Catholics, Protestants, Hispanics and Gays

First I wish to cover some poll numbers that are not surprising. Next I will follow with how a major Religious Right leader takes those numbers and makes an incredibly silly statement because of it, even by fundamentalist standards.

A survey of Californians was taken which showed that the Latino community was divided on the topic of marriage equality, with a small plurality of Latinos being supportive. But, it was found that Catholic Latinos were far more supportive of marriage rights than were Protestant Latinos. Among Catholics, 57% said they supported marriage equality while only 22% of Latino Protestants held that view.

I suspect the reason for this stark divide is that Latino Protestants tend to be fundamentalists, often Pentecostals. It is fundamentalist Protestantism that has most strongly infiltrated the Hispanic community. Non-fundamentalist Protestants tend to be Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, both extremely antigay religions. According to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, 85% of Latino Protestants are members of fundamentalist sects.

That Hispanic Catholics tend to be supportive of marriage rights for everyone upsets the Religious Right loon Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association. (Note that fundamentalists use "family" much the way the Klan uses "race," as code for hate.) Fisher notes that a Baptist leader, Richard Land, has said he wants a way for immigrants (without permission slips) to become citizens.

Is this Southern Baptist mellowing and recognizing the common humanity of others as the source of all rights? No, not at all. His reasoning is that Hispanic values are conservative.

"Hispanics are hard-wired to be like us on sanctity of life, marriage and issues of faith," Land told CNN recently, describing political similarities between Hispanics and white Southern Baptists. "I'm concerned about being perceived as being unwelcoming to them."

Fischer says that Land thinks Hispanics "will be the natural allies of the conservative movement." In other words, Land isn't concerned about the rights of these people, just hoping to enlist them in a movement to deny other people rights and as a way of imposing "biblical" values on the country through coercive government.

But Fischer is aware of the polls showing Catholic Latinos are supportive of the rights of gay people while Protestant Latinos are the only safe enclave of bigotry that conservatives can count upon. So Fischer suggests that "perhaps Dr. Land can be persuaded to amend his recommendation and give preference to Protestant illegal aliens." But Fischer says that illegitimacy rates may show that Hispanic "pro-family values" are not "as strong... as Dr. Land wants to believe."

The idea that only Protestant immigrants should be given a path to citizenship is astounding if you think about it but consistent with the historic values of American fundamentalism. It is no accident that the virulently anti-immigration Ku Klux Klan was heavily fundamentalist in religious make up. If there has been one trend among fundamentalists over the last century is their unique ability to always hate some identifiable group. Over the years different groups have jockeyed for their attention and often the emphasis has changed but favorite targets of organized hate campaigns have been blacks, Jews, immigrants, Mexican immigrants in particular, gays, Catholics, "liberals," and feminists.

The error that Fischer and his fellow fundies make is that they equate "pro-family" with a fundamentalist morality system. Prof. Joseph Palacios, of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University said that the pro-family attitudes of Latino Catholics is precisely the reason so many support rights for gay people.

Latino Catholics orient their social lives around the family and extended family even in the context of high Latino single-parent households (estimated 33% of all U.S. Latino households; 36% of all Latino Children in California live in single-parent households). Family solidarity is strong and even though children may not follow "traditional family values" as projected by the church and the U.S. society, parents want to keep their children within the family. It is not surprising that Catholics in general and Latino Catholics in particular, as the Public Religion Research study shows, see that parents learn about gay issues from their children. Their moral and ethical judgments are primarily made through this social reality rather than abstract pronouncements from their church leaders.

While the Vatican wouldn't approve, these Catholics see marriage as a way of binding families and they want their gay relatives bound to the family as much as their straight relatives. In truth marriage equality is the pro-family position. It is fundamentalism that pushes people to reject family members and splinter families in the name of morality. Parents in fundamentalist sects are encourage to reject and cast out family members for a variety of sins including being Catholic.

One of the great ironies of modern politics is that the pro-family movement is made up of sects that are inherently anti-family. Fundamentalism puts adherence to the faith ahead of family unity. The "you're no son of mine" mentality is rampant in such circles. Daughters who get pregnant are often pushed out to fend on their own, sons who are gay are rejected and told to leave the family. Over and over high profile fundamentalists have rejected their own children because of their perceived moral shortcomings.

Fundamentalism is not pro-family at all. It is a force that rips families apart. Latino Catholics don't necessarily follow the fundamentalist moral code but they do embrace their families. And their families include homosexuals. One indication is that Catholics are more likely to listen to the views of family members regarding this issue than are fundamentalists, who are more likely to take their views from a church leader. The family, especially for Latino Catholics tends to be source for moral values, while for Protestant Latinos (read fundamentalists for the most part) tend to take religious dogma over family.

Prof. Palacios also has an observation that is of interest to my readers in particular.

It is important to note that modern Latin Catholicism has a dual nature: it is "conservative" in the sense of family communalism and tradition that the church offers, yet it is classically "liberal" in the sense of not wanting the Catholic Church to have power in political life-- particularly after the long historical experience of the Latin American Church "meddling in politics." As Mexicans put it: "No meta en la política." A sizeable majority of U.S. Latino Catholics shares these attitudes with them. Increasingly they are joining their Latin counterparts in accepting gays and lesbians as part of the social family that is both Catholic and liberal.

This is a simple truth that fundamentalists have trouble understanding. One can be supportive of basic moral values without wanting to a church/state alliance forcing people to be moral. One can be personally conservative and classically liberal politically. Just because a moral principle is a good one to follow doesn't mean that it must be imposed at the point of the gun.

Note: For the record, Argentina has now legalized gay marriage, joining Spain and Portugal and parts of Mexico, with Uruguay next most likely to include gays in marriage laws. The photo is from Argentina.

Is Catholicism a Force for Good: A debate

This is an interesting debate and I will leave comments to a minimum. First, Catholic Archbishop john Onaiyekan pretty much ignores the topic under discussion. Next Christopher Hitchens rips into Catholicism and rips into it well and good. Next a Right-wing, exMP, Ann Widdecombe, comes on to try to defend Catholicism. I must confess she has the most grating, irritating voice I've heard in a long time. This woman could torture kittens merely by speaking. She pretty much ignores what Hitchens noted and points to minor incidents contrary to what Hitchens said. So while Hitchens speaks of centuries of church approved anti-Semitism, which helped create the Holocaust, Widdecombe ignores the millions killed and mentions a few thousand who Catholics helped saved. Fine, but add up the numbers. Widdecombe pretends that the attacks on children, by priests of her faith, were ignored by everyone. Not so. In fact when these cases were being investigated the Catholic church actually tried to hide the rapists and protect them from those attempting to stop the rapes. Finally, Stephen Fry makes his case in defense of the Enlightenment and in opposition to theology and he doesn't leave the Catholics much weasel room either. I'm biased but the quality of the debate was clearly on just one side. Enjoy it. The Catholic church deserves the debate. This is about one hour, five videos.

The audience was polled in advance and 678 people said the church was a force for good, prior to the debate while 1102 said it was not a force for good and 346 were undecided. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought Hitchens and Fry mopped up the floor with the Catholic apologists. The vote afterwards was 1862 against the motion and 268 in favor. About two-thirds of those defending Catholicism abandoned that defense. For the record my grandmother, to whom I was very close, was a devout Catholic. So I'm not against Catholics per se, but very much opposed to Catholicism and the Church.

How deep is their hate.

My experience, as a former Christian, is that no one can hate another person so thoroughly and nastily as a committed Christian. I am not saying that every Christian is that way, just that I'd be hard pressed to find anyone as hateful in the United States, who doesn't considered himself or herself to be a strong Christian. I am fairly confident that any survey asking people to rate their level of religiousity would show that as they became more fervent in their faith they also became more intolerant and bigoted.

Consider the actions of Catholics of late, by which I mean committed Catholics. Most American Catholics are not "committed" and are pretty decent people. The more in-tune with the church they are the less pleasant they are. We saw the Catholic sect pouring millions into Maine to take away marriage rights for gay couples there. Almost all the funds, to destroy marriage equality in Maine, came from outside the state and much of it was clearly handed over by the Catholic Church. I don't mean members of the church, but the church itself. Personally I think they should lose their tax exemption if they are going to pour millions into political campaigns. Other political bodies don't have the tax exemption that they have and they consume vast amounts of government resources.

Two recent incidents show the depth of hatred that strong Catholics are capable of feeling toward gay people.

Let us start with the Republican Governor of Rhode Island, Don Carcieri, a rather rabid Catholic. The state legislature passed a law to allow the surviving partner of a gay person the right to plan their partner's funeral. That is the entire piece of legislation—letting a gay person plan the funeral for the person he/she loved, who has died. Carcieri vetoed that legislation. His view is that gay people in relationships should NOT have the right to plan their partner's funeral.

