It’s Iimi! A Question of Power

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It’s Iimi! At the Edge of the Oncoming Storm

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Persecution: American Style

Western nations attacking Christians don’t normally use the violent, brutal attacks we associate with the term “persecution.” Because of that, it is easy to pretend that Western Christians are not targeted for their beliefs. But that’s the fallacy of relative privation. The fact that attacks on Christians in Country A are far worse than harassment of Christians in Country B does not mean the situation in Country B is not unjust.

In the West, attacks on Christians begin over teachings against popular vices. Foes portray Christian opposition to moral wrongs as hating the people who commit them. Then they accuse Christians of violating an esteemed cultural value out of bad will. These accusations justify laws (or, more commonly, executive action and court rulings) against the alleged wrongdoing of Christians. When Christians insist on obeying their faith despite unjust laws, foes harass them by Criminal and Civil complaints aimed at forcing compliance. 

Political and cultural elites argue that the injustice is just a consequence of Christians doing wrong. If they would abandon their “bigotry,” they would not face legal harassment. The problem is, they accuse us of wrongdoing, but we are not guilty of wrongdoing. We deny that we base our moral beliefs on the hatred of people who do what we profess is wrong. They must prove their accusation. People cannot simply assume it is true.

In response, foes bring up the bigoted behavior of a few who profess to be Christians. The Westboro Baptist Church was a popularly cited bugbear before the group fell into obscurity. They argue that groups like this prove bigotry on the part of Christians. This means that those who deplore stereotypes stereotype us. They claim (and we agree) that people can’t assume all Muslims are terrorists or that all Hispanics are illegal aliens just because some are. But they do use fringe group Christians to argue all Christians are bigots.

To avoid guilt in this persecution, Americans must learn that our believing certain acts are morally wrong does not mean we hate those who do those acts. Yes, some Christians confuse opposing evil with hating evil-doers. You condemn them. But so do we. Just behavior demands you investigate accusations against Christians, not assuming our moral beliefs are proof of our guilt and claiming the only defense is to renounce our beliefs.

Please, do not try to equate our moral objections with America’s shameful legacy of slavery and segregation. We don’t deny the human rights of any sinner—for then we would have to deny them to ourselves—but we do deny that law can declare a sinful act the same as a morally good act. Do not assume we want to reinstate laws and punishments from past centuries to punish sinners. We’re also shocked by what nations saw as necessary to deter crime that harmed society [1]. But saying theft is wrong does not mean we think chopping off the hands of a thief is right. Even when an act is evil, there can be unjust and disproportionate punishments in response.

Also, please do not assume that your lack of knowledge of what we believe and why we believe it means we have no justification but bigotry when we say things are wrong, Just because a foe cannot imagine why we believe X is wrong does not mean we have no valid reason. I can speak only as a Catholic [I leave it to the Orthodox and Protestants to explain their own reasons when it differs with the Catholic reasoning] but we do have 2000 years of moral theology looking into acts, why they are wrong and what to remember for the moral considerations about personal responsibility. Our goal is not coercion or punishment. Our goal is reconciling the sinner with God. That means turning away from wrongdoing and doing what is right.

Foes may say they think our ideas of morality are wrong. But if they believe we are wrong, then they have an obligation to show why they are right and we are wrong—with the same obligation to answer criticisms of their claims that they demand of us. They cannot accuse us of “forcing views on others” and then demand we accept their views without question. That’s not the values America was founded over. That’s partisan hypocrisy worthy of the old Soviet Union, and should have no part in American discourse.

 

 

______________________

[1] Of course, remember that France as a secular nation did not abolish the guillotine until 1980, so perhaps we shouldn’t think we’re so far ahead of those times as we would like to think?

Because Sin Is Real: The Truth America Forgot

If you read the works of the saints, or their biographies, you can see that they were aware of a truth that America has forgotten—sin is real and it alienates us from God. Instead, America (or, rather the whole of Western civilization) has a bad habit of presuming that God “doesn’t care” about the action we do that falls under the category of sin. As a result, we have an understanding about sin that is both self-contradictory and has nothing to do with the reality:

• When others do something we dislike, we have no qualms about acknowledging it as a sin.
• When we do something that is a sin, we refuse to acknowledge it as a sin and call it an arbitrary decision made by human beings that doesn’t matter to God.

