Reports About Twitter after Musk Acquisition

Microphone photo by Taoheedah, Wikimedia Commons

 

1. Heather Cox Richardson reports about what's happening at Twitter after Musk acquired it: 

I Refuse to Hate: People of Faith Challenge GOP Racism, or What's Wrong with the U.S. Catholic Bishops?!

Chris Morley comments on Bilgrimage,

Father James Martin, SJ, on What LGBTQ Folks Experience at Hands of Many Catholics: "The Level of Hate, Personal Attacks and Homophobia Is Breathtaking"

Brian Roewe, "Fr. James Martin in social media fray over LGBT conversation": 

As I'm Interviewed by National Project Collecting Stories of LGBTQ Pioneers, Thinking About "Humorless Puzzle" of Hate

I'm to be interviewed tomorrow by folks from a national project collecting stories of what the project calls "LGBTQ pioneers." I will say more about this interview after it takes place. For now, after I filled out a questionnaire sent to me by the interviewers, I've been preparing for the interview by thinking about what I can possibly say about my own minuscule contribution to the national movement to secure rights for LGBTQ human beings.

Tipping Over into Something "So Dark, So Real, So Evil That There Was Really No Precedent for It in Terms of Its All-Encompassing Possibilities for Death"

From the news and news commentary in the past day or so: read these snippets as a unified narrative, and the question arises, If I had to write a plot description for this narrative, what would that plot description say? What might it say about the role religion is playing in tipping the United States over into unimagined possibilities of death, destruction, and violence at this point in history? How does a "pro-life" Christianity end up dealing death, and doing so proudly and defiantly? 

Readers Ask: How Do We Live in a World or Church with No Connection to Evil? My Response: I'm Saying, "No More. Not in My Name Any Longer"

Neil Gabler, "And So It Begins: Normalizing the Election"*

Thank you all for your responses to my last posting. Since they're directed to me personally, for the most part, I do intend to respond to each one by commenting in that thread. In the meantime, I appreciate Sister Lea's good question, which gives me the opportunity to make clear some points my statement about repudiating my Catholic ties may not have made clear: you say, Sister Lea, 

What "Pro-Life" White Christian Voters Have Brought Us: Shouts of "Heil the People!" As National Registry of Muslims Is Mulled Over

Seig heil! ✋ pic.twitter.com/FhuFuZq6Sc

— Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove) November 19, 2016

This is my own running chronicle of what's rapidly unfolding, from just the past several days. You probably have your own tally going, too. It behooves us to be paying attention. God in heaven knows, the "pro-life" Christians and the "liberal" Catholic or other Christian journals who give the work of those "pro-life" Christians high profiles are not going to be keeping us informed about all of this. Despite their professed commitment to upholding the sanctity of life, they seem, in fact, oblivious to it and even jubilant that they have scored a "pro-life" victory in electing Donald Trump:

As Trump Presidency Is Normalized in Mainstream and Religious Media, Attempts Underway to Sanitize White Evangelical, White Catholic, Mormon Vote for Trump

The attempt to normalize Donald Trump and his presidency is well underway, and anyone following the trajectory of the mainstream (and religious) media in this country from the Reagan period forward could have foreseen this. To its great shame, National Catholic Reporter published an article last week by one of its leading "pro-life" writers attacking those protesting Trump's election, noting that the Dow is up, and claiming that we're seeing a "peaceful transition of power" with Trump — even as incidents of violent speech or acts directed against members of minority communities proliferate all over the nation. To my knowledge, NCR has yet to publish any statement at all about those incidents of violence. It's as if, for "pro-life" Catholics applauding the "peaceful transition of power," those being targeted simply do not exist — not as fellow human beings whose human lives must count in any credible rendition of a pro-life ethic.

As White U.S. Christians Go to Church Today . . . .

Lauren Markoe at Religion News Service 

Another scrapbook item (above) to show the next generation when they ask (and they will ask: they have a right and obligation to do so), "Where were you and what did you do when Donald Trump rose to power?" and "Why did white Christians choose a man so eminently unqualified for the presidency, whose election released a torrent of hateful incidents directed at minorities?"