Carcieri said that allowing this is part of a "disturbing trend" and that the voters of the state should have the right to make the decision. Understand what he is saying: if a same-sex couple have been together for decades, and one partner dies, the other partner is to be excluded by law from being able to plan the funeral simply because Catholic Carcieri thinks God hates homosexuals.

The law was passed when a gay man was unable to legally claim the body of his deceased partner. The body remained in state custody for weeks instead. These people hate gays so much that they won't let a gay man or woman plan their partner's funeral. The governor's veto will probably be overridden by the state legislature, thankfully. Exactly why should the right to plan a funeral for one's partner be determined by majority vote?

And for those conservatives pretending to be libertarians, who say this matter can be "privately" decided by contract, that simply was not the case. When Mark Goldberg tried to claim the body of his partner of 17 years so he could be cremated, according to his wishes, he was denied that right. "Gold said he tried to show the police and state medical examiner's office 'our wills, living wills, power of attorney and marriage certificate' from Connecticut, but 'no one was willing to see these documents." He was only allowed to handle the arrangements after several weeks and then after the state placed an ad in the paper seeking "next of kin" of the deceased, It took over a month's worth of bureaucratic fighting before he allowed to have the funeral for his partner. Imagine being forced to fight for a month just to have a funeral for your partner.

It is a fraud when these people say that they only want to "reserve" marriage to straight couples and do not wish to deny gay couples other rights. They wish to deny all rights to gays for the same reason the Nazis wanted to deny all rights to Jews. (Hating Jews was another thing the Catholic Church did so extremely well for centuries.)

Historically the Catholic Church has no right to preach about morality, having justified repressive regimes like Franco and Hitler, and having engaged in such monstrous practices as the Inquisition and the execution of heretics, "witches," and dissenters. Denied the power to actually kill people in recent decades the church instead has worked hard to help cover up for the bevy of child rapists that fill their priesthood. Of course, to divert attention from their own utterly corrupt and immoral view of the world they have focused on such "moral" issues as forbidden condoms to stop the spread of AIDS, and legislatively bashing gays.

Another example comes from Catholic Bishop Janusz Kaleta who has something to do with tourism for a city in Kazakhstan. The Bishop was asked about groups of gay tourists and their visits to the city and to the local churches. After saying it was important to encourage people from "all" walks of life to visit he explicitly indicated that gay people should not be included in any tours. He said, "such demonstrations are just not ethical." The person who was speaking to the Bishop, Juergen Steinmetz, assumed the Bishop misunderstood. He claified that these tourists were not conducting "demostrations" they were simple visitors to the city who wanted to see the sights. The Bishop replied that just being gay itself is a "provocation" to the church and an insult to the Vatican.

The Bishop said: "I consider if someone is homosexual, it is a provocation and an abuse of this place. Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim. It is an abuse of our building and an abuse of this place." Strange he is worried about "abuse" that exists merely from the presence of a gay person after the church has done so much to cover up real abuse of children by their own clergy.

This is how deeply the antigay hatred of the religionists goes. One Bishop of the church says that even gay people as tourists is offensive while an antigay Catholic, Republican Governor says that gay people shouldn't be allowed to plan their partner's burial without a public vote approving it.

No person's right should be subjected to majority approval. If Catholicism needed the approval of the majority to open a church, in the American South, it would never have opened a church. The rights of black people should be subjected to the votes of white majorities. The rights of Mormons should not be subjected to the vote of a Christian majority. Majorities simply ought not have the power to approve whether minorities are allowed equal rights before the law. The very idea that it should be this way is inherently authoritarian.

I find it particularly odd, or perhaps telling, that the two sects most vitriolic in their hatred of gays, the Mormons and the Catholics, have their own sexual secrets that they want so much to hide. The first was founded by anti-monogamy activists who had dozens of wives and the second group has actively worked to hide child rapists from the consequence of their actions. I suggest they are so vitriolic because they have such pasts, not in spite of them.

Theologians shouldn't tresspass on economics.

If an economist used his position to pontificate on theology the world would laugh. But when a theologian uses his credentials, in an imaginary field, to lecture on economics we are expected to pay attention.

As this blogger sees things the one institution that has no right anymore to lecture on morality is the Roman Catholic establishment. But the Vatican has been sticking its nose into the affairs of the world for centuries and won’t stop now. Consider some of the uninformed statements made by the current Vatican leader, Joseph Ratzinger, who uses the name Benedict when pretending to speak for God.

