Violence against women is a bulwark against teh gay, says Polish Catholic Church

[Maxinquaye]

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/c...ote-gays201212

The Catholic Church claims Poland's government will be forced to 'promote homosexuality' after it signed a convention against violence to women.

The country's Equal Rights Commissioner Agnieszka Kozlowska-Rajewicz signed the Council of Europe's document in Strasbourg yesterday (19 December).

To be honest, this just makes me scratch my head. I do not understand how they make this connection between the prevention of violence against women and LGBT-rights.

I mean... Beating your wife keeps you straight?

I mean... Come on!

[Anna L.]

As we all know, men who don't beat women are gay. Right??

My male relatives are going to be SO surprised.

[Gretad08]

My husband is gonna be shocked when I break the news of his homosexuality to him tonight.

[lastlittlebird]

This reminds me of a phrase (I'm not sure of the origin, sorry).

Homophobia: the fear that gay men will treat you the way you treat women.

If you won't let men drag women by their hair back to the cave, why... the women might start picking and choosing their men! And then what would the average guy do? He'd have to turn gay!

[lilyWhite]

However, Polish Catholic bishops have reacted angrily to the news, claiming it will lead to the promotion of 'non-stereotypical gender roles such as homosexuality and transsexualism'.

Yes, because the only way to have a proper family (according to the bishops) is to let the man beat his woman as much as he wants, because if he doesn't, she'll turn gay.

...there really are no words.

[veinglory]

To be fair they are not pro-violence. The language in the act is fairly liberal and quite specific on many points of detail. They may have issues with the idea gender is purely social constructed etc. I am a left-wing atheist and I am not sure I feel gender is purely constructed. People in male and female bodies seem to be born with a strong innate feeling of their correct gender or other gender status. Other countries signed for the greater good, but made official comments about their reservations.

[Teinz]

There's all sorts of craziness coming out of the Catholic Church these days.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8BK0M020121221

Throwing the full weight of his office behind a study by France's chief rabbi on the effects the legalization of gay marriage would have on children and society, he said:"There is no denying the crisis that threatens it (the family) to its foundations - especially in the Western world."

Speaking in the frescoed Clementine Hall of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, the 85-year-old pope said the family was being threatened by "a false understanding of freedom" and a repudiation of life-long commitment in heterosexual marriage."When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child - essential elements of the experience of being human are lost," the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said.

The "pre-ordained duality of man and woman" had to be respected, he said, if families and children were not to lose their place and dignity.

So much for the holiday spirit.

[frimble3]

How nice that he's willing to 'forge alliances' and quote other clerics when they agree with him.
Really, when was the last time he 'threw his full weight' behind anything the Chief Rabbi of France said? Or the Imam of Anywhere? I would have bet there's a round file in his office with 'Words of Infidels and Heretics' on it, for these occasions.
How come he never listens when pretty much every faith says "Let the clerics marry!"

[Plot Device]

I'm sorry, but I am reading this thing and I am just so not able to see the connection.

What part of the document they signed makes reference to homosexuality?

And how are they able to deduce that they are now being forced to promote homosexuality?

[Sarpedon]

When have religious leaders ever had to justify themselves with reasoning?

They are not adapting well to the changing world.

[robeiae]

Originally Posted by Plot Device

I'm sorry, but I am reading this thing and I am just so not able to see the connection.

What part of the document they signed makes reference to homosexuality?

And how are they able to deduce that they are now being forced to promote homosexuality?

http://www.uscatholic.org/news/20121...st-women-26659

They added that Article 14, requiring teaching material "on issues such as equality between women and men and nonstereotyped gender roles," implied "the promotion of homosexuality and trans-sexuality," and said Poland's own law already had "enough tools for resisting instances of violence, including aggression, toward women."

There's more they don''t like, noted in the above piece.

The initial article on this--in the op--was either written by someone completely ignorant of the issues or by someone willing to simply lie to serve an agenda.

Per veinglory's post, this pact is pretty heavy with ideology and other stuff not actually necessary for its basic purposes.

[Anna L.]

Originally Posted by robeiae

http://www.uscatholic.org/news/20121...st-women-26659

That article doesn't help their case... Keeping women inferior to men is an "achievement of civilization"? The only "issue" here is how deeply misogynistic they are.

(I would quibble about article 3's wording, but it's at least partly true.)

[StormChord]

*sputter*
I… wha… I don't even…
Are they doing this on purpose?

[crunchyblanket]

Sometimes I think the Catholic church has been infiltrated by a very clever, very convincing group of people whose purpose it is to destroy the church from the inside out.

