Monday is often a this-‘n-that day for me: catching up on blogs I haven’t read carefully enough as I blog during the week, planning Tuesday’s grocery foray, and (today) preparing for a friend’s visit that begins today. So I haven’t had time to give much attention to this blog.
I do want to recommend, though, Colleen Kochivar-Baker’s powerful statement to Cardinal Schönborn at Enlightened Catholicism last Friday. Colleen calls on Schönborn to walk his talk about church reform.
I do want to recommend, though, Colleen Kochivar-Baker’s powerful statement to Cardinal Schönborn at Enlightened Catholicism last Friday. Colleen calls on Schönborn to walk his talk about church reform.
I find myself thinking along lines very similar to Colleen’s, as I continue thinking about Cardinal Schönborn’s recent statements. On the one hand, I want very much to hope that what Schönborn recently told the Austrian media represents a ray of hope for church reform.
On the other hand, as I mentioned to Phillip Clark today in response to a comment he made about my own posting re: Schönborn on Saturday, part of me wonders, cynically, whether we’re witnessing a bit of Vatican theater with Schönborn’s remarks—diversionary theater designed to take the heat off Benedict as the crisis in the church continues. And a last-ditch appeal for the continued loyalty of Austrian and German Catholics, who are walking away from the Catholic church in droves now, and will continued to do so throughout 2010, according to current indicators.
Frankly, I don’t put much hope in the expectation that reform will come from the center of the church. I see it coming from the margins, instead.
But I remain open to surprises. And I applaud Colleen’s call for Cardinal Schönborn to walk his talk.
On another topic altogether, I find Andrew Sullivan’s “So Is She Gay?” posting today about Mr. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan equally powerful. As is well-known, Kagan is widely rumored to be lesbian, but if that’s the case, she is not open about her identity as a lesbian.
Andrew Sullivan’s posting ends with the following thought-provoking question:
On the other hand, as I mentioned to Phillip Clark today in response to a comment he made about my own posting re: Schönborn on Saturday, part of me wonders, cynically, whether we’re witnessing a bit of Vatican theater with Schönborn’s remarks—diversionary theater designed to take the heat off Benedict as the crisis in the church continues. And a last-ditch appeal for the continued loyalty of Austrian and German Catholics, who are walking away from the Catholic church in droves now, and will continued to do so throughout 2010, according to current indicators.
Frankly, I don’t put much hope in the expectation that reform will come from the center of the church. I see it coming from the margins, instead.
But I remain open to surprises. And I applaud Colleen’s call for Cardinal Schönborn to walk his talk.
On another topic altogether, I find Andrew Sullivan’s “So Is She Gay?” posting today about Mr. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan equally powerful. As is well-known, Kagan is widely rumored to be lesbian, but if that’s the case, she is not open about her identity as a lesbian.
Andrew Sullivan’s posting ends with the following thought-provoking question:
To put it another way: Is Obama actually going to use a Supreme Court nominee to advance the cause of the closet (as well as kill any court imposition of marriage equality)? And can we have a clear, factual statement as to the truth? In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell.
And I agree. I continue to wonder if the Obama presidency will turn out, in the long run, to have been a nightmare for gay people and gay rights that sets our cause back half a century. It’s as if there is a concerted effort from the center to play gay people and gay causes against each other under this presidency, in a way that divides and undermines the gay rights movement and revalorizes the closet.
The cool, deliberate eschewal of passion and moral commitment on the part of this centrist administration rewards those who have played their cards right—in the gay community, those who have walked the fine line of the center and adhered to the dictates of the closet—while cutting loose the progressive wing of the Democratic party with its appeal for strong, unambiguous commitment to human rights.
Where some commentators see temperamental conservative coolness on the part of the president, I see a deliberate policy to realign the Democratic party more decisively than ever with moderate-to-center-right positions that will, strategists seem to calculate, make the party palatable to more and more independents in this period of waning influence of the Republican party among groups whose demographic influence is on the rise—e.g., younger voters, Latinos, and people of color.
In the long run, this centrist strategy will have the effect of locking the Democratic party into a centrism from which it will have a hard time emerging even as those very demographics call for it to move in a progressive direction. And as the appeal for a progressive turn takes place, an administration elected with tremendous support from progressives will have muzzled—closeted—its progressive supporters and placed in positions of power those who live by the rules of the closet.
The future does not look bright for either progressives in general, or for gay citizens, in the U.S. The Kagan nomination is another indicator of this for me, and not a cause for celebration.
And finally—again, a 360° turn in subject matter—I recommend a fascinating discussion of Brazilian Archbishop Grings’ recent stone-age remarks calling for renewed discrimination against gay citizens in Western cultures. The discussion follows Eduardo Peñalver’s posting about Grings at Commonweal’s blog.
As the thread has developed, it ranges from topics like how to interpret the scriptures to same-sex marriage to the obligation of societies to defend their core values by discrimination if necessary. I’ll admit that I’m pointing readers to this thread in part because I’ve been taking part in that discussion, and so have been blogging away from my own Bilgrimage site today.
The cool, deliberate eschewal of passion and moral commitment on the part of this centrist administration rewards those who have played their cards right—in the gay community, those who have walked the fine line of the center and adhered to the dictates of the closet—while cutting loose the progressive wing of the Democratic party with its appeal for strong, unambiguous commitment to human rights.
Where some commentators see temperamental conservative coolness on the part of the president, I see a deliberate policy to realign the Democratic party more decisively than ever with moderate-to-center-right positions that will, strategists seem to calculate, make the party palatable to more and more independents in this period of waning influence of the Republican party among groups whose demographic influence is on the rise—e.g., younger voters, Latinos, and people of color.
In the long run, this centrist strategy will have the effect of locking the Democratic party into a centrism from which it will have a hard time emerging even as those very demographics call for it to move in a progressive direction. And as the appeal for a progressive turn takes place, an administration elected with tremendous support from progressives will have muzzled—closeted—its progressive supporters and placed in positions of power those who live by the rules of the closet.
The future does not look bright for either progressives in general, or for gay citizens, in the U.S. The Kagan nomination is another indicator of this for me, and not a cause for celebration.
And finally—again, a 360° turn in subject matter—I recommend a fascinating discussion of Brazilian Archbishop Grings’ recent stone-age remarks calling for renewed discrimination against gay citizens in Western cultures. The discussion follows Eduardo Peñalver’s posting about Grings at Commonweal’s blog.
As the thread has developed, it ranges from topics like how to interpret the scriptures to same-sex marriage to the obligation of societies to defend their core values by discrimination if necessary. I’ll admit that I’m pointing readers to this thread in part because I’ve been taking part in that discussion, and so have been blogging away from my own Bilgrimage site today.
