LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

They'd have excellent chemistry.

No, no, no. The Beast goes with Quasimodo.

edited 1st Jan '13 4:31:02 PM by deathpigeon

@Blue: Kidding, kidding.

But I've never seen the lesbian princesses thing. Link?

Edit: Now you're just trying to Pair the Spares.

edited 1st Jan '13 4:32:17 PM by Ultrayellow

I have seen several 'gay Disney princes' pictures, probably just because of the tumblrs I look at. Those haven't become as popular?

... then I guess that's kind of our answer, isn't it?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=404255869653357&set=a.131930970219183.36609.126718237407123&type=1&ref=nf

Assuming it links over properly.

First comments on that very image:

Yeah, I wouldn't have noticed this. I don't really do tumblr and Facebook.

Also, I wasn't just pairing the spades with the Beast and Quasimodo. They're both characters that are hated and distrusted for how they look. The Beast is stronger and more aggressive, so he'd be able to protect Quasimodo when Quasimodo himself fails, while Quasimodo is caring enough that he'd be able to calm down the Beast when necessary. They would make a great couple!

Not everyone who works/lives in the Vatican is a priest, bishop, or religious, any more than everyone who works in a Catholic church is. There's plenty of support personnel, lay scholars and clerks, etc. Now, whether the Vatican has anything in the way of medical or birth facilities is a whole other issue! Still, it wouldn't shock me to learn that the Holy See has a native-born citizen or three.

It is a scary thing to have your assumptions challenged. Especially the ones that flow from something as integral to your being as your religious faith.

TV Tropes OTC discussions have left me angry, rattled, frustrated, and in some cases, bitterly sad. This has been one of the greatest and best things to happen me in the past year.

There are some people with conservative or right-wing or Christian leanings who see the progressive liberal bloc as taking away their right to be who they are. To be sure, there is a very fringe element of the progressive/liberal lobby that does want to infringe on religious freedom, but they are hardly indicative of the wider movement.

The truth is, you people have helped us become who we were meant to be. I can't speak for all, but when the dust settles from these discussions and the shock of realizing that *gasp* maybe I was wrong wears off, I realize that I now have the tools to be a better person, one who respects people's free will, one who reads beyond rhetoric and looks at deeds, one who can empathize with those who've been stepped on for far too long.

In other words, I've become a better Christian. A truer Christian. I can't think of a greater service that can be performed.

God bless all of you. In this new year, and forever.

There's no requirement that a state have natural-born citizens. Even if nobody is ever born within the borders of Vatican City-State, it still has a resident population. A very small one, but a population nonetheless.

And in any case, "Vatican City" doesn't have a diplomatic corps. Papal nuncios are accredited by the "Holy See", which operates out of, but is legally distinct from, the country of Vatican City.

edited 2nd Jan '13 11:30:16 AM by Matues

This piece in the Manchester Guardian may be of interest to this discussion:

For the past six years, Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Warwick Street in Soho has offered special masses to LGBT Catholics. The Church teaches that homosexual Catholics should live lives of celibacy, and not indulge in the sinful behavior. She offers such devotees pastoral care in this connexion. These special masses have been offered over and above that. However, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, de facto head of the Church in England and Wales, has announced that these are to cease, and whilst pastoral care will continue to be offered, masses will not. His reasons are detailed here. The Our Lady of the Assumption is being transferred to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which is a personal ordinariate for Anglicans who have crossed the Tiber.

edited 2nd Jan '13 1:59:38 PM by Achaemenid

Are you referring to controversy surrounding a their age discrepancy or the the public's mistrust of Arabs?

Thank you Catholic heiarchy, for proving even if LGB Ts play by your rules you still won't accept them. I suspected this, but the confirmation is appreciated.

I know for a fact that there was a "Gay Disney Prince" photo set floating around Tumblr.

@joey: Neither, I was referencing the fact that lesbians are more openly welcomed than gay men. Neither of those two options even occurred to me. I suppose I took an extra dose of Patriarchy™*

Hmmm... Patriarchy™: operation of heavy debate or machinery is not suggested after use.

Extremely bad side effects if taken with Homophobia or Bigotry. Of course, you have dumb junkies out there mainlining all three.

If I understood post 6412 correctly that church was merely helping the LGBT people not have sex, rather than admit that there is no actual reason for homosexual sex to be a sin in the first place.

Still, it was better than nothing I guess.

edited 3rd Jan '13 5:24:36 AM by Medinoc

In fairness to the Archbishopric, the apparent problem was that the masses and their attendees weren't playing by the rules. Several observers had noted that the Soho masses appeared to consist overwhelmingly of non-celibate gays, and that the sermons, governing assumptions, and overarching ethos were dedicated to sustained denial of the Church's teachings on homosexuality. If so, then it's scarcely the hierarchy that wasn't playing fair—and it shouldn't outrage anyone if they decided their outreach was being abused, and turning downright counterproductive.

I'm a little curious as to how they knew who wasn't celibate (unless they admitted to it, I guess).

My mistake...

Which just leads me to wonder why LGBT Christians stay with denominations that go against their own beliefs. I mean, wasn't there some Catholic group that split off from the main church over this issue? Why not support them?

I've asked that question before, and it seems to me that, ultimately, they just don't care. If their Church started adopting openly racist or sexist beliefs, some would leave, but when it comes to refusing to tolerate LGBT individuals, they choose to stay. Near as I can tell, while they may say they disagree with their Church's teachings on that issue, it's really not that big a deal to them.

I dunno. For one thing, splitting off from the Catholic Church pretty much makes you "Protestant" by definition, whatever you might like to call yourself. If one is committed specifically to Catholicism, that's a problematic step.

For another thing, maybe there's some tension between their beliefs and the Church's doctrines that they just don't feel like resolving. For better or worse, where birth control is concerned a lot of Western Catholics seem able to live with pretty fundamental cognitive dissonance between their opinions and the Church's established stance. One way or the other, grasping the nettle would exact some costs that many people don't feel like paying.

Finally, most Christian churches are packed to the gills with people who—gay, straight, or otherwise—are sinners by their churches' standards. Even if Catholic teaching on homosexuality is 100% correct, I doubt that from God's viewpoint I'd stand any better than the average gay congregant, or be considered less fundamentally broken in my own particular ways. We've all got issues.

edited 3rd Jan '13 7:30:41 AM by Jhimmibhob

The Coptic and Orthodox Churches say wassap. Although it is probably the case that the Catholics split off from THEM, not the other way around.

Yeah, I'd rather not get into the debate over who gets to call themselves what. Besides, Catholic means "universal". While the Roman Catholic Church is the largest denomination, I wouldn't call them universal.

Maybe I'm just weird that way. When my old church basically said homosexuals burn in hell, and anyone claiming otherwise was serving the devil, I left and never looked back. Eventually I left the faith altogether but that's a different story.

I've heard the "we're all sinners" argument before. But it's my impression that non-heterosexuality is generally treated as a sort of "super-sin", receiving far more attention and condemnation than its fair share. Don't believe me? Compare how much religious opposition there is to same-sex marriages (even when performed by other religions or as completely secular) as opposed to how much religious opposition there is to divorce. The Bible could be said to argue against both, but the former in this day and age is treated as a much bigger deal.

And that's not even getting into the fact that some Christians (or if you prefer, people who identify themselves as Christians) don't believe non-heterosexuality is wrong in and of itself. And I just really don't understand why said people would choose a religious group that not only believes the opposite, but actively campaigns against their religious freedom as the Catholic hierarchy is known to do.

edited 3rd Jan '13 8:13:26 AM by Morgikit