A Reader Writes: "This Is the Logical End of the First Things' 'Protestants and Catholics Together' Project: They Band Together to Fight Against Culture War Issues and Look the Other Way at Each Others' Abuse Cases"

I haven't forgotten my promise yesterday to share with you some of my reflections about the subject of abuse of women and children and rigid patriarchal forms of religion, which we have been discussing here of late in light of the Duggar and Caitlyn Jenner stories. I have gotten a bit sidetracked from that conversation yesterday and today by the court ruling I discussed earlier today, which instructs the state of Arkansas to obey the law and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who married legally in May 2014.

I will formulate my thoughts about the abuse-religion discussion and share them with you, when I can gather said thoughts. In the meantime, it occurs to me to share with you some of the stellar comments people have made in that discussion. Here's the first of a number I'll highlight for sharing in the next several days — this is from Leah Mickens, commenting on the defense of the Duggars by Father Jonathan Morris at Fox News this past weekend:

I guess this is the logical end of First Things' "Protestants and Catholics Together" project; they band together to fight against culture war issues and look the other way at each others' abuse cases.

Leah's right. I value this comment because it refuses to let the kind of Catholics who haunt First Things (and, in my view, their fellow travelers at Commonweal) off the hook, as they pretend to be aloof from the really overt and obviously ugly gay-bashing of the evangelical right . . . 

While they're not aloof from this at all, since they're in bed with the evangelical right as it bashes gay folks and seeks to keep women in their places, while pretending that God is a white heterosexual male.