Majority of U.S. Catholics back gay rights in survey

Majority of U.S. Catholics back gay rights in survey

In spite of, or perhaps because of, Roman Catholic church teachings condemning homosexuality, many lay Catholics in the United States be more accepting toward same-sex relationships than the general public, a new survey found.

“The big finding here is that American Catholics are at least 5 points more supportive than the general population across a range of gay and lesbian issues,” said Robert Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted telephone surveys of 3,000 Americans.

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“Catholics appear to like civil unions as an alternative to same-sex marriage,” Schneck said, suggesting that while Catholics accept the rights of same-sex couples to be together there may be resistance to couples joined in what many see as a sacred rite.

Overall, the survey found 53 percent of Catholics supported the idea of same-sex marriage, while the general public is evenly divided on the issue. Fifty-six percent of Catholics did not believe sexual relations between two adults of the same gender constituted a sin, compared to 46 percent of the general population.

More:
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/03/22/survey-catholics/

Everyone gets a civil union at City Hall; those who want to get a marriage ceremony elsewhere if they want.

If marriage is a sacred institution, let the government stay out of it.

I'm fine with that.

I think we should just call all "marriages" civil unions (and religious clergy could conduct them) and then the "marriage" label would just be for religious endorsement which gets you nothing as far as rights (other than perhaps a ticket to the heaven of your choice).

means something other than "civil union" out in the cold. I don't want a civil union; I want a marriage. Under that system, there's nowhere else for me to get one.

but I think belonging to a group one disagrees with on religious/ethical grounds, is really strange.

your family. That can be tough to do. I notice that Latinos who come to the US are more likely to leave the church than those who stay below the border. After one big jump, another comes easier.

in that way. Leaders set the official positions, but can't maintain them without popular support. Churches, of course, claim divine inspiration, but the reality is that religious belief shifts as attitudes change.

I am not so sure the 'change from within' tactic works.

I was raised in a Catholic family; I understand there is a lot of tradition, but tradition is a shitty master.

wrong, but they'd no more abandon it than a liberal would abandon America for claiming the right indefinitely detain people without charges.

Moving to another country can be expensive.

The more liberal country may not accept you as a citizen.

One's income is usually tied to a location.

One's family and friends are usually in one's birth country.

Possible language barrier.

Leaving the Catholic Church only entails sleeping in on Sundays.

People don't typically view their religion is as a club they've joined, that they'll abandon when it doesn't perfectly meet their needs. It's part of their cultural identity, family history, and personal tradition, and they are not willing to abandon it on the basis that they are not in perfect agreement with its ideology.

I know "Jewish" aetheists who say absolutely that they do not believe in god, but who observe all the religious traditions as a matter of course. I've met "Catholics" who are pro-choice, pro-birth control, and pro gay-rights.

In point of fact, I don't know I've ever met anyone who claims any of the Abrahamic religions believe or adhere to all of even the clearest tenets of their respective faiths, have you?

So why do they keep supporting the institution that enables it and protects the offenders? I sure as hell don't get it.

Edit: Point being, you don't nececessarily best protest what's wrong with an organization by leaving it.

is NOWHERE near as voluntary as the person who stays in the RCC.

The RCC is not going to be changed. Period. It is a hierarchical organization that is built to protect itself and it's dogma. You could change a particular church but not the top end. Ratzi appoints the cardinals that will pick the next pope. Think he's going to appoint a liberal progressive?

I don't think anything you will come up with makes it statistically significant. JPII had Benny as his right hand man. That alone lets you know where he's at.

but that's clearly not the case. Religions *pretend* to be monolithic and unchanging, but in reality it's the people within them who ultimately determine how a church behaves and what it stands for. The OP proves this, by pointing out that American Catholics don't support the Vatican's stance on gay rights. Many Catholics I have known don't follow or support Church dogma on abortion or birth control either.

Point being, Churches and religions are organizations made of people. They change over time, and suggesting that anyone who is part of one is somehow guilty or supportive of anything bad associated with that church is not a fair assessment.

Would you say, for example, that anyone continuing to be a Muslim is supporting acts of Islamic extremism, unless they walk away from their faith entirely?

That being said, it is not my impression that they have a pope. It does not seem to me to be a religion as loaded at the top as the RCC. I will tell you that if there are Catholics that do not support the church on abortion and/or birth control, then they are living in the state of mortal sin and best get to confession and then change their stance if they believe that the RCC is correct about heaven. If they don't believe that, then they need to get to a different religion.

How does the leadership of the RCC change in philosophy if they pope gets to appoint new cardinals and the cardinals appoint the next pope. It is a vicious circle of the same general philosophy being in power.

it does. Look at the wildly varied interpretations of scripture. You've got your "do unto others, feed the poor" and your "stone those kids to death if they get out of line."

Religion is whatever people say it is. That's all the more true if you don't happen to believe in divinity, right? Where else does dogma come from, if you assume it didn't come from a god?

Again, it's one thing to oppose "The Church." It's another to condemn all its members as though any religion were a monolithic group.

I am not saying that each and every Catholic is a dirtbag, but there is no wiggle room in the RCC. If you commit a mortal sin--which are pretty well spelled out--and you die before you go to confess your sins to a priest, the RCC makes it clear you will go to hell. No "maybes." It's going to happen. That hasn't changed--nor has the list of mortal sins fundamentally changed--for centuries. Even the "meat on Fridays" thing. Most Catholics don't know that you still aren't supposed to eat meat on any Friday but you can if you give up something else on that day. Just because most Catholics don't know or care about it, doesn't make it less of a rule of the church and something that should be confessed at reconciliation.

hold more liberal views on gay rights than many Protestants, for example. You can try to say that means they aren't "real" Catholics because the official Vatican position is something else, but that they apparently don't feel that way. The effect, therefore, is a shift in what Catholicism means and how it's practiced.

Moreover, there's really no "wiggle room" for Protestants either, if they claim to follow what the Bible actually says. Can't tolerate homosexuality. Got to stone anyone who skips church. Take off that poly-cotton blend or die. Marry your rape victim (if she's a virgin). Sell that daughter into slavery. Etc.

Which Protestants follow that dogma to the letter? Are they somehow less guilty of supporting the "problematic" ethical positions in the Bible?

which one joins voluntarily and can leave at the drop of a hat. And the Catholic Church is not a democracy...there is no..zero..zip..hope of "changing it from within".

"Joining voluntarily and can leave at the drop of a hat" is a bit specious too. Most people stick with the culture / belief system they're born into. It's not like most people "join" a religion the way you join AAA.

Edit: Not trying to be combative. But if people didn't change the CC, where are the piles of burning witches?

Granted, there's plenty still wrong with that particular institution. But people HAVE changed religion, consistently, throughout history.

that people necessarily join the Catholic church voluntarily, now did I? Only that they DON'T become US citizens voluntarily.

And tell us, please, in what way can the laity change overall church doctrine, policy and practices, if an arch-conservative RCC hierarchy does not wish them to be changed and refuses to take action to change them? Yes, the church has changed..but never because the rank-and-file membership forced change against the resistance of church leadership.

For one, members are from whence church leadership derives, correct? Cardinals and Popes and Bishops aren't hatched in a factory somewhere. Okay, not as far as we know, anyway.

For another, cultural and social pressures have clearly changed church doctrines and policies over the years. They've gotten over that whole, "We'll burn you if you mention helicocentrism" thing."

If you mean that church policies aren't determined by a full-blooded democratic process, okay, but it's not possible to argue that the Catholic Church is the one entity in the history of mankind controlled by an implaccable, static leadership impervious to the opinions of its membership.

They are, like everyone else, making things up as they go along. They need supporters and (perhaps most of all) money. If not enough people agree, whether by way of changes in the personnel holding leadership positions, or simply due to the shifting weight of public opinions, change occurs. Slowly, yes, but unless "god" has actually changed his / her / its mind, people are the cause of the changes in church policy over time. To believe otherwise would be to accept the Church's view that its positions have always been in accordance with the immutable laws of some divine being.

ducking the real issues. I asked how the laity can change things if the hierarchy doesn't want them changed. Is your answer that if the laity change things, they need to become archbishops or cardinals? Sheesh. Even if they did, THEY'D be the hierarchy then.

And social and cultural pressures come from OUTSIDE. My whole point was that change is not going to come from WITHIN the Catholic Church, by rank and file members who stick around as members of an incredibly corrupt organization.

And where DID I ever argue that the RCC is the ONLY corrupt and autocratic organization in history? Nowhere. You just made that up as another ridiculous strawman to try to bolster an empty argument.

culture. But dismiss all of that on the basis that ... what? That one individual member can't instantly reverse Church doctrine for the better, and therefore must abandon it?

If that's the point you want, you can have it.

That really is no different from abandoning your country because it's done despicable things, or your political party because its leadership has been corrupt.

MY point -- and I'll leave you with this, because you seem to have become testy -- is that, as the OP points out, it is possible to both be Catholic, and to improve Catholicism by being better than current official doctrine allows. The result, regardless of whatever carefully refined nits you want to pick, is that Catholics in America are apparently more progressive than members of some other religions in at least some areas.

That DOES improve Catholicism and IS how change occurs in a religion. The religion is what it's members believe it is, not simply what its leadership claims. And leadership always eventually succumbs to the changing views of membership. You can try to distinguish between "outside pressure" and Catholics themselves, but it's not like the Church listens to outsiders MORE than its own, dues-paying members, is it? "Look, our members aren't buying the anti-gay thing. Perhaps we'd better adjust, like we did with the whole, 'burn, witch burn' situation, and the unfortunate 'universe revolves around the Earth' idea, and the whole 'slavery is okay' notion, before we lose membership and those very important donations."

It does matter what Catholics think, or the Church wouldn't have ever changed, as it clearly has. It's not like the process stopped when JP II decided to mention that slavery was actually a pretty bad idea. And it wasn't just non-Catholic opinions the Church was responding to. Do you think the Vatican isn't hearing from practicing Catholics on the priest-abuse scandal? Think it hasn't hurt donations coming from the flock?

Therefore, Catholics who choose to remain in the Church, despite rightly despising the wrong it has done and the abhorrent positions it continues to take on some issues, are, in fact, effecting some benefit, and perhaps a greater one, than simply abandoning the church.

It also means your point that there is "zero" possibility of Catholics changing Catholicism is, at the very VERY best, moot. Catholics HAVE changed what it means to be Catholic in America, apparently, and hanging grimly onto the notion that it somehow doesn't count until the Pope signs off on it is pretty meaningless.

Good night, and good luck.



Edited for punctuation, astronomical accuracy, and syntax for. And to add two nice sentences in the middle bit.

to correct blatant intellectual dishonesty.

But dismiss all of that on the basis that ... what? That one individual member can't instantly reverse Church doctrine for the better, and therefore must abandon it?

Where did I ever say that? Again, nowhere. Neither did I ever say that the church hasn't changed. If the only way you can convince yourself that your argument makes sense is by attacking things I never said, you're not worth wasting time on.

Edit: Again, checking out based on your apparent upset. But you'll not be re-writing the conversation and accusing me of dishonesty on your way out the door.

Catholics change the Church from within. It has always been thus, and always will be. You can agree, disagree, or discuss, but fleeing your position and then blaming me for it will not work.

You seem intelligent, and I hope to have a more fruitful discussion with you in the future.

Thanks.

from charges of dishonesty, point to EXACTLY where I said the things you attributed to me.

I also asked you directly, several posts ago: "in what way can the laity change overall church doctrine, policy and practices, if an arch-conservative RCC hierarchy does not wish them to be changed and refuses to take action to change them?" You provided no examples and no specifics, and yet now you repeat the same, unsupported claim. Try to actually back up what you allege, and maybe we can start to have a fruitful discussion. Your attempts to dismiss the argument and claim victory at the same time won't wash on this board.

Big surprise. You can agree, disagree or discuss, but dishonestly misrepresenting my position will not work.

but it is still a mortal sin to be a witch. THAT hasn't changed. And the burning of witches isn't dogmatic. How has the dogma significantly changed. Transubstantiation is still around and that's ridiculous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/books/review/22STEINFE.html

The Catholic Church PRETENDS that its dogma never changes. That does not make it the case. Religion follows culture. There's some back-and-forth, but religious beliefs clearly began as an expression of what people thought to be true. Our Western religions are generally a conservative or regressive influence, but they all shift over time to conform to cultural norms.

Focusing on something like transubstantian misses the forest for the trees a bit. That's part of a ritual that has little to do with moral view. Christianity itself, in all its forms, was used --with Bibilical justification -- to support slavery. The Bible is still used to support the oppression of women -- but less so than in the past.

If you believe that religion is something people make up, you have to recognize that it's also something that people mold and change as they go.

This is not the teaching of the RCC. The RCC is a very hierarchical organization and you have rules to follow. This is a breaking of that rule. If you have a mortal sin for supporting abortion, this is one, too.

Flame away. I did attend an RCC seminary so I'm not just pulling this out of my ass.

good relations with gay people I know who are actively religious.

Not surprising; most Catholics whom I know don't go in for all the hard-line views of the current Pope and more right-wing church leaders.

religious conservatives have definitely tried in recent years (after decades of emphasizing difference between catholics and protestants) to recruit and/or present catholics as allies, but I don't think it's really working ...

In this country, there are several such people who write/blog for the Daily Telegraph: e.g. Cristina Odone, Damian Thompson and Gerald Warner. And a number of other Catholic blogs that support very right-wing views. But these writers generally know that they are out of step with most Catholics in the country, and indeed fulminate quite a lot on this matter.

The same goes for right-wing members of the Church of England (see the site 'Anglican Mainstream' for example). It sometimes seems that to a really right-wing Anglican, there are two main hate-figures: Richard Dawkins .... and the Archbishop of Canterbury!

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