I remain a Bernie Sanders guy, but should Vice-President Joe Biden decide to run for President, he earned himself ten more points against any GOP challenger with these comments at the Human Rights Campaign’s gala dinner in New York last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL0sD8AaUik
Vice-President Biden tells the pro-LGBT-rights crowd that the American people have moved beyond appeals to prejudice and fear and homophobia and that the remaining work on LGBT rights will only come faster. And then he zings the GOP field: “There’s homophobes still left—most of them are running for President, I think.”
I’ll stake that attitude against anyone the GOP has offered for President. Well done, Mr. Vice-President.
Hillary Clinton gave up this choice speaking slot in favor of a morning speech time so she could tend bar on Saturday Night Live last night. Neither SNL nor Human Rights Campaign appears to invited Senator Sanders to speak yesterday.
How can a powerful Church such as the Catholic be pro-life and then fire a priest for stating his sexuality?
This is a big reason why I and millions of others are not Catholics anymore. Knock it off with treating people this way, you religious institutions! Knock it off or you’ll continue to lose people!
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/03/npr-vatican-fires-pries
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen. Which sinners do we kick out?
Of equal or greater importance to the priest in question losing his Vatican job was his breaking his vow of celibacy. Had a priest appeared in such an open fashion with a girlfriend the result would have been similar.
That’s a fair point of which to remind our non-Catholic viewers, Nick. Monsignor Charamsa could have been sacked for violating his vow of celibacy. LGBT equality be darned, the Church has rules; you break ’em, you’re in hot water.
Interestingly, the Vatican’s reason for relieving Charamsa of his duties appears to be that his interviews and planned demonstration were an attempt to subject the Vatican and the big Synod this weekend to “undue media influence.” Is an analogy to public school employment due? If a teacher is unhappy with the superintendent’s actions or with school board policy, there’s a way to address such unhappiness through channels at work. The teacher can also take the case to the streets and the press, but would the board be within its bounds to sanction the teacher for jumping outside protocol?
The vow of celibacy is a crock of shit also. Sex is the most basic of human physiological needs according to Maslow’s Hierarchy, and it’s really unrealistic and unhealthy to deprive man of physiological normal urges. No other Christian church does this. It is not normal and rather bizarre that we expect grown men to not have sex. This depravity is supposed to make them have closer relationship to god? No, it makes them bitter and a lot of times turn to alcoholism or altar boys.
One of the most basic of physiological needs, next to food and water.
Clergy were not originally required to be celibate. The Apostle Paul commended celibacy, but only for those for whom it is a good fit.
My guess is that the RCC has decided that only people for whom it is a good fit ought to become priests. The presumption is probably that God only calls people, er, males, who are fit for celibacy. Troy would know more about the RCC’s call to ministry process.
In the meantime, Biden is a courageous and inspiring person. That he has suffered such devastating losses and is still here . . . He is heroic.
I’m with Bernie, but Biden may be my #2 choice.
Biden deserves credit for pushing Obama forward on the equal access to marriage issue. It’s little wonder he’s a Human Rights Campaign hero.
So you know, this whole celibate priest thing originated to preserve Church property interests. Celibates have no heirs. Problem solved.
An institution just can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to be pro life, to respect and honor human dignity, but then socially exclude people b/c you don’t like their sexual preferences.
Social exclusion is a form of bullying, and it hurts.
i think we are watching the GOP destroy itself. it may go slower than we’d want, but guns, abortion, bullying, discrimination, cronyism, obstruction, interference in foreign affairs, privatization of fundamental infrastructure and institutions, Koch Brothers, Scalia, Citizens United, climate and science denial, foolish de-regulation, income inequality, flags, granite peaks, and hawks just don’t make it…. it will be interesting if it happens. after 8 years of obama and another 8 of hillary, we just might turn this big ship around and fix so much of the damage reagan and his ilk have spawned.
Exclusion is a sure route to party decline. But we can’t assume that GOP destruction will happen on its own; we Democrats have to make clear that we offer the excluded a real alternative. Nor can we assume that destruction will be permanent. We had the GOP on the run after the 2008 election, but they came back and upended things in 2010. Ambitious people who oppose Democratic ideals will always find ways to amass and mobilize power. Our fight never ends.
There were several articles in today’s Wapo about the disarray of the Republican Party following McCarthy ‘s decision to opt out of the Speaker race. The far righties are trying to draft Paul (VP candidate with Mitt) but he continues to refuse. Republicans know the House is ungovernable due to the tea bagger cohort. Even those guys won’t run. Boner said he’ll stick around till another sacrificial lamb is found.
Chaos in the gop.