guilty, gay, and current rather than former priests—fewer than 15 percent of gay priests have committed sexual abuse. If the 2,000 cases are spread over a period of 80 percent turnover in the priesthood, or if the number of guilty priests is more like 1,100, or if the percentage of priests who are gay is more like 50 percent, then only about 8 percent of gay priests have committed sexual abuse. According to the Catholic League, that's the rate of pedophilia "in the general adult population."
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If you want to use profiling to weed out pedophiles, there's a far more effective way. One hundred percent of sexual abuse by priests is committed by men. So is nearly all sexual abuse of children. While it's hard to tell who's gay, it's easy to tell who's male. The ideal solution would be to ban men from the priesthood. The modest alternative would be to admit women. If conservatives were serious about protecting kids, they'd begin with that step. Instead, they've rejected it.
2. Deviance. When pedophiles such as the notorious Rev. Paul Shanley dissent from the Catholic hierarchy, conservatives dismiss them as twisted heretics. When these same pedophiles dissent from gay rights groups, conservatives infer that the pedophiles, not the gay rights groups, represent gay thinking. Connie Marshner, the director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Governance, argues that sexual liberalism has infected Catholicism and that the church must return to its roots. Meanwhile, she quotes a "pederast theoretician" who recently denounced the gay rights movement for preaching "assimilation" and trying to "demonize cross-generational love." So the gay rights movement, like the Catholic Church, rejects pederasty, right? Well, no. According to Marshner, the church's rejection is genuine, while the movement's rejection is tactical.
3. Alternate causality. According to conservatives, sexual abuse by priests can't be blamed on celibacy, since many clergymen who molest minors are married. "The best evidence suggests that the rate of priest pedophilia is about the same as found among the clergy of other religions," Catholic League President Bill Donohue pointed out four weeks ago. "Indeed, the Anglican dioceses in British Columbia are going bankrupt because so many ministers can't keep their hands to themselves. And these men are married." Donohue's logic sounds pretty solid: Some sexual abusers in the clergy are married; married clergymen aren't subject to the celibacy rule; therefore, some sexual abusers in the clergy aren't subject to the celibacy rule; therefore, sexual abuse in the clergy can't be blamed on the celibacy rule.
Let's try the same logic on homosexuality. Some sexual abusers in the clergy are married; married clergymen generally aren't gay; therefore, some sexual abusers in the clergy aren't gay; therefore, sexual abuse in the clergy can't be blamed on homosexuality—right? Uh, not exactly. "It is intellectually outrageous and deceitful to pretend that we don't know what's going on here," Donohue said on Fox News this week. "Too many sexually active gays have been in the priesthood, and it's about time they were routed out."
4. Gray area. The old school of sexuality held that deviance was continuous: Stray from the path of righteousness, and pretty soon you'll be lying with other men, children, and dogs. The new school separates these practices into distinct orientations or disorders. The old school had coherence; the new school has cachet. The gay-blamers can't figure out which way to go. If they say homosexuality is distinct from pedophilia, they can't blame the latter on the former. On the other hand, if they say homosexuality is just one manifestation of waywardness, they can't assure the public that getting rid of the former will get rid of the latter.
The result is precisely the kind of moral confusion conservatives claim to oppose. To project coherence, they attribute abuse by priests to "sexual anarchy" and "moral chaos." At the same time, to make the blame-gays theory look scientific, they draw convenient distinctions. According to Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Lou Sheldon, "To describe these priests as 'pedophiles' is clearly inaccurate—unless their victims are under the age of 13. The truth is that these are homosexuals who are engaging in pederasty or so-called consensual 'boy-love.' " Similarly, Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit said this week that "the behavioral scientists are telling us, the sociologists, it's not truly a pedophilia-type problem but a homosexual problem."
Maida, Sheldon, and other clerics and activists think they're safeguarding morality. But by describing a sexual relationship with a child between the ages of 13 and 17, unlike sex with a younger child, as a matter of hetero- or homosexual orientation, they are, in a strange way, normalizing such relationships. They're framing sex with teen-agers more like sex with adults and less like sex with children. They still believe it's wrong, but they're undermining the basis of that belief. And by insisting that the church has a gay problem, not a pedophile problem, they're letting pedophiles off the hook.
They're also letting men who have sex with teen-age girls off the hook. Last Sunday, National Review editor Rich Lowry said of priestly abuse, "A lot of these cases don't involve the molestation of little boys, pedophilia. [They] involve having sex with teen-age boys, which is more sort of homosexual behavior. … I'm not justifying it. It's just not something heterosexual men do." Yesterday, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago added that the church should allow "wiggle room" in punishing abusive priests. "There is a difference between a moral monster like [homosexual molester Father John] Geoghan, who preys upon little children, and does so in a serial fashion, and someone who perhaps under the influence of alcohol engages in an action with a 17- or 16-year-old young woman who returns his affection," said George.
"Not something heterosexual men do"? "Wiggle room" for sex with a 16-year-old "young woman"? Look who's liberal now.
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
No, it takes much more than consent on the part of the murdered, if you'd bother to check. The state sets all manner of legal hurdles in front of you before you're allowed to kill someone who consents to be killed.
Yet another case of the state's intrusion into our lives, huh? ;-)
I believe they are the only ones that do really well potted.
So they kill other plants to smoke them? Sounds like herbicide to me . . .
Sure they do...it's www.wanderer.com
People who attempt to apply moral relativism to sexual morality or use bizarre hypotheticals and flawed logic to support the perversion of homosexuality. I call them "pro-homo cheerleaders." Please note that many folks claiming to be heterosexual are rabid pro-homo cheerleaders.
So what is your point here? Being right-handed is also the biological norm, are all left-handed people deviant?