[robeiae]

Originally Posted by Anna L.

That article doesn't help their case... Keeping women inferior to men is an "achievement of civilization"? The only "issue" here is how deeply misogynistic they are.

I'm quite certain that is not what they are saying. You're drawing that conclusion. But you may be right to some degree.

Regardless, my main point is that the initial article is terribly misleading. The Polish Bishops are not arguing that "violence against women" is necessary or anything like that. Just because the document in question is supposedly about violence against women, it doesn't follow that every aspect of it addresses that issue alone, that any disagreement with its content means one supports violence against women.

It's not unlike naming a bill "The American Jobs Act"... or "The Patriot Act."

[fireluxlou]

Reminds me of this Italian Priest who posted this Christmas notice the other day:

Italian media reported that parish priest Piero Corsi fixed a text to the bulletin board of his church in the northern village of San Terenzo di Lerici, which said women should engage in "healthy self criticism" over the issue of femicide, or men murdering women.

Domestic violence against women is a serious problem in Italy although a report by a United Nations mission in June said it was "largely invisible and underreported".

The text, posted on a website by a conservative Catholic named Bruno Volpe, attacked pornography and erotic television advertising but said women shared the blame for "provoking the worst instincts, which then turn into violence and sexual abuse".

"Let's ask ourselves. Is it possible that men have all gone mad at one stroke? We don't think so," said the text, which was reproduced in several newspapers.

"The core of the problem is in the fact that women are more and more provocative, they yield to arrogance, they believe they can do everything themselves and they end up exacerbating tensions," it said.

"How often do we see girls and even mature women walking on the streets in provocative and tight clothing?"

"Babies left to themselves, dirty houses, cold meals and fast food at home, soiled clothes. So if a family ends up in a mess and turns into crime (a form of violence which should be condemned and punished firmly) often the responsibility is shared," it said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...m_hp_ref=world

[crunchyblanket]

"The core of the problem is in the fact that women are more and more provocative, they yield to arrogance, they believe they can do everything themselves and they end up exacerbating tensions," it said.

Ah, silly wimmins. How could we ever think it would be okay to act like sentient, independant human beings with brains and thoughts and feelings? Let's get back to the kitchen, sisters, Piero's got this whole thing figured out.

[Anna L.]

Originally Posted by robeiae

I'm quite certain that is not what they are saying. You're drawing that conclusion. But you may be right to some degree.

I'll just leave the relevant bit here and let everybody else interpret it however they like. I know what I hear in it and it's ugly.

Article 12 commits states to help eradicate "prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority of women or on stereotyped roles for women and men," and to ensure "culture, custom, religion, tradition or so-called 'honor' shall not be considered as justification for any acts of violence."

The bishops said this "obligates signatories to fight against the achievements of civilization, which are treated as a threat and source of violence."

[muravyets]

Yeah, to be blunt about it, I think people who want to provide wiggle room for the bishops to escape tarring themselves as complete sexist assholes have to add more context to this situation than reality or logic permit. I think this is just as ugly as it looks in the relevant sections and in similar statements.

[kikazaru]

Originally Posted by fireluxlou

Reminds me of this Italian Priest who posted this Christmas notice the other day:

... "said women shared the blame for "provoking the worst instincts, which then turn into violence and sexual abuse"....

...."How often do we see girls and even mature women walking on the streets in provocative and tight clothing?..."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...m_hp_ref=world

So if someone gives this idiot a boot in the arse, it could be said he was asking for it because he was wearing priests clothing?

Good to know.

[Flicka]

These people make it so hard to be Catholic...

On the other hand, I came across this today (written by a Benedictine nun):

http://www.ibenedictines.org/2012/12...gaianst-women/

Today we celebrate the feast of St Thomas Becket whose thinking about a difficult question of the day led him into conflict with the king. Perhaps we all need a bit of Becket in us on precisely this question of violence against women. Unless we show that it is unacceptable in all its forms, major and ‘minor’, it will go on being tolerated; and the brutal truth is more women will die. I don’t want that on my conscience. Do you?

The Church isn't just Polish bishops, thank God (pun intended, of course).

[Sarpedon]

Who will rid me of this turbulent nun?

[veinglory]

I think assuming they are 100% evil avoiding having to look at the cultural imperialism in the shadows of the act.

I support the act. But it includes requirements to teach stuff that is both empirically and ethically questionable. I support it with some minor reservations including the teaching that gender is entirely learned.

I also feel the act leaves male victims of domestic violence (straight, gay, and otherwise) out in the cold.