For all those who wonder why I still call myself a Catholic:

[hedgehog]

A young woman died recently, way before her time. My daughter mentioned her wake, and I looked at the on-line obituary and the posted tributes. The on-line obituary mentioned this woman's widow by name as one of the survivors.

From the tributes, all clearly signed by the way, it became clear that the woman had been a religious sister and had left the convent. Her religious sisters wrote in to say what a wonderful person she had been, and to express their personal condolences to her widow. It's clear that they knew she was a lesbian and were happy to know she had found true love. (These woman would be generally known as "nuns". Technically, a nun is a woman in a cloistered convent, an enclosed community. Sisters are women in community who interact with the outside world.)

Another set of tributes came from former and current students. This woman had been a campus minister at a Newman Center. (not to be confused with the Cardinal Newman Society). Again, it was clear that these people knew and loved this woman and her partner.

My daughter told me everyone either knew or guessed that this woman was a lesbian, but no one made an issue of it, and in no way was she the "token" lesbian. People knew her partner.

The funeral was held at a Catholic Church with the widow front and center.

Over the years, this woman was directly responsible for counseling several young men to become priests.


So, despite and regardless of the trash talk by the Pope and bishops and right wingers like the Cardinal Newman Society, do I belong to a homophobic Church? Did she?

[maxsolomon]

1. Nuns are the best part of Catholicism

2nd best is the Architecture.
The worst part is the Patriarchy.

God Jul, a post-Catholic.

[hedgehog]

27. LOL! Telling stories about mean nuns used to be a default aspect

of Catholic identity! These days, most people I know love the sisters and consider most priests to be a waste of oxygen. (Of course, we consider a few priests to be living saints!)

My husband is a convert who never met a nun before meeting me. He loves and respects these women.

[cbdo2007]

2. MOST Catholics are good people and it isn't the religion itself that is flawed - it's the people

misinterpreting the Bible and Jesus and getting them both to fit their viewpoints rather than changing their viewpoints to fit Jesus and the Bible, which is how it's supposed to be.

It's good hearing your story, especially around here at DU, where there's so much hatred toward the bad Christian's all the time and then them lumping all of us in there together with them.

[katandmoon]

5. There are as many viewpoints of Jesus as there are people. It's not like there are any eyewitness

accounts, and even if there were, eyewitness accounts are also subjective. Personally, I don't believe Jesus as such ever even existed.

[Warpy]

7. The worst of those are the church hierarchy

Anyone above the level of parish priest is generally useless, as only the ones who have bought into the vicious misinterpretation of the New Testament by the princes of the church in power are allowed to advance.

I have no problem with Catholics, most are genuinely good people who tend to be more accepting and tolerant than their Protestant brethren.

I do have problems with an organized patriarchal hierarchy that has declared war on half of them with gays as associated victims.

It's time for the church hierarchy to outgrow its adolescent view of sexuality. If they are unable to do so, perhaps it's time for the church as a whole to outgrow needing the hierarchy, at all.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. "tend to be more accepting and tolerant than their Protestant brethren."

I live in a majorly Catholic country, undergoing an aggressive evangelical invasion.

You have NO idea how true your statement is.

[Warpy]

13. I lived in Dixie

Oh yes I do.

[racaulk]

14. +1

I'm a North Carolina native born into a Southern Baptist family.

You're so right.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Careful before the Catholic Bashers begin to bash you

[racaulk]

9. Perhaps you could express your opinion on the OP...

...without taking a swipe at others.

[FreakinDJ]

10. Case and point ................... n/t

[racaulk]

12. LOL!

That was "bashing?" I was only asking you a question. WTF?

Read the other replies to this thread. I don't see any "Catholic bashing" going on. The replies to this thread have been quite cordial, in fact, and it seems people are taking great care to separate the behaviors of the church and its congregants as to not misrepresent believers unnecessarily.

This was actually a nice thread until you posted your first reply, which had nothing to do with the OP.

P.S. It's case in point.

[FreakinDJ]

20. thread ain't over yet

[racaulk]

22. So alert on any posts that you believe are inappropriate. I will do the same.

But what purpose does taking a preemptive strike against others serve? What purpose did calling me, personally, a "basher" serve? How have you added anything of substance to this thread?

Please take your negativity and insults elsewhere.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. if that is bashing. you need to read up on the word bashing.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Ahem.

[MNBrewer]

53. It's "case IN point", not "case AND point"

kind of like "all intents and purposes" rather than "all intensive purposes".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

55. LOL. good one. thanks.

i needed the laugh. case and point, intensive purposes

[MNBrewer]

56. Don't forget "very coarse veins"

[racaulk]

58. And "youth in Asia."

:rofl:

[Sapphocrat]

57. Now, now, you're just...

...casting asparagus!

[katandmoon]

4. The church "management" IS militantly homophobic and misogynistic. No way around it.

How individual Catholics ignore that reality is up to them, but as long as they stay in the Church, they can't escape the fact that they belong to an organization whose, because of its unhealthy obsession with sex, official line is a homophobic and misogynistic one.

[hedgehog]

16. Trust me, most of the Catholics in the pews are more upset with

the "management" than any non-Catholic. Too many in management would be perfectly content to define Catholicism according to their own narrow view and to be a member of a small cult able to look down on the rest of the world as unsaved stubborn sinners. They want to exclude anyone who isn't their mirror image. We're stuck in a situation in which the extremists have seized control and are appointing others like themselves as bishops.

I visited Brazil a few years ago and attended Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady Aparecida. The engineer my husband was working with in Brazil started and runs a charity devoted to helping families with mentally challenged children. It's his own version of Special Olympics and he is changing Brazil. He is a devout Catholic who wouldn't give a real for his local bishop. I've also attended Mass in a small town in Germany, and discussed teaching pre-schoolers with a woman there. i say "discussed" loosely, but we enjoyed knowing what we shared. This Sunday I sang Christmas carols for the retired sisters in the nursing home at the Franciscan mother house. I never worked with any of them, but I am the beneficiary of the hard work and dedication of women like them. It was an honor to give those woman a few minutes of pleasure. I wouldn't walk across the street to see the Pope, but I am a member of the universal Church and I won't give this up because of a small number of jackasses.

[Toasterlad]

40. You're Not "Stuck" In a Situation, and the Extremists Haven't "Seized" Control.

You can choose to either belong to a group that denounces gays and subjugates women, or you can choose to walk away. One can accuse the catholic church of many, MANY horrible things, but they don't FORCE people to be members (at least not in the US).

The extremists, as you call them, have not "seized" control. The extremists FOUNDED the church, and have ALWAYS been in control. The more moderate popes that have appeared in recent years are the EXCEPTION, not the rule. And even the moderates would not allow a homosexual his/her dignity or acknowledge the equality of women.

You can try and spin the catholic church as a lively liberal bastion that has been temporarily overrun by backwards-thinking zealots, but the truth is that the catholic church has been a haven of ignorance, superstition and bigotry for the entirety of its existence, right up to the present day.

[racaulk]

6. Your individual church doesn't sound like it is homophobic.

However, your parent church is quite homophobic and does quite a bit of harm to gay people. I only wish that the good Catholics like yourself were not outshouted and overpowered by the more homophobic ones, because I think unforunately they become the public face of Catholicism, which is a shame.

[dmallind]

8. The problem is only occasionally with the laity and foot-level clergy

The problem with catholicism is the hierarchy.

[hedgehog]

17. I and a million others work and pray every day to try to rid the Church of these parasites.

How do you kill the disease without hurting the patient?

[dmallind]

29. Dunno - but I see a strange dichotomy

Admittedly I am not clued in to the brand of Catholicism that is prevalent in the areas where the church is seeing actual gains in adherents - Africa, Asia, and so on. But here, in most of Europe and the other industrialized democracies, the Catholic laity is getting more and more liberal both theologically and politically, and havs been for many decades. Vatican II itself predates me and I'm not exactly a youngster. On the other hand it seems the hierarchy is becoming more and more conservative both theologically and politically. I never even heard a thought growing up that pro-choice (almost all in the UK) politicians should be denied communion. I didn't even hear that in the first decade of my life in the US. The idea of the head of the Inquisition (or it's PC-named successor) becoming Pope would not have struck me as a likely career path either.

The question I ask is how does that work? The laity provides the clergy. It's not exactly normal for a non-congregant to waltz into the priesthood. The clergy (by and large still fairly liberal as a group) becomes the hierarchy. Over time surely liberalism would have become more rather than less prevalent in the latter. I know many of the senior hierarchy are old fossils, but there still should be MORE of them post-VII in approach rather than fewer by now. Does orthodoxy come hand in hand with the pink or the red hat?

[hedgehog]

31. The bishops of the world voted 2147 to 4 in 1963 to accept the Documents of Vatican II.

These same bishops, mostly appointed by Pius XII, then went out and applied those documents. I think a major battle was lost a few years later when they all meekly accepted Humane Vita instead of telling Pope Paul VI he had no business unilaterally issuing such a ruling.

In any case, the bishops of Vatican II hadn't left Rome for 5 minutes before the right wing took the counterattack. Today there are dozens of right wing blocs that will tell you that the documents were never meant to be applied as they were. In other words, the right wingers today know more about what the documents mean and what was supposed to happen than the very bishops who wrote and first applied the documents!

In addition, the right wing has very carefully backfilled the hierarchy, ensuring only those in absolute obedience to Rome get promoted to bishop. This recess accelerated under John Paul II.

The result is a hierarchy increasingly at odds with the majority of Church members. I know of half a dozen dioceses in the US where a prominent local priest or auxiliary bishop is beloved by the people while the nominal bishop is barely tolerated at best. In the early days of the Church, the people selected their bishops and priests from among themselves. I'm not sure how we got to where we are today, and I sure as hell don't know how to get out of this hole!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. the official policies of the catholic church are seriously homophobic and misogynistic

not everyone in the church is but the policies oppress gays and lesbians & women who want choice as part of their health care.

so yes, you do belong in a homophobic church as did the lesbian who was your friend. were the people in your church accepting, sure. does it change in any way the position of the catholic church, no

when election to take away our rights are back on the ballot, will the church encourage people to donate? yes. will they invite even more homophobic churches to strip away our civil rights, yes. will they win, because your numbers are bigger? yes.

i find it laughable that people think civil rights will be handed to us, with no sacrifice. do you think it was no sacrifice for me to give up my religion & culture? there is a reason i did. its because it oppresses me and my people.

[hedgehog]

23. For centuries, the hierarchy ignored slavery. In fact, the web

site for the Lefevrerites actually justifies slavery!

http://www.sspx.org/Catholic_FAQs/catholic_faqs__morality.htm#slavery

The hierarchy still represses all women and deliberately distorts the image of Mary, the Mother of God to suit their own twisted notion of human sexuality.

The Catholic church is a pilgrim church. Only the hierarchy thinks it is perfect. The rest of us know we need to do better.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. exactly. my point is that staying with the church, not making a stink

you are implicitly agreeing to the policies of the Church whether or not you disagree with them personally

if i stayed with the republican party, whether or not, i agreed with their platform, i am still responsible to a degree for their actions.

[hedgehog]

26. Who says we aren't making a stink? I think the bishop is trying to figure out

how to excommunicate me after all the letters I've sent him and my public statements!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

28. i didnt mean YOU didnt though. i mean a universal "you"

if you do protest visibly, then you have the right to say that you are changing things from the inside.

i think a lot of people though say this, but dont do anything. just saying "i disagree" is really not good enough

a letter campain and public statements are

[saracat]

21. I am probably going to be called an elitist but educated catholics, especially jesuit

educated Catholics usually don't march in lockstep with Rome. Jesuits are always battling the Pope. Not long ago Andrew Greeley stated he didn't have a problem with the idea that Jesus may have been married!
A great many folks, when I was growing up Catholic, had the idea that alot of philosophy was just to keep the hoi poloi in line and not for the educated class to believe in. Most folks didn't take pronouncements from Rome seriously.

I, from a Jesuit(Georgetown) educated family, immediately gravitated to the Jesuit idea that a "sin is only a sin if you "believe" it to be one." This solves the problem with most controversial elements very neatly.You have to first acknowledge that you believe something to be a sin and have chosen to participate in it anyway. It is up to individual conscience.I am sure these nuns were aware of this.Chances are, they did not "believe" being gay was a "sin".

Another area many Catholics used this in was birth control. Most"educated" Catholics practice birth control. Until recently, I didn't know any who did not. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of society has taken its toll on the Church as well.Not everyone can afford to go to Georgetown or Fordham or any number of Jesuit institutions and many are ignorant enough to buy into the pap spewed by ignorant parish priests.

[hedgehog]

25. From the Baltimore Catechism, 1941

69. What three things are necessary to make a sin mortal?

To make a sin mortal these three things are needed:

1. the thought, desire, word, action, or omission must be seriously wrong or considered seriously wrong;
2. the sinner, must be mindful of the serious wrong;
3. the sinner must fully consent to it.


in other words, it isn't a sin if you don't believe it's a sin. I learned that in grammar school back around 1962. Now, this begs the question of all the harm done by people convinced ****THEY**** are doing the right thing, but there it is.


On edit: in light of the current discussion, I would posit that it is the duty of those of us who are enlightened to stay in the Church to teach the hierarchy that it is dead wrong about human sexuality. How else to stop the carnage?

[saracat]

30. Well, as a female, I actually left the church when I was around 13 years old

when I discovered why women were supposed to cover their heads.The misogyny and homophobia continues.I remained nominally aCatholic in name only but I am not sure it was worth the effort.I kind of formulate my own beliefs now, and observe certain things more out of a sense of tradition than religion.Thomas Aquinas said "Faith and Reason cannot coexist". I am paraphrasing but for me reason won out.

[GodlessBiker]

32. Yes. Isolated acts of kindness do not change that.

[mitchtv]

33. I can't agree with remaining Catholic

Sure there are some nice, even holy people there, but I feel they should take responsiblity for contributing to support the robe crowd and not walking out when they are indulging in their hypocrisy. Sorry, they run the show and your presence only enables them

[DeSwiss]

43. +1

[donco6]

34. Just can't figure out why someone would stay in a group that officially hates gays.

There are plenty of other churches with "nice" people in them, and not all of them hate gay people. I just can't see staying in Catholicism. And I grew up in it.

[Tyo]

60. As far as I can tell....

The thinking seems to be that if you don't personally hate gays and there are others in the church who happen to think like you it makes it all okay. You just ignore the hateful and homophobic bits and you're home free, never mind that you are validating the evil every time you show up at mass and every time you put money in the collection plate. "But I'm not like that," is the constant refrain of people who belong to institutions that are.

[marginlized]

35. Oh for the 60's

when priests were at the front of just about every march and picket line.

Now all they have is Robert George spouting Republican talking points.

[Deep13]

36. Yes.

When you support the RC Church with your tithes, time and presence you are supporting the RC Church's efforts to stamp out homosexuality from public view as well as their efforts subjugate women.

[hedgehog]

37. Do I get any credit for driving 10 miles past 2 other Catholic Churches

to attend a gay friendly one? And by gay friendly, I mean one where the congregation was told in the homily to be gay friendly (not that I think they needed telling!)

[Toasterlad]

39. No.

[Toasterlad]

38. Yes, You Belong To a Homophobic Church

You and your local ministers can play Land of Make Believe all you like in your little community, where you pretend that the catholic churches laws and teachings don't apply to you, and that you're not morally bound to believe whatever that nazi asshole in Vatican City tells you to believe. But at the end of the day, if you're a catholic, you are subscribing to an organization that institutionalizes homophobia, misogyny and bigotry.

What you cafeteria catholics always forget is that the catholic church is not a democracy. You don't get to elect the leaders, and you have no say in what the policy will be. You can pretend to be a catholic while rejecting catholic law, but your self-delusion doesn't affect just you. The money that you donate goes to fund the church's goals...those you agree with, and those you don't. You are paying to send protesters to abortion clinics. You are paying for commercial ads and posters to repeal same-sex marriage. You are paying to send missionaries to Afric and other third world countries to preach that condoms are sin and abstinence is the only way to fight AIDS.

Perhaps more importantly, though, you are providing the authority the pope uses to speak for the supposed 1 billion catholics in the world when he says that homosexuality is evil and that he is more qualified than any woman to decide what she may morally do with her body.

Supporting the catholic church - ANY catholic church - is supporting hate. Period.

[hedgehog]

41. The phrase " cafeteria catholic" is generally used by right wingers to denounce

denounce left wing Catholics. Somehow, we are cafeteria Catholics when we stand up and say the bishops are wrong about human sexuality, but they are not cafeteria Catholics when they support capital punishment and immoral wars.

The arguments in the Church today tend to boil down to the question of whether Church teaching is to be determined by one man in Rome or by the consensus of believers all over the world. The Pope may say anything he wants, but the truth is that he is often ignored. I see signs of increasing attempts to impose power from above. I predict that these efforts will accelerate the change that is coming. The Church is not a democracy today. It was originally a democracy and I believe it soon will be again.

I am sorry you are so convinced that the Church is evil now, always has been and always will be. Members of the Church have been guilty of incredible evil and also examples of inhuman charity and bravery for two thousand years.

[Toasterlad]

42. You Don't Have to Be Catholic To Be a Good Person.

I couldn't care less for the "good" the catholic church has done. I can only imagine how much good COULD have been done if those people who gave their money and time to the catholic church's good AND bad endeavors had instead given that money and time to a secular organization with no agenda other than to help people who needed it.

The term "cafeteria catholic", regardless of who uses it or why, is a perfect description of catholics like you, who do not feel bound by catholic law to support ideas and beliefs that are at the very core of catholic dogma. You are very much like the evangelicals who pick out the phrases in the bible to support whatever belief they wish. At the end of the day, they - and you - are fooling yourselves.

You may ignore the pope all you wish, but it is HIS will that was carried out in California and Maine and Washington DC. It is HIS will that sends missionaries to poor countries to prey on their misery and hopelessness, and HIS will that women not be recognized as equal in his church or in society at large. Jesus said to Peter, "You are the rock upon which I will build my church"; since then, the pope has been the foundation of catholicism, the final authority on what it means to BE a catholic. Yes, you may ignore him all you like, but HE is still determining where your money goes, and HE is still determining what the catholic agenda will be throughout the world.

I don't know what history class you took that lead you to believe that the church was ever a democracy, but it is, has ALWAYS been, and WILL always be, an oligarchy. Lay people never had any say in the leadership of the church, and never will. You do not get to tell the pope what it means to be a catholic. The pope tells YOU. If you don't like that, tough shit. That's the way it is.

When you tithe to the catholic church, you are funding hate. When you support the catholic church, you are supporting ignorance, bigotry, and hypocrisy. That, too, it the way it is. And the way it always will be.

I wonder if all you catholics who are so eager to stick with the catholic church until it "changes" would have the stomach for it if they didn't believe that BLACKS should be married.

[theHandpuppet]

44. Toasterlad

Thanks for posting what I sometimes don't have the guts to post myself.

I'm sitting here this morning, reviewing my own feelings about why I didn't respond to this OP, and sadly realized that it's because I was responding exactly how many of us have been conditioned to respond all of our lives -- with silence and even guilt for feeling angry at our own oppression and victimization. It's only our silence in the face of institutionalized hatred that we should fear, not our anger.

For the millions upon millions of women who, for over a thousand years, have suffered and continue to suffer (and for those who have died) due to the insitutionalized misogyny of the church, that anger is justified. To the countless children whose abusers were protected by the church, that anger is justified. For the millions of GLBT people around the world who are actively persecuted by the church, that anger is righteous. And it's not just the Catholic Church guilty of such persecution, but all religious institutions that preach oppression in all its forms.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

45. and thank you for saying that

there is a poster who has been stalking me around the board calling me an anticatholic elitist, for stating the obvious. The catholic church is homophobic, those who stay in it, contribute to homophobia in society


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=9178444#9179213

[DeSwiss]

47. +1

[DeSwiss]

48. +1

[Toasterlad]

49. You're Welcome.

I do hope that, someday, all those people brainwashed by the catholic church (and other organized religions) into believing that they are morally inferior simply because of who they are will realize just how evil the church is.

I will NEVER understand how any self-respecting woman can be part of any organization that espouses that she is not as good as any man, just like I will never understand who any gay person can call themselves a catholic (or a christian, for that matter).

[MNBrewer]

54. And pagans were for thousands of years before the church was invented.

"Members of the Church have been guilty of incredible evil and also examples of inhuman charity and bravery for two thousand years."

The RC church is an invented human institution, and as such has the capacity for evil or charity just as any other human invention. It has no special place in human history other than for the fact that it so completely dominated Europe politically (and militarily) for much of its existence.

[beyurslf]

46. I would say yes you belong to a homophobic Church (big C) but not a homophopic

church (little C). Just like Fred Phelps does not represent all Christians, you and those nuns do not represent all of Catholics. The Church as an institution is homophobic.

[Sapphocrat]

50. Yes.

As an ex-Catholic -- who can no more divorce myself from being culturally Catholic any more than a Jew can stop "being" Jewish -- I suspect a certain affection for the culture of American Catholicism factors in to your dilemma.

Catholicism as practiced by most American Catholics (who, in my experience, are generally left-of-center, and couldn't give two hoots what the Pope says about his two pet bugaboos: gays and contraception) is very different from the variety mandated by the Vatican. Regardless of how "gay-friendly" your particular parish may be, it still operates under the auspices of the institution that demonizes LGBTs as "intrinsically disordered" and hellbound.

Look at it this way: There are many good, liberal, pro-equality Mormons in this country (I joke not) -- but they still tithe 10% of their gross income to an institution that has made it its business to destroy the republic and recreate it as a theocracy. How they manage to function under the weight of such cognitive dissonance is beyond me, but I know many are shackled by the sure knowledge that leaving the Mormon church means losing one's family, friends, business contacts... in fact, one's entire way of life. (It's no surprise the suicide rate for gay Mormons is off the scale.)

Regardless, the bottom-line question is the same:

Do those "good" Mormons belong to a homophobic church, or not?

And, despite anything else they may ever do to advance a progressive agenda in this country, do they, or do they not, continue to enable and thus advance the theocratic agenda of LDS, Inc.?

If you're looking for a solution -- and cannot fathom a break from Catholicism altogether -- perhaps there's a branch of Dignity in your area. Dignity is to Catholicism as the MCC is to mainsttream Protestantism (and Affirmation is to Mormonism). Dignity welcomes all Catholics, including straight ones:

http://www.dignityusa.org/

[plantwomyn]

51. I think you knew the answer to your question

when you posted it. The "trash talk by the Pope and bishops and right wingers like the Cardinal Newman Society" and the millions of dollars they devote to subjugating woman and the LGBT community cannot be ignored just because your congregation acquiesced to acknowledge a woman that, from your description, was a true "Christian". The question should be, Why would a truly good woman continue to emotionally support a church who's hierarchy sees her as an abomination? Where does the self hatred come from that keeps people in a religious community that demonizes and disavows them?
We know that to really have an effect on our political future we must refuse to monetarily support Obama and the DNC. We know this because they have refused to listen to our voices. The church is no different. All "Christians" should start writing there thought for change on notes that they put in the collection plate in lew of their tithe. Maybe then the church will start to listen. There are secular ways to support the "charity" the church supports with your donations so there is no real reason to give money to a church that will spend it to dehumanize people.

[dickthegrouch]

52. Religion should be regulated like Alcohol and Sex

Available only to adults who can make their own choice about it.

I grew up terrified of God and the retribution I would suffer if I were ever bad. I think I'd have been just as moral, well balanced, compassionate, empathetic with others etc. without the religious baggage. My biggest terror was what would happen when the church found out I am gay. Thankfully a gay priest calmed my fears and pointed out (in 1975) that God had created me gay for a reason. He didn't molest me. He mentored me for many years and through several relationships (even though, in hindsight, he would have been thrilled to be my lover).

Even so I still think religious instruction should be deemed abusive to children, period.

Having witnessed a few Catholic "Novenas" recently with children being subjected to the interminable screeching about scourging and whips and chains and sin, I think I'd be prosecuted for talking about the same stuff in any other setting (contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or sexual battery).

Your church happened to be able to turn a blind eye to the supposed misdeeds of one of its members. Let it congratulate itself and watch what happens when the queers get out of line again.

[ZombieHorde]

59. "do I belong to a homophobic Church?"

Yes, you belong to an extremely homophobic and sexist church.

I understand not every member of this organization is a bigot, but the Church rules and the Church hierarchy are clearly bigoted. The Catholic Church spends money on suppressing the civil rights of gay people.

Do you voluntarily give the Church money knowing the money will be spent on attacking the civil right of gay people?

Why don't you join a non-bigoted church?

[sui generis]

61. It's the title

are you a catholic christian or are you a Catholic?

It IS a cultural thing as much as the particulars of any canonical bias - BUT to the people who are disadvantaged by trash talking Popes and Catholic right wingers, it's all a monolithic facade. People on the other side of the aisle aren't required to accommodate nuance.

All anyone can do is be as fair as they can remember to be, and then we'll remember that they were fair more often than that they were catholic (or any other religion or philosophy).