FROM POPE TO NUTS
first the sensitive, then the idiot, letter of
the week.
It is fitting, I think, that these letters should
have followed hard, one upon the other, and both appeared on a Sunday, that day
of the week best suited for displays of true compassion and false piety, when
both the selfless and the self-righteous appeal to their God, Who always knows
which is right. And just.
Let's start, last week, with Lillian Meyers of Bethel Park, who wrote a thoughtful and compassionate letter to the editor that, save for one or two asides I can not resist, speaks nicely and eloquently for itself:
Michael D. Kerlin's comments in the Dec. 30 Forum ("In Search of Peace?"), expressed my own deep concern for Pope Benedict XVI's message for World Peace Day, "The Human Family, A Community of Peace." This message emphasizing homosexuality as a major obstacle to world peace is so naive that it borders on absurdity in the face of the overwhelming issues of war, violence, poverty and enormous suffering throughout the world.
It's hard to argue with that, isn't it? I mean, even if you are morally and spiritually and incontrovertibly opposed to homosexuality, can you really bring yourself to argue that it's a major obstacle to world peace?
Mr. Kerlin says, "Most of the world's citizens will be too poor, too hungry, too surrounded by violence or too worried by this century's other basic challenges to pay attention" to what the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics has said for the faithful.
As one of those "faithful," as is Mr. Kerlin, I would like to make a strong statement of opposition for the pope's message. I am a well-educated convert to Catholicism, a mother and grandmother, with deep concern and compassion for those millions who are hungry and cold, homeless and ill. Millions face the daily struggle of just surviving. It is estimated that if you have food in a refrigerator, a roof over your head and clothes in a closet, you are richer than 75 percent of the world population!
It is most difficult to understand or accept the pope's message for World Peace Day or his lack of compassion for homosexuals, many of whom are Catholic. I have never been convinced that same-sex unions jeopardize the stability of marriage, especially when so many marriages end in divorce! And it severely taxes my intelligence to see them as obstacles to peace.
You have never been convinced that same-sex unions jeopardize the stability of marriage, Ms. Meyers, because there is neither evidence nor reason to suggest that they do -- only the prejudice of people who, whether they're Pope or nuts, loudly proclaim otherwise.
Which brings us, then, to John A. Bauer of Reserve, yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and our convoluted, homophobic, unapologeticaly idiot letter of the week:
I would like to respond to my fellow Catholic, Lillian L. Meyers of Bethel Park ("Wrong Message," Jan. 13 letters): Ms. Meyers' understanding of the church's teaching on homosexuality appears to be a simplistic mile-long but only one-inch-deep understanding.
You will have noticed, of course, that Ms. Meyers concerns herself little with the church's teaching on homosexuality and focuses instead on the rank silliness of the stance that homosexuality, whatever the church's teaching, is one of the great and true obstacles to world peace. You will also have noticed that Ms. Meyers, while taking issue with the -- yes, yes, we know: infallible -- Pope's characterization, points out the hypocrisy and lack of perspective in that stance but does not defend homosexuality itself against the Pope's condemnation. I'd like to think that she would, and yet to imply that she would, much less to suggest that she did, is impossible from the text of the letter.
Which means, in the end, that Ms. Meyers' allegedly mile-wide and inch-deep -- you know, Mr. Bauer, if you're going to traffic in clichés, you should at least get them right -- understanding is that the Pope, and everyone else who sees homosexuality as one of the great scourges of our time, ought to take another look around. As soon as heavenly -- or at least humanly -- possible.
The family unit is the basic piece of the human condition.
It will no doubt come as a shock to all of the people of the world who live alone, or whose parents and family members have died, to know that they can no longer experience the human condition. (What was it Socrates said? The solitary life is not worth living? I had no idea he was a Catholic.) It will also come as a shock to God, who created man in His own image, and now learns that He is, in fact, even less than human. And that, if He really wanted his Son to be made flesh, He should have let the Kid get married, have joyless, procreational sex, and churn out a child before the crucifixion, just to be sure He had at least experienced the basic piece of the human condition.
To distort God's plan of human physical union and intent of the two procreating, destroys the basic building block of society.
First: you will note that Mr. Bauer is certain that he understand's God's plan. You'll want to file that one away for later as well.
Next: we go from the basic piece of the human condition, which seemed pretty clear, to the basic building block of society, which does not. Is it the family? (No, it can't be; that's the basic piece.) Is it procreation? (Maybe. But then how many pieces make a block? Or, perhaps more to the point, how many blocks make a piece? Two? Three? Is the ratio of pieces to building blocks the same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns?) Is it human physical union? (I doubt it; after all, you can have physical human union with two pieces that don't create a block. You can even have physical human union with two male pieces, and we know how Mr. Bauer feels about that.)
