Catholic Church @ MindSay

Sighhhhh.

A big part of me's hoping that this is just sensationalist reporting, that either this happens with every major election and the media's playing it up now in hopes of generating more ratings, or that they're making a few scattered incidents sound like a lot.

I can understand being irked, perhaps even moderately enraged, over someone coming to power when their ideas don't fit with yours. I don't understand the connection on assaulting and threatening other people over it. Maybe, at a long stretch, you could issue nasty remarks to members of the Republican party if you didn't care for their candidate. But a) you have no way of knowing how a person voted unless they openly declare it*, and b) you can't bonk people and expect anything good to come out of it.

I'm also rather disheartened over the attacks on a few different churches after Proposition 8 went down. I'm hardly saying that I'm not disappointed over that one, but find a better way to respond. Please. The church said what they felt that they needed to. You can get your own group together and rally support in the direction you choose - as long as you can manage to do so in a civilized fashion, no one's going to stop you. Having a goal and pursuing it is generally an admirable course of action. Setting fires and shooting windows are not going to change the legal situation any. Focus the energy on what will get what you want.

Similary, destroying homes and vehicles will not remove a legal official from office. In general, Congress holds much more power than the president does - pour all of that excess passion into enough letters to drive your representative crazy on the issues you care about, until he just votes as you'd like him to in order to make you shut up. Much more effective. Heck, if you have leftover energy, write to people who aren't even supposed to be representing you. Or, y'know, go to the gym or something - excess rage translates well into physical activity, and the American government's been battling the American retail for awhile on trying to get us to be more healthy.

We're a relatively free nation. If you're unhappy about the way things are, you've been given avenues to alter it. You've been given avenues to pretend that you don't know what's going on and lose yourself in entertainment. You've been given the right to vote, the right to speak, the right to write - sometimes you can even do it at work or in school. Sometimes you can't. That's not a crime on the park of the school or workplace, incidentally - they're not restricting your entire lifestyle, just your actions on their premises, which could be construed as opposing their purpose. For example, actually getting some work done.

But you're not going to change anything by hurting people, by setting fires (well, maybe you'll change the landscaping), by threatening, or by anything particularly illegal. You're going to let people know that there are people who aren't happy with the president-elect - well, that's kind of standard for the course. The only country that I know of with a 100% support voting record was Iraq under Hussein. Even if you do manage to get a lot of people scared (instead of a lot of people mad, which, given our nation's response to 9/11, seems far more likely), it won't alter the presidency, or the Proposition. No one reverses laws because people are scared, they reverse them because the people have clearly voted on them.

And if you're just mad and want to talk or rant, well, I'm here. And there are a lot of other people out there who'd rather give someone the time they need to listen rather than find out later that someone else got hurt.

Am I going to change anything on this? No, probably not - I think this is a rather common sentiment on Mindsay, and I'm a rarely-read blogger. This was simply on my mind, and I needed to say it.


_{*On that note, sometimes openly declaring it doesn't even guarantee that you know. Friends of the family, for the previous presidential election, supported different candidates - he Republican, she Democrat. Married, had different work schedules - every night when he got home, he would change the sign in the yard to support his candidate. Every morning, after he left, she would switch it in favor of hers, before leaving for work. The husband in question was friends with someone else I know, who'd been recruited to switch the sign back AFTER she left for work. I think that may have been a rather tense month for the kids, but fortunately they were generally far more amused at the conflict than hostile.}

One of the things I like best about Devin O'Branagan's latest novel, RED HOT PROPERTY, is that she once again deals with the subject of persecution.  Valentino DeMitri is a gay, Catholic man who is not allowed to practice his religion because of rules of the Catholic Church.  She told me that the character was inspired by two gay men she encountered in her life. 

 

The first was a gay man who was so tortured by the fact he had been told that God hated him because he was gay, he committed suicide.  Devin had tried to assure him that, in her view of such things, God loved everyone and what mattered most to God was each individual's capacity to love others.  But her assurances to Andy didn't outweigh the unloving pronouncements of those in authority in his family and in his church.  God bless Andy's soul...

 

The other was a young man who used to come to Catholic mass every Sunday and simply stand at the back of the church and cry.  He would slip out when communion began.  Devin asked the priest about the young man and was told it was because the church wouldn't allow him to practice his faith, because he was gay.

 

Appalled at this medieval way of thought, Devin makes a strong, emotional case for the rights of gays to practice whatever faith to which they feel drawn.

 

Please read RED HOT PROPERTY and see how the character deals with this heartbreak: www.RedHotProperty.com

 

that I only posted one story about my trip to Canada. So here's another.

 

We were driving to the giant, touristy mall called the Forks on our one-and-only free day. We were all excited to finally get the chance to take a break from the cramped chruch and go shopping and go-karting. We pulled into the gravel parking lot, where we were so distracted by the huge, weird-looking bridge nearby that we almost didn't notice the purple minivan that parked right between our two church vans at the very same moment. "Hah, we sandwiched that car. I wonder if it's the group from Minnesota. I heard they came up in a regular van," someone said.

 

We were about to get out when we saw that the middle-aged woman who had been driving the minivan had gotten out, slammed her door, and stomped her way over to the driver's side window of the other van, where our youth leader, Matt was sitting. We couldn't see or hear much, though we opened our windows slightly to try to catch a few words, and we did. Those words were, "...HELL!" and "...HOOLIGANS!" From what the people in van under attack told us, she was accusing us of throwing rocks at her car. Matt tried to calmly explain to her that this was impossible, seeing as how our vans only have windows on the side that open very slightly, and they were closed. He suggested that maybe, since we were driving on a gravel road... But the woman wouldn't hear any of it. She went on a crazed rant about how her children would never do such a thing because they go to Catholic school, and everyone in her church is better than the likes of us and we would never be welcome there. Also, we were going to be judged in Hell. When Matt (who is quite soft-spoken and abhors this kind of confrontation) had finally had enough, he said, "God will judge all of our sins, and He alone will judge our sins. Have a great day," and rolled up the window.

 

However, the woman apparently had not gotten all of the screaming out of her system, because she proceeded to storm over to the window of our driver, Tree (a very tall, people-person from the last story). She then said shrilly, on the verge of tears it seemed, "Those hooligans in the other van threw rocks at my car and you people continue to DENY IT!" Tree, remaining pleasant, replied, "Well, if that's true, that was very wrong of us to do."

 

She obviously had no idea what to say to that, but was still quite angry. She backed away, waving her arms manically and screaming, "I just can't DEAL with you people! You hooligans! HOOLIGANS!!!" She paced back and forth a few times, pulling at her short, curly hair, until it occured to her to write down the name of our church, which was painted on the side of the vans. Her teenage daughter had apparently already written down our license plates from the passenger seat of the minivan. A girl in our van said she felt sorry for her, but the scowl that was escaping from under her giant, bug-like sunglasses suggested she wasn't at all embarressed.

 

The woman must have thought the act of writing down our church name was a threatening enough gesture to end her rampage with an air of now-we'll-see-who-gets-the-last-laugh and she drove away. Our theory is that she was a hardcore Catholic who saw our van, noted that we weren't Catholic like her, and when a pebble from the gravel road got kicked up and hit her car, she naturally assumed it was us. Us with our dirty, slightly different belief system.

 

Everyone exclaimed how the lady needed to be locked up and put on heavy mediaction, but I maintained that she just started menopause, was recently fired from her job, and her mom probably just died. Her dog, too.

Catholic Church buries limbo after centuries

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

seriously, repost this.

A Warning About Goths August 8, 2004
This was an actual letter sent out by the St. Marys Church.
If Your Child is a Gothic, Reform Through the Lord!
Listed below are some warning signs to indicate if your child may have gone astray from the Lord.
Gothic (or goth) is a very obscure and often dangerous culture that young teenagers are prone to participating in. The gothic culture leads young, susceptible minds into an imagined world of evil, darkness, and violence. Please seek immediate attention through counselling, prayer, and parental guidance to rid your child of Satans temptations if five or more of the following are applicable to your child:
1.)Frequently wears black clothing. (check)
2.)Wears band and/or rock t-shirts. (check)
3.)Wears excessive black eye makeup, lipstick or nailpolish. (check)
4.)Wears any odd, silver jewelry or symbols. Some of these include: reversed crosses, pentagrams, pentacles, ankhs or various other Satanic worshipping symbols.
5.)Shows an interest in piercings or tattoos.(check)

 6.)Listens to gothic or any other anti-social genres of music. (Marilyn Manson claims to be the anti-Christ, and publicly speaks against the Lord. Please discard any such albums IMMEDIATELY.) (check)

7.)Associates with other people that dress, act or speak eccentrically.
8.)Shows a declining interest in wholesome activities, such as: the Bible, prayer, church or sports.(check)

9.)Shows an increasing interest in death, vampires, magic, the occult, witchcraft or anything else that involves Satan.
10.)Takes drugs.
11.)Drinks alcohol.
12.)Is suicidal and/or depressed. (check) not suicidal, just depressed...

Cuts, burns or partakes in any other method of self-mutilation. (This is a Satanic ritual that uses pain to detract from the light of God and His love. Please seek immediate attention for this at your local mental health center.)
13.)Complains of boredom. (check) who doesn't ???
14.)Sleeps too excessively or too little. (check)
15.)Is excessively awake during the night. (check)

16.)Dislikes sunlight or any other form of light. (This pertains to vampires promoting the idea that His light is of no use.)

17.)Demands an unusual amount of privacy. (check) duh? i'm a teenager.
18.)Spends large amounts of time alone. (check)
19.)Requests time alone and quietness. (This is so that your child may speak to evil sprits through meditation.) (check) yes, i totally speak to the devil every time i'm alone in my room.
20.)Insists on spending time with friends while unaccompanied by an adult. (check) again, I'M A FUCKING TEENAGER
21.)Disregards authority figures; teachers, priests, nuns and elders are but a few examples of this.(check)

 22.)Misbehaves at school (check)
23.)Misbehaves at home.(check)
24.)Eats excessively or too little.
25.)Eats goth-related foods. Count Dracula cereal is an example of this.(WTF? o.0)
26.)Drinks blood or expresses an interest in drinking blood. (Vampires believe this is how to attain Satan. This act is very dangerous and should be stopped immediately.)
27.)Watches cable television or any other corrupted media sources. (Ask your local church for proper programs that your child may watch.) (check)CABLE IS NOT EVIL!
28.)Plays videos games that contains violence or role-playing nature.(check)
29.)Uses the internet excessively and frequently makes time for the computer. (check)
30.)Makes Satanic symbols and/or violently shakes head to music.(check) so headbanging is a crime now, too? 
31.)Dances to music in a provocative or sexual manner. goths don't do this, preps do. morons
32.)Is homosexual and/or bisexual.
33.)Pursues dangerous cult religions. Such include: Satanism, Scientology, Philosophy, Paganism, Wicca, Hinduism and Buddhism. so basically, anything besides catholic is "dangerous"
33.)Wears pins, stickers or anything else that contains these various phrases: Im so gothic, Im dead, woe is me, Im a goth.
34.)Claims to be a goth.
If five or more of these apply to your child, please intervene immediately. The gothic culture is dangerous and Satan thrives within it. If any of these problems persist, enlist your child into your local mental health center.
~ St. Marys Catholic Church
parents are funny ;)