In other words, while people are perfectly willing to denounce others, the fact is that, instead of thinking rationally about the good or evil of our actions we contemplate doing, we rationalize the things we already do to avoid thinking about whether they are good or evil or rationalize a reason not to do what we ought to do.

This mindset actually convicts the person before God—because we call the actions of others “sin” or “wrongdoing,” we acknowledge that there is a good which must be lived and an evil which must be avoided. But because we refuse to apply this knowledge to ourselves, we show ourselves to be hypocrites and evildoers.

When we think of it this way, the proper way to interpret Matthew 7:1-5 suddenly becomes a whole lot clearer:

¹ “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. ² For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. ³ Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

If we refuse to acknowledge our own sinfulness, we become unfit guides for helping others avoid sin—having that beam in the eye. Unfortunately, because everyone seems to think that sin is affiliated with those we disagree with, but not ourselves, that is in essence a refusal to repent. If we get angry at the Church for saying that it is sinful to commit fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, contraception, abortion, etc., and claiming it is not a sin to do these things then, by refusing to stop doing them, we show to God our refusal to repent and turn back to Him.

In other words, the sin of the pharisee is not limited to the religious zealot. It is committed by every person who refuses to say ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13b).

Unfortunately, people like to misinterpret Matthew 7:1-5 to mean that any person who says “X is a sin” is disobeying Jesus. But if that were a true interpretation, then it would certainly be disobeying Jesus to accuse them of being judgmental. But anyone who takes the time to read Chapter 7 of Matthew can see that Jesus certainly does not forbid us to say that actions are evil. In fact, near the end of the chapter, Jesus also says:

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,* but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ ²³ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.* Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Luke 7:21-23)

Indeed, elsewhere in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 18:15-17), Jesus tells us about admonishing sinners:

¹⁵ “If your brother* sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. ¹⁶  If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.* If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

These teachings of Jesus show that “Don’t say X is a sin” is a false interpretation. In fact, if we love Christ, we keep His commandments (Luke 14:15) and if we reject the Apostles and their successors we reject Him and His Father (Luke 10:16). That is a message which is widely forgotten today by a people which thinks that the only moral obligation is being nice to those we think deserve our being nice to.

Our nation has forgotten the reality of sin as something that rejects God and harms our neighbor. In replacing it with “be nice to each other,” it has perverted the Christian message to the point that it accuses actual Christians of behaving in an “unchristian” manner. Not for bad behavior (which unfortunately does exist among who profess a belief in Christ) but for following their faith and saying “X is wrong!"

Until America recognizes the difference between rejecting evil and actual intolerance it will continue to justify evil while praising itself for “being nice."

An Open Letter From a Catholic to Supporters of Obergefell v. Hodges

To the Reader:

After yesterday’s ruling by the Supreme Court, I have seen many anti-Christian (in general) and anti-Catholic (in specific) attacks which seek to dismiss our teachings as the inventions of “homophobic bigots.” The rhetoric has gotten sharp—and I confess to sharing the guilt. However, many of the attacks I have seen demonstrate a profound lack of understanding about our beliefs. So I thought that rather than do a sarcastic blog with a Condescending Wonka theme (it wasn’t very nice), I should try to just write this open letter trying to explain why we must hold our position even in the face of misunderstanding and hostility.

I hope this does not come across as rude or condescending. I hope to give an insight into our beliefs on sexual morality without getting too technical or passionate. But I am only human and therefore a sinner who needs the grace of Our Lord, just like everyone else. So some things might slip past my editing. So let us begin.

