Pride Weekend in Minneapolis

Fun for the whole family.

I never got into it.

Just a few thoughts on what's going on in the world of gay today... kind of like things I don't get and things I do get.

I think parades are dumb - I think when I was little I liked to make floats from shoe boxes, but otherwise just sitting watching people I don't know waving as they go by was pointless.  I don't like circuses either - nor zoos - but that has nothing to do with my dislike of parades.

Minneapolis is billed as the biggest Pride festival in the country.  I wonder - because San Francisco's is pretty big.  In fact I came across an article on this years parade in San Francisco.  Queer people are against it - against the commercialization of it.  And I get that.  That's what is wrong about the homogenization of gay culture - making them like everyone else.  Another article I came across covers the development of cultural conformity by lgbtq-ers settling down - getting married, having a family - all of that stuff.  Stepford gays.

It doesn't work - it won't work.  If Pope Francis thought most Catholic marriages are invalid because couples do not understand committment and for life - imagine gays married, Missy Etheridge.  Unless it's an Elton John type arrangement ... open marriage ... mutual consent ... That's not what real marriage is about however.  But I digress.

Back to queers avoiding San Francisco Pride.

Why? - and this is so key as to why - because gay is big business.  Big.  And queer people are avoiding the organized festivities because it is too straight, too white, and too corporate.  Because they know when they have become a brand to be marketed.

San Francisco resident Katy Birnbaum is eager to gather with other queer people on Pride weekend, especially after such a violent attack against LGBT people in Orlando. But when roughly a million people pack into downtown on Sunday for one of the largest, most high-profile Pride parades in the world, Birnbaum won’t be standing in the crowd.

“It just feels like a big Miller Lite tent,” said Birnbaum, 31. “With the corporate floats … it’s co-opting queer identity as a way to make money.” - Source

Gay as become a product, to be processed, homogenized, and presented as Disneyesque-Stepford-family entertainment and promotion.  Gay is so normal now - because it is so profitable to market it that way.

If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Lyrics from a song I have always loved.  It fits my next point.  When I sinned, I knew even if a priest in the confessional told me it wasn't a sin that it really was a sin.  I neither expected, nor did I want the Church to change her teaching to suit my lifestyle.  Because I had a conscience - it was my conscience, my sensitive, well formed conscience which could not tolerate a compromised moral life - no matter how hard I tried.  My conscience tormented me - not the Church.  How did I know?  Because I couldn't pray - I mean I couldn't pray deeply, I couldn't recollect my senses - I couldn't commune interiorly - and of course, I couldn't receive Holy Communion worthily.  When I came to my senses - I returned, reconciled to Christ and the Church through the sacrament of penance - joyfully accepting Christ's teaching.

Yet here is what I don't get.

German Cardinal Marx says the Church must apologize for how gays have been treated.  Other bishops and priests have said the same thing.  I have to agree with Archbishop Wenski when he called out those who make such claims:

Where in our faith, where in our teachings — I ask you — do we target and breed contempt for any group of people? In today’s second reading, St. Paul teaches us: “Through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. There is neither Jew nor Greek… there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Our faith, our religion gives no comfort, no sanction to a racist, or a misogynist, or a homophobe. - Archdiocese of Miami

The Archbishop is right.  Unfortunately - there are individuals in the Church who do target and foment contempt for gay people - it comes out when they're challenged, angered, disappointed, feeling powerless-out of control and afraid.  (Which may be why they like guns.)  Though they be priests and perhaps teachers of the law, they nevertheless do not speak for the Magisterium when they express that type of invective.

Similarly, individual groups, such as the French Baptized Catholic Conference do not speak for the Magisterium.  This group wants  "the Catholic Church to withdraw its catechism paragraph that calls homosexuality a "grave depravity," "intrinsically disordered."

Hate the sin but love the 'rat bastard-queer' sinner.

Changing language - or eliminating it - doesn't change reality.  It will never make the guilt go away - nor the hate of individuals.  Queer people are just fine as they are - though their sexual acts be 'depraved' and 'intrinsically disordered' - evidence is mounting that they don't care.  What they do care about - I am pretty sure - is the hate from self-righteous individuals who claim they only hate the sin but love the sinner.  I'm not sure these people who say such things are sincere.

I feel as if I've moved beyond this stuff, but from time to time I get distracted by the articles and comments on Catholic blogs.  The 'ex-gay' stuff is always rather incredible for me.  It presupposes there really is a gay identity - a memory.  So you were gay but now you aren't?  Being ex-gay means you were gay - but people can't be gay - just ssa, you say?  The fact remains that the Church only condemns homo-sexual acts.  Same sex sexual relations.  But people say they are ex-gay - which is, on some level, a little bigoted at worst, at best it's like the Pharisee thanking God he is not as wicked as the rest of sinful humanity.  Every person has dignity - no matter how he identifies.  As Mr. Naulings one of the survivors of the Orlando shooting explained it: "We were never a disease or abomination. We are human."

Again - as Wenski pointed out - the Church does not target or breed contempt for any group of people - but I think it is clear, many individuals and groups within the Church do.