Sexual Hypocrisy in Church and State - Latest Spong

[Born Free]

"It has long been observed in religious circles that the most outspoken critics of homosexuality frequently turn out to be themselves closeted homosexual people. Now we discover that among those in the political arena who have done most to politicize the homosexual issue in an effort to curry votes among conservative voters in recent elections are themselves also deeply compromised on this issue. At stake is the issue of integrity, a quality sorely missing, I fear, in both the life of the Christian Church and in the present Bush administration. In both arenas the duplicity of sexual politics needs to be exposed"

So commences the latest Spong newsletter. The full letter makes it clear that there is a massive gap between what the conservatives state publicly, and what they do, and who they employ. For example:

"The final revelation of this administration's crass behavior came on Sunday, October 15, 2006 in an interview on CBS's Sixty Minutes with David Kuo, a former top official in the Bush "Faith-based Initiatives" program. In his book, "Tempting Faith," Kuo reported that Bush administration spokespersons who were willing to blast gay people in public, were in private referring to "these f-----g faith based programs" and calling its homophobic Evangelical base a bunch of 'nuts.'"

This raised the question for me, as to whether MoInc has a somewhat similar gap between its public noise and private activities on homosexuality. Certainly the Church's public and behind closed doors stance on sexual offenders against minors has similar issues to what Spong names in this newsletter - lots of public chest-beating, but protecting and relocating offenders if it can get away with it on the quiet.

Daryl

[hamar]

"It has long been observed in religious circles that the most outspoken critics of homosexuality frequently turn out to be themselves closeted homosexual people. Now we discover that among those in the political arena who have done most to politicize the homosexual issue in an effort to curry votes among conservative voters in recent elections are themselves also deeply compromised on this issue. At stake is the issue of integrity, a quality sorely missing, I fear, in both the life of the Christian Church and in the present Bush administration. In both arenas the duplicity of sexual politics needs to be exposed"

So commences the latest Spong newsletter. The full letter makes it clear that there is a massive gap between what the conservatives state publicly, and what they do, and who they employ. For example:

"The final revelation of this administration's crass behavior came on Sunday, October 15, 2006 in an interview on CBS's Sixty Minutes with David Kuo, a former top official in the Bush "Faith-based Initiatives" program. In his book, "Tempting Faith," Kuo reported that Bush administration spokespersons who were willing to blast gay people in public, were in private referring to "these f-----g faith based programs" and calling its homophobic Evangelical base a bunch of 'nuts.'"

This raised the question for me, as to whether MoInc has a somewhat similar gap between its public noise and private activities on homosexuality. Certainly the Church's public and behind closed doors stance on sexual offenders against minors has similar issues to what Spong names in this newsletter - lots of public chest-beating, but protecting and relocating offenders if it can get away with it on the quiet.

Daryl
DW and I read this article the other night. We both commented how there is a clear distinction between public and private behavior in most public or quasi-public organizations. It is sad, but I wonder what else organizations like Moinc and the Catholic church can do other than cover up their dirt when they find it. If they admit that there is an internal problem it will be akin to admitting publicly that they are flawed and, of course, that can never happen. Gawd's perfect church could never be seen to have a pimple or two. So the innocent go on suffering. Even within government agencies, where the attitude is that they can, and have the authority to, get away with what ever they choose, there is an unspoken law that you never rat on a fellow member of Congress/your agency (unless there is a strong likelihood that you may be taken down with the culprit you are protecting). Many years ago, when I was a DEA agent, we used to joke, "I can do anything, I'm a Federal Agent". I think that was only a joke on the surface, many, inwardly, believed it!
Keep in mind, that many of the offenders that we are aware of, from both Moism and the other true church, are from highly placed positions, who have been called of gawd. How can you publicly deal with a heinous issue like sexual abuse of children by those called of gawd and still keep your own institution clean? The only choice they have is to get in and get dirty themselves by covering the whole thing up and hope that no one ever gets any dirt directly on the leadership. They will always say, "Darn, we had no idea" and then try to make it go away again through little or no action.
I think it is voices like Spong that will force these kinds of behaviors out in the open and, maybe, someday force a little more responsible behavior into the top levels of organizations like Moinc, Catholicism, government, etc. And we need to speak out as well, whenever we get the opportunity, to support groups like exploited children, lesbians, homosexuals that have criminal acts taken against them(abused children) or are shut out of a normal and equal life simply because of the way they choose to live their lives.
OK, I've had my rant, I'm stepping back into the corner again. Although I do look for opportunities to speak out locally to support oppressed groups.