We do understand the justification people use in championing “same sex marriage.” It is a combination two things. First, of thinking that love between any two consenting adults is love regardless of gender (hence the #loveislove hashtag), and feeling sympathy for people with a same sex attraction who (until yesterday) were unable to marry. Second, the belief that the situation of people with a same sex attraction is similar to the situation of persecuted minorities in American history, and that the Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges is seen as something similar to the victories of the Civil Rights movement. Because you do see things in this way, it is easy to understand why you see those of us who think the Obergefell ruling was wrong as filling the same role that Southerners filled in opposing Civil Rights. Certainly we deplore the fact that some who held the title of Christian have taken part in the mistreatment of minorities which causes you to mistrust  us and our motives.

But, though we understand your perspective, we cannot accept it as being accurate. The two situations only have a superficial resemblance. The Civil Rights case was about ethnicity, which was apparent by simply looking at the individual. People were judged as inferior simply because of the color of their skin. There was no behavior to modify. In the eyes of those who were racist, no matter how the black man acted, no matter how educated he might turn out to be, laws were aimed at preventing them from being equal to whites in the eyes of the law. Segregation and Slavery before it were dehumanizing and aimed at telling non-whites to “stay in your place."

But this is not the case when it comes to the support of “same sex marriage.” The area of contention is not in believing that ethnicity is a stigma. The division is over the claim that a sexual relationship between two people of the same gender is morally acceptable and there is no reason to forbid them from getting married. Right and wrong is recognized by most people. If we didn’t acknowledge that some acts were always wrong, we would be unable to condemn Nazis, Slave Owners, Terrorists or Rapists. The difference between the two sides in this dispute is over where the line is to be drawn between right and wrong. 

That brings us to the problem. We understand, even though we do not accept, your reasons for supporting “same sex marriage.” The problem is, many seem not to understand our reasons for opposing same sex marriage? Let me deny some of the common accusations against us. It is not, as is widely claimed, that we have a fear or hatred of people with same sex attraction. Nor is it the “ick factor” that we are accused of holding over the physics of the sexual act between two people of the same gender. The reason of our opposition is based on what we believe the purpose of marriage is for.

We do not accept the idea that marriage is a sexual relationship where the partners have feelings for each other and undergo a civil ceremony. We believe that the sexual act is properly based on the complementarity of one male and one female in a lifelong relationship aimed (to the best of their circumstances and ability) at establishing a family  (Father, Mother, the children they brought into the world) with the aim of raising new generations, teaching them the values needed to sustain that society.

Thus, Christianity must speak out and label as “misuse of the sexual act” those actions which either cannot or refuse to accomplish this. Thus the Catholic Church says that acts such as masturbation, fornication, adultery, same sex acts, and contraception all fall under the category of “misuse.” (Other sexual acts like polygamy, rape, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and necrophilia are condemned for not only violating the purpose of marriage but for other reasons as well. But since many people jump to conclusions and assume that the mention of this means the person is equating them with same sex acts, I will not use them as examples to avoid useless distractions).

The point is, we do not single out people with same sex attraction as being wrong. (Completed acts of sodomy and oral sex between husband and wife are also condemned). Rather, we include sexual acts by people of the same gender alongside other sexual acts which misuse the purpose of what the sexual relationship is intended for.

Unfortunately, many people do not understand our technical terms and assign them a meaning that we never intended in the first place. For example, the term “unnatural act.” People do not understand what the term means and assumes it means “extra special bad, go directly to hell.” But that’s not what it means. What we mean runs along these lines:

• A sexual act which would ordinarily be considered morally acceptable between husband and wife (i.e. male-female genital acts), but is used in ways not part of the marriage act (rape, fornication, adultery etc) are considered “natural sins.”
• A sexual act which uses the sexual organs in a way for which they were not designed (masturbation, sodomy, oral sex) is considered “unnatural sins.” 

The reason for this difference of classification is not to say that homosexuality is “worse” than rape (Rape is more serious). The classification is intended to show how it is wrong. The “natural sins” use the sexual act in the way it was physically designed but not for the purpose it was designed for. But a person who misunderstands what we mean by these terms will draw the wrong conclusions and accuse us of saying something we never said.

When a person understands how the Catholic Church understands marriage, it becomes clear that the teaching that says homosexual acts are a sin is not based on the hatred of the people who have such an attraction. It is based on the belief that God designed the sexual act for marriage, and this design precludes everything except the relationship of one man and one woman in a lifelong relationship with the openness to raising children (if possible).

