posted by Becky @ 10:53 PM
A Roman Catholic Canadian's take on faith, law and life
I'm a Roman Catholic, Canadian lawyer who recently graduated from University of Notre Dame Law School. About ten years ago I was won over by the love of Jesus Christ in His Holy, Apostolic Church. This blog is dedicated to the quest of integrating Catholicism and the legal profession. It explores the meaning of "law as a vocation" and orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. Actually, that sounds a little too noble - it's just a place to post all of my thoughts and concerns for the day, rather than sending a million links to my friends and family. Enjoy!
11 Comments:
Criminalize? Sounds like it's going a bit too far there, but then again, it's Uganda and not the US. I have ABSOLUTELY no idea about the political and social environment of Uganda, so I'm not sure if that decision fits for that country - but I don't think that sort of thing would fly in the US.
Hi Becky!
Yeah, I think it's going too far, but Uganda is also the country that banned the V-Monologues, so who knows? Can you imagine banning a play from a whole country?!?!? I guess their idea of freedom of speech is a little bit different than ours...
Hi Mike! Take some time to browse!
Note to self: "Don't visit Uganda!"
I think Uganda has more on its
plate than making laws about ankle grabbers.
Well, as the Christian Right in America has practically criminalized Homosexuality in the USA, how are we any different?
At least Uganda has taken a stance as opposed to idle rhetoric.
Homosexuality is nowhere near criminalized in the U.S., and much of the "Christian Right" wouldn't criminalize it if they had the chance.
As a pseudo-member of this so-called "Religious Right," I must say that I'm not in favor of sodomy laws any more than I would be in favor of laws criminalizing fornication in general. Both are in the realm of "virtue," not the realm of the common good.
Interesting ... well this quote is from the Christian Coalition's website:
"Christian Coalition of America condemns the Massachusetts Supreme Court's tyrannical decision to legalize homosexual "marriages" beginning on Monday in the state of Massachusetts and urges Congress to live up to its responsibilities and rein in judicial tyranny running rampant in America. Congress needs to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment this summer. In a 4-3 decision (Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Health) on November 18, 2003, led by Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, 4 left-wing judges presumed to know what the definition of marriage is for 280 million Americans. Chaos in America has been the result of their infamous decision."
Anon,
Note that this is talking about preventing same-sex "marriage," not homosexual practices. All the FMA does is prevent the government from recognizing a union and elevating it to the status of the marriage relationship. It does not criminalize relationships between homosexuals.
In any case, I was speaking about sodomy in my last comment, which is something totally different than a government endorsing a commitment as something good. Most Christians don't actually think that sodomy should be criminalized.
I think what Becky says is true, Anon. Most of Christianity/Catholicism believes that homosexual actions (not the homosexuals) are bad. I'm not sure I agree with that, but that is different than the government criminalizing homosexual acts (only the Church does... in effect).
This belief does make it difficult for homosexuality to be realized as "normal" or for homosexuals to "fit in" (especially in religious circles), but it still is pretty far from criminalizing homosexuality.
As for classifying all that as "idle rhetoric," I think I may agree. ;-)
I'm sure Becky or someone else can give you the "official" view of the Catholic Church (I think it was one of the Catechisms, right?). As for same-sex marriage - I think that's a different topic. Not recognizing same-sex marriage wouldn't really be criminalizing homosexuality - just not endorsing it as legitimate.
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