In a new encyclical on economics Ratzinger continues the Catholic tradition of opposing depoliticized, free markets. Like his predecessors he misstates what depoliticized markets are. He writes that “profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end” but if profit “is produced... without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

Ratzinger has been concerned with imaginary “truth” for so long that he doesn’t understand how this world works or why. Profit is a motivating factor. Each of us acts to promote our self interest—even the Catholic hierarchy. That motivation can lead to good and to bad but seeking “the common good” is more likely to lead to bad results than good. Let me explain something that the Vatican, always besotted with power, has never understood.

When profit-making is politicized it leads to bad results. When profit-making is depoliticized it leads to good results. First, consider the depoliticized market. A depoliticized market is one where individual entrepreneurs are unable to impose their will on unwilling consumers. To a large extent the local grocery store is a depoliticized market (though even here politics can distort things). This store must entice you to buy there because it has no ability to force you to purchase there.

The result is that they have to make an effort to serve your good if they wish to make a profit. Because they lack the ability to use force they need your voluntary co-operation in order to make a profit. Like them, you too are looking out for your own self-interest. You will trade with them provided you believe that you are better off making this exchange than any other trade you might make. Your decision, like theirs, is based entirely on your self-interest.

You are not attempting to increase their profits. If they profit, or not, is of no concern to you. You are merely making an exchange that you believe will benefit yourself. Similarly the store is doing the same thing. By seeking their own self-interest both are acting in ways that makes the other better off. Yet neither is seeking to improve the life of the other.

The danger comes in when concepts like the “common good” are allowed to dominate. This concept is used to politicize the market. The argument is that an unregulated market is not one where the common good dominates so individuals act in bad ways. But how? Without the ability to force other traders into unwilling exchanges there is no ability to create exchanges where one party loses.

The only way to systematically destroy the mutual benefits of free exchange is to politicize the market. Politicization means that the state will forcibly intervene into the exchanges. But what can government intervention accomplish?

It might require two individuals to exchange, who would have done so anyway. But since they would have exchanged without the intervention then government has, in fact, accomplished nothing.

It might force an exchange where neither of the parties would have made the exchange. Why didn’t they make the exchange voluntarily, in this case? The answer is: because each considered the exchange a net loss. Intervention here makes each trader worse off, not better off.

What the advocates of politicized markets really want is to force exchanges where one partner benefits and the other one loses. Ratzinger, totally ignorant of economics, believes that the political classes will use state power to force exchanges that benefit the poor and powerless. The Vatican, one of the wealthiest institutions in the world, is quite willing to use the wealth of other people to “benefit” the poor but rather unwilling to use their own wealth in that manner. They are willing to use funds donated from their members for such things but the vast holdings of the Vatican itself are not sacrificed for the “good” of the poor.

Politicized markets attract predatory individuals who use state power for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their favored friends or supporters. The poor and powerless never control the politicized power structures no matter what Ratzinger or Marx or anyone else may think. Power attracts the powerful, not the powerless. Concentrated political power, established under the pretence of the “common good” always ends up in the hands of private interests. More importantly these private interests are able to impose exchanges on individuals that they otherwise would not make.

The reality is that politicized markets can never serve the common good since they can only impose exchanges which are not wanted, not exchanges that are wanted.

What Ratzinger wants is political control over markets. He fantasizes that political power will be used according to the values he espouses. In truth, that power will be used in ways quite different from what he wants.

Ratzinger wants a state system of redistribution of wealth. How ignorant can this man be? When power is in the hands of the powerful there is real wealth redistribution. But it comes at the expense of the poor and the powerless. One of the great myths of redistributive state is that it redistributes wealth toward the needy. While there may be some show-programs which appear to help the poor and powerless, for the most part redistribution will go up the economic ladder not down.

Ratzinger continues what has been church tradition for centuries: opposition to depoliticized markets and a belief in centralized control of markets based on Catholic teaching. The Vatican has never been happy promoting their own morality on matters such as sex or economics. What they have always yearned for, and still yearn for, is for state power to coercively force Catholic moral values on others. Ratzinger wants the forced redistribution of wealth, not charity. The Vatican has consistently been unable to envision their moral agenda without the use of state power. This sort of fascistic tendency is not one the Vatican is about to give up, no matter what some “libertarian” apologists for Catholicism say.