Now it is true that some Christians have done reprehensible things to people with same sex attraction, and we deplore that. But, while I can only speak about my own religion (if you want to hear non-Catholic perspectives, I believe you should speak to someone who is an informed member of that faith),I can point to our teaching that while sexual acts between people of the same gender are morally wrong, the Catholic Church recognizes that this inclination is a trial and that we may not treat such people unjustly. Our Catechism says:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (2333)

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (2347)

Now, you the reader may not agree with what we hold. But please understand that we do not hold our beliefs out of hatred of the people who do what we call wrong. We believe that acts which are sinful separate us from God and must be avoided if we would show our love for Him (see John 14:15). Since we believe that God made clear, for reasons which are not arbitrary, that marriage exists between one man and one woman (see Matthew 19:4-5). Since we believe this command is from God and is not manmade, we do not believe that we have the right to change this teaching.

I hope this open letter helps explain our concerns.

God Bless

They Will Hate Us

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Thoughts On Bigotry and Bigoted Defenders of "Tolerance"

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Thoughts on Growing Radicalism and Our Responsibilities

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Thoughts on Church Teaching Encountering Politics and Business

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Thoughts On the Growing Injustice Against Christianity In America

We’re told that judges have no right to refuse to impose laws they feel to be unjust, civil servants have no right to refuse to participate in a state sanctioned activity they feel is unjust, pharmacists and doctors are denied conscience protection and businesses have no right to refuse to do something which goes against the moral convictions of the owners. But, they do not apply this to themselves. Thus, we’ve seen governors and attorney generals who refused to defend/enforce the laws defending the traditional concept of marriage.

Americans seem to be so blind to the fact that the these arguments are only applied in one direction, denying religious freedom to Christians with a moral conviction that a law is wrong, while giving license to any other group (ethnic, gender, religion, sexual preference). What we have is the replacing the rule of law with diktats aimed at favoring the allies of politically approved ideas and harming those opposed to these ideas. The sad thing is, in the past we have lionized people who stood up to the state and said, “I will not comply with an unjust law.” These heroes in American history recognized when a judicial ruling or a law was unjust because it forbade them doing what they felt morally obligated to do.

The common tactic to justify this injustice is to try to link their cause to the Civil Rights Movement. For example, proponents of “same sex marriage” try to point to segregation laws in the 19th and 20th centuries and claim that the belief that marriage can only exist between one man and one woman is the same thing as oppressing African Americans. But that is a false analogy. The two sides are not equivalent. One can affirm that a person has rights as a human being without indulging a moral behavior believed wrong. But the Civil Rights movement existed because the laws of the time denied the fact that African Americans had certain rights as human beings.

In fact, the banning of interracial marriage (so often equated with the defense of traditional marriage) was a legal invention that invented an artificial barrier between male and female on the basis of determining that one ethnicity was inferior to another. That intention to discriminate is not present in the defense of traditional marriage. The defense of marriage recognizes that male and female runs across all national, ethnic and religious lines and those categories do not change what marriage is. 

But “same sex marriage” does change what marriage is, by denying the complementarity of the genders as what marriage is intended to accomplish. The concept of “same sex marriage” reduces marriage to a legally recognized sexual relationship—something we do not accept as a valid definition of marriage, and something we will not cooperate with.

However, rather than actually try to discuss our concerns, the tactics today are very much similar to the attacks on Christianity in the times of Pagan Rome…making false accusations about what Christians believe in our opposition to what is morally wrong. Then, like now, Christians were charged with “hatred.” In that case, the charge was “hatred of the human race.” Here, it is “hatred” of the people who benefit from something we call morally wrong. The fact that we deny the charge is ignored—just as it was ignored in Roman times. If we will not do what those in authority want, we can expect to suffer whatever people can get away with inflicting on us (even when the Imperial government of Rome did not persecute Christians, many times governors and mob rule did).