So: let's assume that Mr. Bauer, like all zealots of his unfotunate ilk, means that homosexual sex distorts God's plan of procreational sex and in the process, destroys the family. Which takes us back to Ms. Meyers, like the rest of us, still waiting to be convinced that this claim is true. You'll pardon me, of course, if I'm especially skeptical: after all, I'm pretty sure that in the seventeen years Wendy and I have been married, at least a few people have had homosexual sex. They almost certainly enjoyed it. And there is a good chance that, even as Wendy and I were conceiving the boys, and then as Wendy was birthing the boys, some people somewhere were having homosexual sex. In fact -- and, Mr. Bauer, you may want to cover your eyes and ears -- I'll bet that, even as I type this, a few homosexuals are HAVING SEX RIGHT NOW. And yet, somehow, my family survives.
Finally: if we're basing God's plan of human physical union on how the pieces of the plumbing fit together, I would suggest that if God really had been opposed to homosexual sex, He would have made our asses a decidedly different shape. I mean, He's omniscient, isn't He? Surely he would have seen that, uh, coming. And so done something to prevent it.
You would not build a bridge with concrete that is not intended to stay together because of a fault in its basic structure.
You should not write a sentence with words that are not capable of making sense because of a fault in its basic structure.
(Speaking of faults in basic structure: are you really arguing, Mr. Bauer, that the heterosexual family unit is meant to stay together only because of the ability to insert tab A into slot B and, nine months later, produce kid C? Are you really saying that love and commitment and self-sacrifice -- you know, all of those ways that we are supposed to love each other, because that is how Jesus loved us? -- have nothing to do with it? Was God wrong again?)
The first paragraph of her letter refers to homosexuality and the last to homosexuals.
And thus shall she burn in Hell forever, I suppose.
She has, evidently, never heard of "Hate the sin, love the sinner."
Something tells me she has. Just as something tells me that an even better mantra may be "Hate the letter, fear the writer."
Her biggest mistake is to try to use human finite intelligence to understand the ways of an infinite God.
Except, of course, that Ms. Meyers was actually using her finite (but, it seems to me, considerable) intelligence to criticize the ways of a finite (and thus infinitely fallible) man. The only person I see using finite intelligence (to presume) to understand, and so to proselytize, the ways of an infinite God (as interpreted by a bunch of finite and fallible men in long robes) was Mr. Bauer himself. He was, you'll remember, quite certain that he understood God's plan enough to criticize Ms. Meyers' letter.
Oh, the irony. And the hypocrisy.
Let's start, last week, with Lillian Meyers of Bethel Park, who wrote a thoughtful and compassionate letter to the editor that, save for one or two asides I can not resist, speaks nicely and eloquently for itself:
Michael D. Kerlin's comments in the Dec. 30 Forum ("In Search of Peace?"), expressed my own deep concern for Pope Benedict XVI's message for World Peace Day, "The Human Family, A Community of Peace." This message emphasizing homosexuality as a major obstacle to world peace is so naive that it borders on absurdity in the face of the overwhelming issues of war, violence, poverty and enormous suffering throughout the world.
It's hard to argue with that, isn't it? I mean, even if you are morally and spiritually and incontrovertibly opposed to homosexuality, can you really bring yourself to argue that it's a major obstacle to world peace?
Mr. Kerlin says, "Most of the world's citizens will be too poor, too hungry, too surrounded by violence or too worried by this century's other basic challenges to pay attention" to what the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics has said for the faithful.
As one of those "faithful," as is Mr. Kerlin, I would like to make a strong statement of opposition for the pope's message. I am a well-educated convert to Catholicism, a mother and grandmother, with deep concern and compassion for those millions who are hungry and cold, homeless and ill. Millions face the daily struggle of just surviving. It is estimated that if you have food in a refrigerator, a roof over your head and clothes in a closet, you are richer than 75 percent of the world population!
It is most difficult to understand or accept the pope's message for World Peace Day or his lack of compassion for homosexuals, many of whom are Catholic. I have never been convinced that same-sex unions jeopardize the stability of marriage, especially when so many marriages end in divorce! And it severely taxes my intelligence to see them as obstacles to peace.
You have never been convinced that same-sex unions jeopardize the stability of marriage, Ms. Meyers, because there is neither evidence nor reason to suggest that they do -- only the prejudice of people who, whether they're Pope or nuts, loudly proclaim otherwise.
Which brings us, then, to John A. Bauer of Reserve, yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and our convoluted, homophobic, unapologeticaly idiot letter of the week:
I would like to respond to my fellow Catholic, Lillian L. Meyers of Bethel Park ("Wrong Message," Jan. 13 letters): Ms. Meyers' understanding of the church's teaching on homosexuality appears to be a simplistic mile-long but only one-inch-deep understanding.