Quote for Day: "Deny Them That 'We' — That Vast and Inclusive Plural"

How do we fight back now? Fred Clark's suggestion, as a white evangelical Christian who moves against the pro-Trump tide of his white evangelical community: Deny them the use of the word "we" to describe all of us:

Media Now Begin Noticing Outpouring of Acts of Hate and Violence Against Minorities After Trump Election: "People from All Types of Communities" Targeted

Sadly, the documenting continues, and becomes ever more difficult, because the acts of hatred unleashed by this election are proliferating and spreading rapidly, all over the nation, so that not even the media, which enabled Trump's rise to power, can pretend they are not occurring. As Lily Workneh writes today in the Huffington Post article to which the headline above links, "Countless Acts of Hate Have Been Carried Out Since Trump's Win":

"All This and More, in Just 36 hours, at the Time of Writing, in Trumpland": Our Moral Obligation to Document Outpouring of Hate Speech and Hateful Acts in Trump's New America

Middle school students in Royal Oak, Michigan chanting "Build The Wall!" pic.twitter.com/38vcnN9mnk

— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 10, 2016

And then there's this for you to consider: testimony, I call it. It's documentation of what's happening right before our eyes, in just two days, brought to us by white Christians in the U.S. What do we intend to do about it, the more than half of the nation who did not choose this? Will we stand by in silence? Will we be duped by the calls for "healing" issued by influential media gurus representing the very churches (white evangelical, Catholic, Mormon) who are inflicting these grave wounds on our social order? Can we do anything to change any of this, now that fewer than half of us chose, under the guidance of white Christian leaders, to place the nation entirely in the hands of the political party Mr. Trump represents? 

Reports from Every Corner of the Nation of Verbal or Physical Attacks on Members of Vulnerable Minority Communities: What the White Christian Vote Has Wrought

John Pavlovitz, "White Christians Who Voted for Donald Trump: Fix This. Now."

Look, I don't know if I'm doing much good flapping my lips here. The problems we are facing as a human community (and, in the U.S., as a nation, are enormous), and the lip-flapping doesn't seem to help much when all is said and done. I don't, and most of the people who read this blog and respond to it don't, have the power within the institutions of our society to make a real dent, to change much at all.

Note to Readers: Hoping to Catch Up Soon, Enjoying Your Lively Conversation About Online Trolling — And About Our Obligation to Push Back Against Hate Speech

I'm away on a short jaunt, dear readers, and may not catch up with my task of acknowledging your welcome comments (or with my blogging task) for a day or so. I do want to tell you all how much I've enjoyed — and learned from — the lively conversation about handling trolls at various Catholic blog sites. 

National Catholic Reporter Announces It Will Restrict Its Commenting Services, Due to "Dramatic Increase in Trolls and Disruptive Comments"

Last week, I pointed you to some valuable (and worrisome) commentary about how trolls are trashing open discussion spaces online and causing some news sites to shut down their commentary threads. 

The Alt-Right and Donald Trump's Campaign: A Brief Primer

As Charles Pierce wrote yesterday, this is "the week everyone in America started saying 'alt-right.' " As a service to you readers, here's a list of article I've read in the past two days about the alt-right and its mainstreaming via Trump's campaign, which have struck me as helpful. I don't by any means pretend that this is an exhaustive list of articles commenting on these themes. They're only ones I happen to have read in my daily scanning of the news, which I'd like to share with you.

Pope Francis: Gay People Should Be Respected, Accompanied Pastorally, and Apologized to by the Church

If you can't understand how the church has marginalized the LGBT community, then you've not been listening to the LGBT community. Ask them.

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) June 26, 2016

I have house guests for a number of days, and haven't been able to find much time to blog. I did happen to be online last evening, however, scrolling through Twitter, when news broke of Pope Francis's statement aboard his flight from Armenia to Rome that the church is obliged to tell gay people it's sorry for abusing them. According to Reuters, the pope said the following:

Twitter Comments on Mass Shooting at Gay Nightclub in Orlando: "2nd Most Fatal Shooting by Single Shooter in World History"

This is the 2nd most fatal shooting by single shooter in world history, 2nd to Norway 2011: https://t.co/cYcYyqMyx8 https://t.co/69rHGopCHI

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 12, 2016

As news about the atrocity at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando early this morning breaks, tweets that are catching my attention:

Footnote to a Footnote: Fixation on Homosexuality in Discussions of Catholic Abuse Crisis, and Questions About Hate Speech

I'll admit to you all a frustration bordering on peevishness at the way many people in religious circles seem inclined to turn plain truth on its head as they parse the lives and fates of fellow human beings who are LGBT. The classic formulation of this truth inversion: "I'm not homophobic. I love gay folks. I just want to speak the truth to them in love as I tell them they are under God's judgment, are headed to hell if they do not repent, and cannot have the same rights other people have -- because love."

Footnote to Discussion of St. John's Abbey Story: NCR Thread Filling Up with Homophobic Charges That Catholic Abuse Crisis Is Rooted in Homosexuality

A footnote about what I posted earlier today regarding the documents just made public by St. John's Benedictine Abbey in Minnesota, re: monks credibly accused of having abused minors: as happens so often in the toxic, homophobic context of American Catholicism when stories about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy are made public, a string of people have already logged into the thread discussing Brian Roewe's story to sling around the usual accusations about homosexuals abusing boys. Check out the thread started by Marty Eble's comment setting that line of discussion rolling.