Christians were accused of false crimes like cannibalism and incest in the times of Pagan Rome. We are accused of hating women and people with same sex attraction. Then and now, we deny these charges are a part of our belief. If anyone who professes Christianity committed such crimes, they would be acting against what the Church teaches. The fact is, while loving a person means treating them with all the dignity which belongs to being a person, this love does not require us to do for them what we believe is morally wrong.

Note this distinction. Contrary to accusations, we reject the claim that we support the mistreatment of people because of their actions and reject the claim that our refusing to support what we believe is morally wrong is rooted in hatred. We also reject the antics of extremists who invoke the name of Christian while actively doing things our religion forbids against those we believe do moral wrong.

America has a choice to make. Either our nation can act like the Roman Empire (except using lawsuits, fines and prison instead of lions) unjustly persecuting us because we refuse to do what we think is morally wrong, or it can act like what our Founding Fathers intended in limiting the government—forbidding it to interfere with our moral obligations to do good and avoid evil.

Dark Times: Reflections on Anti-Religious Propaganda

¹² The wicked plot against the righteous 

and gnash their teeth at them; 

¹³ But my Lord laughs at them, 

because he sees that their day is coming. 

¹⁴ The wicked unsheath their swords; 

they string their bows 

To fell the poor and oppressed, 

to slaughter those whose way is upright. 

¹⁵ Their swords will pierce their own hearts; 

their bows will be broken. [Psalm 37:12-15]

Reading the news, it seems that the foes of the Church have largely abandoned the pretense of trying to separate Pope Francis from the teaching of the Church. Because they believe that victory is imminent, they now write as if the Church is defeated and needs to change and get with the program if she would survive. However, we refuse to roll over and submit, and this angers those who hate us. The thing is, people who oppose the teaching of the Church are not satisfied with having usurped the legal power to implement what they desire. Rather, they want everyone to accept their desires as morally good. But as long as we’re here to remind them that God exists and their behavior separates them from Him, we are a stumbling block to their plans. So, they hope that they can drive us into irrelevancy by silencing us and persuading people to come over to their side. 

They do this through both overt attacks to drive us out of the public square and through persuading individuals that it is better to follow them than to follow the Church. But they can’t do this by giving their position and letting each person decide what is true. They have to misrepresent our beliefs to make them seem dangerous and malicious. They have to make it appear as if it is the Church who is trying to force changes, when the Church is simply insisting that the truth remains true, regardless of culture or era.

Dr. Peter Kreeft shows the problem in one of his Socratic Dialogue books:

Libby: It sounds like sour grapes to me. You’re complaining because we’re winning.

‘Isa: No, I’m complaining because you’re lying. For a whole generation now you small minority of relativistic elitists who somehow gained control of the media have been relentlessly imposing your elitist relativism on popular opinion by accusing popular opinion—I mean traditional morality—of elitism, and of imposing their morality! It’s like the Nazi propaganda saying Germany was victimized by Poland.

[Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 141.]

The political and cultural elites of our nation have portrayed the situation as if a group of antisocial misfits suddenly appeared in society with the intention to persecute people who think differently than they do. They portray it as if “enlightened” people are finally throwing off the shackles of these misfits and benefitting society in doing so. So they tell the world that Christians “condemn” because we hate—that we hate and fear anyone who will not submit to what we say. They dredge up the behavior of the worst history has to offer and portray it as if this was the norm for what we would do if they let us get away from it. Basically, the lie they use is to say that the world was as enlightened as the 21st century until religion—especially Judaeo-Christian religion—came into being, and sought to control human thought through fear and superstition.

This is, of course, false. But it is quite effective. Look at modern programs on TV. Look at how they portray religion. Practitioners of religion fall into two groups. Either they are cold, hostile people who are bigoted and hostile to anyone who thinks differently, or they are willing to compromise their beliefs to get along with the world. The former are villains and the latter are heroes.