You will have noticed, of course, that Ms. Meyers concerns herself little with the church's teaching on homosexuality and focuses instead on the rank silliness of the stance that homosexuality, whatever the church's teaching, is one of the great and true obstacles to world peace. You will also have noticed that Ms. Meyers, while taking issue with the -- yes, yes, we know: infallible -- Pope's characterization, points out the hypocrisy and lack of perspective in that stance but does not defend homosexuality itself against the Pope's condemnation. I'd like to think that she would, and yet to imply that she would, much less to suggest that she did, is impossible from the text of the letter.
Which means, in the end, that Ms. Meyers' allegedly mile-wide and inch-deep -- you know, Mr. Bauer, if you're going to traffic in clichés, you should at least get them right -- understanding is that the Pope, and everyone else who sees homosexuality as one of the great scourges of our time, ought to take another look around. As soon as heavenly -- or at least humanly -- possible.
The family unit is the basic piece of the human condition.
It will no doubt come as a shock to all of the people of the world who live alone, or whose parents and family members have died, to know that they can no longer experience the human condition. (What was it Socrates said? The solitary life is not worth living? I had no idea he was a Catholic.) It will also come as a shock to God, who created man in His own image, and now learns that He is, in fact, even less than human. And that, if He really wanted his Son to be made flesh, He should have let the Kid get married, have joyless, procreational sex, and churn out a child before the crucifixion, just to be sure He had at least experienced the basic piece of the human condition.
To distort God's plan of human physical union and intent of the two procreating, destroys the basic building block of society.
First: you will note that Mr. Bauer is certain that he understand's God's plan. You'll want to file that one away for later as well.
Next: we go from the basic piece of the human condition, which seemed pretty clear, to the basic building block of society, which does not. Is it the family? (No, it can't be; that's the basic piece.) Is it procreation? (Maybe. But then how many pieces make a block? Or, perhaps more to the point, how many blocks make a piece? Two? Three? Is the ratio of pieces to building blocks the same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns?) Is it human physical union? (I doubt it; after all, you can have physical human union with two pieces that don't create a block. You can even have physical human union with two male pieces, and we know how Mr. Bauer feels about that.)
So: let's assume that Mr. Bauer, like all zealots of his unfotunate ilk, means that homosexual sex distorts God's plan of procreational sex and in the process, destroys the family. Which takes us back to Ms. Meyers, like the rest of us, still waiting to be convinced that this claim is true. You'll pardon me, of course, if I'm especially skeptical: after all, I'm pretty sure that in the seventeen years Wendy and I have been married, at least a few people have had homosexual sex. They almost certainly enjoyed it. And there is a good chance that, even as Wendy and I were conceiving the boys, and then as Wendy was birthing the boys, some people somewhere were having homosexual sex. In fact -- and, Mr. Bauer, you may want to cover your eyes and ears -- I'll bet that, even as I type this, a few homosexuals are HAVING SEX RIGHT NOW. And yet, somehow, my family survives.
Finally: if we're basing God's plan of human physical union on how the pieces of the plumbing fit together, I would suggest that if God really had been opposed to homosexual sex, He would have made our asses a decidedly different shape. I mean, He's omniscient, isn't He? Surely he would have seen that, uh, coming. And so done something to prevent it.
You would not build a bridge with concrete that is not intended to stay together because of a fault in its basic structure.
You should not write a sentence with words that are not capable of making sense because of a fault in its basic structure.
(Speaking of faults in basic structure: are you really arguing, Mr. Bauer, that the heterosexual family unit is meant to stay together only because of the ability to insert tab A into slot B and, nine months later, produce kid C? Are you really saying that love and commitment and self-sacrifice -- you know, all of those ways that we are supposed to love each other, because that is how Jesus loved us? -- have nothing to do with it? Was God wrong again?)
The first paragraph of her letter refers to homosexuality and the last to homosexuals.
And thus shall she burn in Hell forever, I suppose.
She has, evidently, never heard of "Hate the sin, love the sinner."
Something tells me she has. Just as something tells me that an even better mantra may be "Hate the letter, fear the writer."
Her biggest mistake is to try to use human finite intelligence to understand the ways of an infinite God.
Except, of course, that Ms. Meyers was actually using her finite (but, it seems to me, considerable) intelligence to criticize the ways of a finite (and thus infinitely fallible) man. The only person I see using finite intelligence (to presume) to understand, and so to proselytize, the ways of an infinite God (as interpreted by a bunch of finite and fallible men in long robes) was Mr. Bauer himself. He was, you'll remember, quite certain that he understood God's plan enough to criticize Ms. Meyers' letter.
Oh, the irony. And the hypocrisy.
Posted: Mon - January 21, 2008 at 10:15 AM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM