Get It Straight -- The hypocrisy of blaming gays for sexual abuse by priests.

Slate ^ | April 24, 2002 | William Saletan

[Dimensio]

If you think about having gay sex, you are sinful, and evil.

So should people with homosexual attraction have their brains removed?

[07055]

If the 2,000 cases are spread over a period of 80 percent turnover in the priesthood, or if the number of guilty priests is more like 1,100, or if the percentage of priests who are gay is more like 50 percent, then only about 8 percent of gay priests have committed sexual abuse. According to the Catholic League, that's the rate of pedophilia "in the general adult population."

Here is that bogus 8% figure again. In other words, for every 12 people you meet on the street, one of them is a pedophile.

Yeah, sure.

I don't know what the Catholic League was thinking when they dreamed up that statistic to try to justify the high rate of pedophilia among priests, but I don't believe it for a second.

[detsaoT]

The Unthinkable Has Become Thinkable (Excerpt from "The Same Sex Controversy" - by James R. White and Jeffrey D. Neill)

For your information regarding the perversions of Christian doctrine which are so prevalent amongst the Liberal demoninations (not a typo).

:) ttt

[GenXFreedomFighter]

Interesting that Slate used an illustration depicting a heretic priest being burned at the state, Inquisition-style. The barbarity of some inquisitional sentences came at the hands of the state, and was condemned by the Church. Since the content of Slate is so blatantly pro-big-government, it's fitting that they seek to punish those whom the Religion of Secular Humanism considers to be heretics.

[fporretto]

The homosexual subculture and its defenders will do everything they can to avert the conclusion that the sexual abuse of boys, which, despite Bill Donohue's assertions, occurs at a far higher rate among Catholic clergy than among the ministers of other Christian denominations, are the fruit of homosexuality within the Church, even though the existence of a lavender mafia with particular, enormous influence over seminaries is well established.

The critical factor in the abuses is not human sexuality. Indeed, to be fair, it might not even be homosexuality as such. But only within the Catholic clergy do men of God get such enormous, unsupervised authority over the young -- and only within the Catholic clergy are as many as 25% homosexual. Even if that figure is overstated by a factor of two, that would mean that three times as many priests per capita are homosexual as are secular American men.

Homosexuals, therefore, are attracted to the priesthood in disproportionate numbers. Why? What does it offer that's especially enticing to homosexuals? Couldn't a position of authority over young boys, whose sexuality is in a dynamic, influenceable state, be one of the attractions?

The Church, by insisting that priests be unmarried, has deprived itself of one of the checks on homosexuals entering its ranks. This is not to say that there are no married homosexuals. However, by limiting its candidates to the unmarried, the Church sacrifices a partially effective filter for homosexuality. Also, Protestant ministers rather frequently share pastoral authority and duty with their wives. Continuous spousal supervision thwarts many temptations to sexual sin -- and this is no less true of marriages in which the husband's sexual orientation is divided or concealed. Given the removal of these deterrents, is it really a surprise that homosexual and pederastic impulses are more frequently acted upon by priests than by non-Catholic clergymen, or by secular American men? Given that the Church in America has faced a severe shortage of vocations these past few decades, is it really a surprise that the Church has been slow to root out the problem in the only effective way?

Homosexuals have fought hard specifically to get into positions of authority over young boys: as teachers, as Boy Scout troop leaders, and as priests. If that authority brings them personally nothing they particularly desire, why have they made such an effort?

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[uncbob]

Only part of the article I agree with is the part about the cardinals
If this had been heterosexual priests preying on 12-14 year old girls the cardinals would have covered it up just as much

Heads should roll but won't

[detsaoT]

The liberal media lit this fire, thinking they could control it. Now they will have to suffer the consequences.

WELL PUT! Alwas eager to use a given issue to bash Christianity, the Media never realized that the truth would get out about this scandal.

:) ttt

[breakem]

"Proving once again that the author is an idiot. Both are crimes, and hypoteticals to not prove a case. Gays are deviants, just as pedifiles are DEVIANTS...there is no difference."

Always good science and logic on these gay threads. Thanx for keeping up the tradition.

[Steve_Seattle]

"30% to 50% gay priests"

I have never seen a figure this high (the figure I have seen most often is 10% to 20%), so I suspect he is using the highest figure he could find to make the percentage of offending gay priests as low as possible. If you use the more common estimates of gay priests, the percentage of sexual offenders jumps to 30-45%, and that is an unacceptably high risk.

[knak]

the author of this article is an idiot

[RasterMaster]

Those who make excuses or wish to add "protection under the law" for deviants are just as guilty. So, you do nothing but help the deviants become "main-stream" by treating them as if they are like 'everyone else'.

[ThomasMore]

Conservatives don't care that most gay priests don't molest kids.

REAL Catholics are concerned that there ARE homosexual priests, many are active and some abuse children and adolescents. The homosexual condition , especially a practicing homosexual, is TOTALLY contradictory to the sexual moral code. This conservative and Catholic Christian wants ALL the homosexuals out of the priesthood and no more brought in.

[breakem]

You do nothing but fertilize the ignorance by comparing sex with adults to sex with little kids. I'm here to point out the illogic of your statement. The fact that you don't see it merely highlights my point.

[wwjdn]

Outlaw "Gay" (homosexual) priests? I have a better idea... outlaw homosexuality!

[Snuffington]

Mr. Saletan is obviously desperate to protect homosexuality in the priesthood. The main problem with this has nothing to do with the current scandal. It has to do with Catholc doctrine, which declares homosexuality as objectively disordered, and labels all expressions of homosexuality as sinful.

Getting active homosexuals out of the priesthood, and being vigilant in keeping them from entry to the seminaries in the future, is nothing more than a return to Catholic morality within the priesthood.

[ThomasMore]

30 percent to 50 percent of Catholic seminarians are gay

Get rid of them all. I'm tired of my money paying for that crap.

[RasterMaster]

DEVIANTS ARE DEVIANTS....you need further study of "nature" and the differences between the sexes and why. Anything else is DEVIANT behavior. Saying one is not as bad as the other does not change the fact that is DEVIANCY. You only wish to define deviancy down, so that you can feel "accepted".

[KSCITYBOY]

This problem has been around in the church for a long time. The parents may not have talked about it but if you went to a Catholic school like I did chances are the kids may have discussed it. Homosexual's have hidden behind the collar for years. The problem is not that priests can't get married it's that before the gay lifestyle became so open priest hid in the church. If a priest is a practicing homosexual how do you justify keeping him on as a priest, I mean they took a vow to abstain from sex. 99% of these cases will prove out to be priests molesting young boys, this tells me that homosexual priests are a danger to young boys. If the church expects to survive in America it had better get rid of these priests ASAP.

[breakem]

You are intellectually deviant. Since deviance is deviance you are the same as they, by your own logic.

Thanx for telling me who I've come to support and what I need to read. You're as ignorant on that as you were on your first comment.

[RasterMaster]

Feeble attempts to legitimize deviancy, with more ignorant, logic-free commentary.

Sexual DEVIANTS...you must be another gay looking for sympathy or a free pass to practice deviance in the public.