They tried to fit Pope Francis into this mindset. They took his words out of context and tried to make it seem as if he was “heroically struggling” to bring the Church into an “enlightened” view. But he had too much to say in defense of the family and Catholic teaching to spin. Now they either ignore him or lump him in with those who they once contrasted him against. Now the media has to look to individual Catholics who rebel against the authority which Christ gave His Church and portray them as the enlightened ones. The ultimate result of this distortion of the Pope was not the changing of Church teaching, but deceiving many hitherto faithful Catholics into questioning or rejecting his authority as the successor to St. Peter, wrongly thinking that the Pope is in the camp of the compromisers.

At this time, the elites of our nation seem to think they have won. The Church is on the defensive while the courts seem willing to give them everything they ask for, ignoring the fact that these rulings violate the beliefs that our nation was founded on—that the government does not have the right to compel a person to do what their religious belief forbids them to do.

So, it is indeed a dark time. But we need to remember we cannot give up in despair or simply hunkering down in a bunker, deciding to survive while the whole world goes to hell. There have been dark times before, where the state wrongfully sought to usurp authority by making laws it had no authority to make. Yes, things can indeed get worse. We can indeed be personally targeted by unjust laws or even physical persecution. But we have to remember that this is not the first time such dark times have happened. In every other time, the Church continued to stand up and perform the mission Christ gave us.

People may hate us for telling them the truth, showing them that their chosen actions are not compatible with the love of God. But they are not our enemies, but our patients. God doesn’t want them damned, but wants them to turn back to Him. Our task is to cooperate with that great commission, regardless of whether the world wants to hear it or not.

Don't Panic

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Idol Worship 2015

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Logical Fallacies in the Anti-Religious Freedom Movement

Introduction

There are a number of businesses, organizations and celebrities that are either threatening, carrying out or calling for boycotts of Indiana on account of the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They call it names like the “Freedom To Discriminate” act (George Takei) and call such laws “dangerous” (Tim Cook). But, as I read the anger spilling out over the internet, I see that the opposition is not based on any fact but rather on logical fallacies

• the begging the question fallacy
• the slippery slope fallacy
• the appeal to emotion fallacy
• the ad hominem fallacy
• the poisoning the well fallacy

The end result of these fallacies is the fact that there is an allegation of intolerance made against the Christian moral teachings, but no proof to justify the claim. Without proof, one cannot say that the accusation is proven true.

Let’s look at them.

The Begging the Question Fallacy

The begging the question fallacy is committed by acting as if something that has to be proven to be true is true. So, if the point of my argument is that “X is bad,” the premises of my argument have to be aimed at proving X is bad. If the premises of my argument are based on the assumption that “X is bad” then I am begging the question. This is commonly done in the assumption that opposition to “same sex marriage” is based on intolerance? Why are they intolerant? Because they oppose “same sex marriage”! That doesn’t answer the question “How do we know it is intolerant?” It merely repeats the (unproven) allegation.

These arguments don’t actually demonstrate that intolerance is the only possible motive for this opposition. It is simply assumed that the no good person would oppose it. So, as a result we say these arguments are unproven—you can’t prove the conclusion by this argument. If we think of an argument as a trial, then we could think of this argument as a prosecutor who alleged the accused was guilty but provided no proof of guilt for it. Any jury deciding the accused was guilty would be causing a miscarriage of justice.

The Slippery Slope Fallacy

The slippery slope fallacy seems similar to showing cause and effect (showing a link between A and B), but in actuality it argues against something simply under the fear of what it might do. In other words, “If we let A happen, B is going to happen,” again assuming but not proving. In this case, the popular example is to portray this law as the modern equivalent of the old “Whites Only” signs in the Segregated South. People ask “What about a restaurant owner refusing to serve a same sex couple?” and go on from there giving all sorts of horror stories of what could happen. Could being the operative word—what might happen does not equal “will happen,” and “what will happen” is what has to be determined before we can condemn something.

To continue the analogy of argument of a trial, this argument is like a prosecutor who tries to argue that "if we don’t convict the defendant, he will go on to commit all sorts of monstrous crimes.” But we don’t convict a person on what they might do, but on what they did do. You don’t know that a person will do this, and it is possible to take just precautions to ensure a crime does not happen without violating civil rights.

The Appeal to Emotion Fallacy

The appeal to emotion fallacy works on the premise that a good emotion associated with a claim leads one to think of it as true, while a negative emotion associated with a claim leads one the claim as false. So to appeal to “the need to let two people in love marry regardless of their gender” awakens a positive idea that same sex “marriage” is good because “love” is good, while awakening hostility towards those who oppose it as being “cold hearted.” But emotion can be exploited. Leaders exploit emotions in propaganda to move people to support their country and oppose another country. The emotions don’t mean that the claims are true.

Using the analogy of a trial once more, the appeal to emotion is like a lawyer not talking about whether the charges are true or not, but instead tries to play on your feelings to give a verdict that he wants.

The Ad Hominem Fallacy

The ad hominem does not seek to prove or disprove anything. Instead, it tries to attack the person making an argument and convince a person that because he or she has negative traits (true or not), we can ignore anything said by that person. An example of this fallacy would be if I said, "Tim Cook could not be trusted to give an accurate account of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because he was a liberal and a homosexual." Those claims have no bearing on whether or not what he says is true. (A person being a liberal or having a same sex attraction have nothing to do with whether or not a person is speaking the truth).

Likewise, the accusations that the Church is intolerant, homophobic, bureaucratic and heartless (and we deny all of them) have nothing to do with whether the Church teaching on homosexuality is true or not. These are just terms of abuse used to give a negative impression on the listener and turn them away from listening to the argument and considering if it was true.

The Poisoning the Well Fallacy

The poisoning the well fallacy seeks to make a smear attack on the target so that no matter what the targeted person says, the smear remains in the mind of the listener. This is another way where opponents of the Religious Freedom laws attack to prevent people from considering the argument. The attacker alleges that the supporter of this law is bigoted and has a hatred for people with same sex attraction. The result of poisoning the well is that the listener assumes that a defense of the law is simply defending bigotry and hatred.

The Overall Effect

The overall effect of these tactics is to give the listener the impression that the Christian that refuses to participate in a “same sex wedding” does so out of bigotry. Since bigotry is bad, a good person is led to believe that the right thing to do is to oppose Christian belief. 

The Catholic Teaching is NOT What It is Misrepresented to Be

But the problem is not a single one of these accusations are true. The Christian teaching is not motivated by hatred—indeed the Catholic Church condemns hatred. 

When one looks at the definition of hate in a dictionary it tells us the meaning is intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury, ill-will, an extreme dislike or antipathy. But that doesn’t answer the question of whether the Church teaching is motivated by hatred.So we ask: Does the Church have intense hostility and antipathy for the woman who had an abortion or the person with same sex attraction, wishing them harm? That is what has to be proven. It has to actually be established that they despise such a person and wants them to come to harm—like perhaps hoping they go to hell?

So, we would need to look at what the Church taught about the sinner and see if there is such a desire in their treatment of sinners.

But the opposite is true: the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a distinction between our treatment of persons and treatment of behaviors, saying:

1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one’s enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy. (2303)

 

2303 Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (2094; 1933)

Some people (often derisively) refer to this as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But while that is true, it is inadequate.

The person who hates a sinner wishes a defiant sinner harm or other misfortune. Such a person is doing what the Church says is wrong. But the person who says “this act is sinful and must be stopped” is not acting out of hatred any more than a doctor who says “Smoking is harmful and must be stopped.” He or she is expressing this information in the hopes that the individual committing it will stop doing it—for their own good.

So, like it or not, the Church is explicitly saying that hatred of a sinner is forbidden and even a grave sin. For the non-Catholic, a grave sin involves serious matter where a person who commits it with full knowledge of its gravity and with full consent to do it anyway would be committing a mortal sin—which is a sin that would damn one to hell if unrepented.

So, in other words, if we hate the woman who has an abortion or the man with same sex attraction, we can go to hell for wishing such a person grave harm. Does that really make any sense to accuse the Church for holding their teaching out of hatred when they say it is evil to hold hatred for a person? Talk about self defeating! The Church does not hate people. However she does have hostility to the actions that are chosen that turn humanity away from God. 

