Friday, November 13, 2009

Ms. Prejean and the Catholic Bishops: Glass Houses, Stones

I wrote earlier today,

When people claim to be moral teachers, those whom they teach will naturally look to the lives of the teacher to see how his life exemplifies the values he’s teaching. If there’s a wide and easily discerned gap between the teaching and the life that is lived, people will wonder. And they’ll talk.

I went on to apply that observation to the U.S. Catholic bishops and their current monomoniacal pursuit of their gay brothers and sisters. I opined that it's wise not to go on the attack and shake the big stick when the ground is already sliding away underneath you as you wave your big stick around.

Little did I know when I made these comments earlier today what a timely illustration of my point would emerge as the day ends. It has now come to light that Ms. Prejean, who (as with the bishops) has made her recent career out of informing LGBT human beings that we are uniquely defective in moral terms, has--oops--made not one but a whole big mess of sex tapes similar to the one that recently gained public notoriety.

Oops. You'd think, wouldn't you, that, knowing she had made these tapes and they might come to light, she'd have been a tad bit more . . . temperate . . . about posturing as a moral authority figure?

And that the Catholic church's chief ally in its gay-bashing activities in Maine, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), headed by Catholic Maggie Gallagher, would have been at least a tiny bit less jubilant about promoting Ms. Prejean as an icon of moral uprightness in the battle against the sinful gays?

Am I saying that the bishops are in bed with Carrie Prejean? In a way, I suppose I am. They have certainly been in bed with Maggie who has been in bed with Carrie. If the bed fits, wear it, I always say.

And I think this rumpled old bed may be about to become mighty uncomfortable and crowded, as these new sex tapes begin to make the rounds. Glass houses, stones . . . .