Left-handedness is a deviation from the norm, yes. It is a big one considering their numbers. You guys always go to this one as well. Left handedness is morally neutral and has nothing to do with moral behavior.
Should we go back to persecuting left-handed people like the Catholic church did in the not far distant past?
Never heard of such a thing. But it doesn't matter since left-handedness is morally neutral.
Einstein's IQ puts him way outside the "norm", is that deviant and bad?
A deviation from the norm, yes, but there isn't anything bad or immoral about it.
I notice that you seem to confuse the instance of someone's birth, for which no one should be punished, and their behavior. How very odd.
If that was true then the Catholic church wouldn't have this problem. Who would belong to a church that is "hateful"?
Consider the liberal media's attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church, now that's hatred. People belong to the Church because it teaches the truth, particularly about the sin of homosexuality. And such truths just really tick off the wicked!
[look up] phobia in the dictionary some time.
"Phobia" means fear. "Homo-" means self or same. "Homophobia" means fear of yourself or similar things/people.
If you want to describe the natural disgust that normal people have for sexual perverts, I would suggest calling them "Normal."
Then how to you account for the fact that homosexuality has occurred throughout history, in every known culture?
Evil has occurred throughout history and will never be vanquished (not by us, anyway). That's no reason to accept evil, is it? Nor is it an argument to condone the perversion of homosexuality
People have grown up attracted to the same sex without even knowing that there was such a thing as homosexuality. How did they "learn" this behaviour?
There are a variety of reasons why this may have happened, including many types of psychological trauma. However, this doesn't even describe the majority of homosexuals.
Do you have any evidence for this or is it just opinion? I believe that our sexual orientation is primarily biological, you believe it to be learned. Until we get more evidence can't we just agree to disagree?
Actually, I want to see some evidence, any evidence that can withstand peer review actually, that suggests there is a biological determinant for homosexuality.
However, we do have hundreds, even thousands, of examples of people who chose to leave the homosexual lifestyle behind. The homo agenda is doing everything it can to shout those people down but the truth will prevail!.
Not that I ever thought there would be any logic in this post, but he blew it right here. Gays are already sexually deviant. It is reasonable to profile the admittedly sexually deviant as being - well - sexually deviant.
At least, it makes sense to me. If he wants to claim that claiming gays are deviant is like claiming priests are clergy, he'd have a logically consistant statement.
Shalom.
Yet another case of the state's intrusion into our lives, huh?
Most of the hurdles are based on proving mental competence, or so I've read. I'm Catholic, so suicide is a choice I could never make for myself. That said, if someone else chooses to do so I'm content to let them be judged on "the other side". The State has no basis for dictating to terminally ill patients how long they must suffer.
The Scouts are catching a lot of flak, but their leaders are not being accused of abusing the boys.
Rome, make a note!
Shalom.
Maybe an American state doesn't, but a Catholic one certainly does. Being pro-life is from conception to natural death.
SD
I've come to believe that celibacy has created a situation where these men become sex-obsessed, like teen-agers.
I am going to present two sets of sins, one "a", and one "b". Read both sets carefully, before proceeding to the bottom of this post. I will explicitly explain the difference between the two sortly. Here we go...
(For those of you who are "secular humanists," or don't believe in the concept of "sin," you might as well pass over this post now. I can promise you that the concepts contained within will not make sense from your perspective.)
a. For a man to look at a woman lustfully is sin.
b. For a man to look at a man lustfully is sin.
I don't think there has been any argument about either of these scenarios.
b. For a man to sleep with a man (a man cannot be another man's "WIFE") is sin. ("sodomy" in your Bibles)
Once again, I'm not seeing too much argument here, thought there is some.
b. For this man to ask for forgiveness for his sins, he must first accept that what he has done is sinful. He must also honestly and truly ask for forgiveness from his sins, with the same expectation that he will cease and desist his sinful behavior (as this is what "repentance" is all about). The same consequences (STD's, AIDS, death) might still apply, but he will be comforted in knowing his salvation is secured.
The difference between these two scenarios, according to your typical homosexual activist, is that the man in scenario "a" is expected to repent and ask forgiveness for his sinful behavior, while the man in scenario "b" is frequently told to BE PROUD and CELEBRATE his sin (depravity), which, he is told, is just a result of (insert result here).
There was never any question that humans are all sinful, to a true Christian. To argue otherwise is clearly not the point. The Christian perspective on this issue requires that we look at sin fairly (which we do), and that we expect to see true repentance of sins in a true Christian. THIS is why the arguments brought forth by homosexual activists who claim to be Christians is morally repugnant.
Where do you stand in relation to this hypothetical?
:) ttt
Gay people are entitled to live the lives they want, just not at the expense of everyone else who isn't gay. I don't care what they do, I don't care where they go, and frankly their lifestyle doesn't impact me... Much. You see, Gays seem to have a lot of sway with government, media, and education. There shouldn't be special treatment of gays, or their agenda. Gay people are NOT born gay. There is no genetic difference in gay people, and straight people. Gay people shouldn't receive any better treatment, or be given any more voice in government or education than the average straight person. However, they seem to have a lot more influence than me, or anyone else who is straight.
Getting rid of gay priests, by God's law, and all others who aren't worthy to lead, is religiously correct. You can't question God, and expect to get the answers you always want.
I'm not a biblical scholar, but in the name of tolerance we've allowed things that should have never been. A pedophilic gay priest is the ultimate betrayal in the eyes of God, and it should be the ultimate betrayal in the eyes of the Catholic Church. They also tolerate too much. Catholics should hide themselves in shame until this cancer is cured.
Nothing a little prison can't fix.
Then of course you don't mind incest, bestiality and pedophilia, right?
There is only one “orientation,” the rest is pathology.
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