Individuals Who Disobey the Church Exist, But the Church Can’t Be Blamed For Their Actions

Now of course, you can find extremists who actually do hate people instead of the sin committed—people who actually wish evil to afflict sinners. Up until their leader died, the media loved to provide us with stories of the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of Christianity hating people with same sex attraction. It was effective as one could find people pointing to their antics and accusing the Catholic Church of committing them. But in actuality, the Catholic Church teaching is in complete opposition to their antics. As the Catechism says:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Treatment with respect, compassion and sensitivity is incompatible with hatred, so again we have shown that, contrary to accusations, Catholic teaching is not rooted in hatred.

Modern Society Falsely Thinks that Saying Actions Are Wrong Means Hatred of the Person Doing Them

The problem is the modern society takes a love me, love my dog attitude to the extreme. It’s not just a case of demanding that we accept a person with flaws and all—rather it is a demand that we accept those flaws as a good and deny there is anything wrong with them. A refusal to accept those flaws as good is turned into an accusation of hating the person. But, as we have shown above, hatred of a self-destructive behavior (which all sin is) does not mean hating the person suffering from it. It can mean hating a problem which keeps the person from being what they should be.

But once a person demands we accept their sin as if it were good, they see the attempt to help a person as if it were an attempt to harm them. It’s as if a person carrying a heavy load fell into quicksand and the load was dragging them down. We throw them a rope, but the weight of the load prevents them from climbing out to safety and actually threatens to break the rope. We tell them they need to let go of their load and grab the rope, but they refuse, saying that we need to get them out with their load as well. When we tell them it is impossible, they get angry at us and accuse us of wanting them to die. It is untrue. The fact is, in a life or death situation, no possession is worth your life. 

Likewise, in the reality of our having an eternal soul which can be dragged down to hell if we refuse to cooperate with salvation, no vice, no compulsion is worth losing our soul over and no human declaration can make good what God has called evil. Therefore when it comes to the choice of man declaring a thing “good” and God calling that thing “evil,” what we have is a choice between accepting and rejecting God.

Conclusion

The fact is, we deny that Christian moral teaching is based on hatred of people with same sex attraction. It is more like a wife who loves her husband with alcoholism. That alcoholism is destroying his life and his relationship with her. The wife hates this alcoholism because she can see what it is doing to her husband and wants it to be cured so he will stop harming himself and have a better life. The hatred of the harmful act is not done out of hatred for the person.

In such a case, we would recognize the husband’s accusation that his wife hated him because she hated his alcoholism to be wrong. Being an alcoholic is not a part of the man’s nature. It is a flaw which must be overcome, whether by being cured or by avoiding behavior that feeds it.

Now the person may think that their inclination is good. They may cling to it like a heavy load. But the harmful inclination can never be enabled. That is why the Church will never change her teaching on same sex “marriage” or abortion or contraception. We know they are wrong, and we cannot take part in what we know is wrong, even if someone thinks it is morally acceptable.

I think I will close this article with a quote from the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz that I have cited before. 

In it we have a situation where there has been a nuclear war, and people are suffering from radiation sickness.  The government wants to establish facilities to decide who has received enough radiation to be fatal to recommend euthanizing.  The abbot of the monastery where they want to establish the facility tells them he will refuse cooperation unless the doctor promises not to advise people to euthanize themselves.  The doctor says it is not right to do this with non-Catholic patients and accuses the abbot of imposing his views on others and the abbot has no right to make this condition, and demands the abbot explain why he insists on this stance for non-Catholics as well as Catholics.  The abbot responds:

Because if a man is ignorant of the fact something is wrong and acts in ignorance, he incurs no guilt, provided natural reason was not enough to show him that it was wrong.  But while ignorance may excuse the man, it does not excuse the act, which is wrong in itself.  If I permitted the act simply because the man is ignorant that it is wrong, then I would incur guilt, because I do know it to be wrong.  It is really that painfully simple. (A Canticle for Leibowitz. page 296 in my EOS edition)

The doctor responds by accuse the abbot of being merciless and out of touch, which is no refutation of the facts stated by the abbot. Likewise, the accusation that we are bigoted and out of touch is no refutation of our argument.