Fr Vincent Twomey, Irish Times

eightyfish

I read this opinion piece in the Irish Times this morning and got rather annoyed.

Should the Bill become law, people such as registrars, photographers or those responsible for parish halls, etc, will be forced to co-operate in acts they consider in good conscience to be morally wrong.

Damn right. Born Irish, born Indian, born straight, born gay. Ergo - there is no difference between discrimination based on your race than based on your sexuality. i.e. Homophobic discrimination is on par with racism. There is no excuse for it, religious beliefs or otherwise.

plein de force

well of course priests shouldn't have to marry gay couples
i'm gay and don't want a religious marriage in any way when i do decide to commit
but registrars? he can fcuk right off with that idea, they're employed by the state to carry out the functions of that state which will eventually include civil partnerships, if they refuse to do their job because they dont like the ghey fire them
sure he's entitled in his opinion but why does he still seriously think in this day and age, religion should be allow meddle in the daily lives of people?

Aard

In Norway, around 150 couples got a Civil Partnership every year (before the marriage-laws became gender-neutral). Norway has both a higher population, and a more positive public-opinion of gay couples, than Ireland. This would lead me to believe that the number getting a Civil Partership in Ireland each year would be fewer, around 100. Even if there are the same number as in Norway, it's only 3 ceremonies per week nationwide. It's not like a registrar will be subjected to gayness every day of the week.

LookingFor

Since when are photographers 'obliged' to provide their services to ANY wedding?

As for civil registrars; it's their job to accommodate the law. End of story. Your religious conscience has nothing to do with it. If you don't want to marry people - be they gay, straight, from Mars - don't be a civil registrar. I'm reminded of the strikes people have over new computer systems introduced to their jobs and such...just get on with it! If you don't want to, I'm sure there's plenty who'd take your place right now.

wonderfulname

I'm actually quite happy these religious conservative types keeps saying ridiculous things, the more they actively show the country how out of touch they are the less likely sane people will listen to them when they're being sneaky!

EDIT: In reference to the following that is (I won't start another rant about the religious freedoms bit);

..acts they consider in good conscience to be morally wrong

eightyfish

wonderfulname wrote: »

acts they consider in good conscience to be morally wrong

I consider it morally wrong to firstly claim that you are certain that there is a supernatural God and secondly dictate to people how you know that God wants them to live their lives.

eightyfish

Some replies today. Read this monstrosity:

A chara, – The Civil Partnership Bill is now before the Oireachtas. Are our people aware of, and alert to, the serious challenge that marriage and family are thus facing?

While sexually inclined persons get their entitlements, this must not be done in a way damaging to the vital status of marriages and the family, and this is just what the Civil Partnerships Bill would do.

To give the dignity of legal recognition to the sin of sodomy, as is done by the Civil Partnership Bill is almost equating it with marriage and is thus downgrading marriage and the family.

For this reason and others, the Bill must be rejected, and please let our politicians not have this on their conscience.

Readers should contact their TD as an urgent duty, as time is not on our side. – Is mise,

Fr TOM INGOLDSBY SDB,
Salesian College,
Pallaskenry,
Co Limerick.

Bloody priests.

LookingFor

I could only think they cherrypicked that particular letter to paint the opposition to the bill in the worst possible light.

The other letters and today's companion opinion piece on the matter do a fairly good job of hitting most points that need to be hit.

Rev Hellfire

LookingFor wrote: »

I could only think they cherrypicked that particular letter to paint the opposition to the bill in the worst possible light.

The other letters and today's companion opinion piece on the matter do a fairly good job of hitting most points that need to be hit.

Its almost as if you're suggesting papers would print things for the purposes of sensationalism !

baby and crumble

So very very many facepalms...

rainbow kirby

This springs to mind tbh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dJ51yV1kJI

eightyfish

rainbow kirby wrote: »

This springs to mind tbh...

Where's that original footage from?

rainbow kirby

eightyfish wrote: »

Where's that original footage from?

I know it's some Catholic numptys outside the Dáil, can't remember whether it was linked in comments on Maman Poulet or Tallyman.

GarlicBread

Lol at this preist going on about the sin of sodemy.

Its the catholic fascist church themselves that have practically sodomized our entire country with their paedophile ring running antics.

LookingFor

There's a few more than just the two protestors around the Dail today, and I guess more tomorrow. And, of course, the gays will be out tomorrow too apparently. Though it'll be interesting to see if the gays will be counter-protesting, or themselves protesting against the bill...





(Karl Hayden via Panti)



(via Darraghf on flickr)

(lol)

If I had time to match my annoyance I'd love to go and dress down some of these people tomorrow.

ColmDawson

I read a few sentences of that article and got too annoyed, so I stopped.

Links234

Those pictures..
What an absolutely disgusting display. :mad:

LookingFor

A video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjoUzYtW3HE

About 30 I'd say there. Far more plackards than people, perhaps they're hoping for a better turn-out tomorrow.

I can't help but smirk at the messages on those boards though:

'Government led by rigged opinion polls. No liberal media.'

'Would Cowen and Gormley have helped nail Jesus to the cross?'

'Government ignores Christians by pushing sodomy agenda'

'I have respect for all mankind, but it does not change the fact that sodomy is evil'

'Fianna Fail's Mary McAleese must refuse to sign Anti Christ law'

'Is there no leader to set this country straight?'

:pac:

jackinyogrill

Gotta laugh at his mention of 'a tiny but vocal minority of secularists.' Someone should tell him that, if 'secularist' can be taken to mean a person who believes in the separation of church and state, one doesn't have to be an atheist to be secularist. It's almost as idiotic as his concept of 'conscence.'

As for that eejit holding the sign saying "Vive la différence," can anyone tell me whether she's trying to paint the Civil Parternship Bill as yet another EU conspiracy against traditional Irish life, or if she really is oblivious to the irony of that slogan?

Paparazzo

I think i'd ignore what any priest says. They seem to think marriage is a religious affair when really it's got bog all to do with it.

This, of course, would leave the way free for that tiny but vocal minority of secularists to impose their views on the whole of society, views that are repugnant to the sincere convictions of most citizens. These same citizens are being increasingly intimidated by a media that has adopted these “liberal-progressive” views. Is this democracy, Irish style?

It's rubbish like this that makes me hope more people go here and remove themselves from the church.

ixoy

Wow, he Godwin'd his own article. I stopped reading at that point. Hopefully he'll begin to understand the difference between the legislative view of partnership and the Catholic sacrament of marriage.

The_Minister

LookingFor wrote: »

Since when are photographers 'obliged' to provide their services to ANY wedding?

As for civil registrars; it's their job to accommodate the law. End of story. Your religious conscience has nothing to do with it. If you don't want to marry people - be they gay, straight, from Mars - don't be a civil registrar. I'm reminded of the strikes people have over new computer systems introduced to their jobs and such...just get on with it! If you don't want to, I'm sure there's plenty who'd take your place right now.

If they were asked to photograph a gay civil partnership, and they said "sorry, I actually have a moral issue with that, but I can give you the number of another great photographer who regularly does these events", then they would get the pants sued off them in court.

Pretty much anyone in the wedding business is going to have to be very carefully pro-civil partnership once they come in.

LookingFor

The_Minister wrote: »

If they were asked to photograph a gay civil partnership, and they said "sorry, I actually have a moral issue with that, but I can give you the number of another great photographer who regularly does these events", then they would get the pants sued off them in court.

Pretty much anyone in the wedding business is going to have to be very carefully pro-civil partnership once they come in.

Of course, they can't discriminate in the provision of services, I realised that after the fact of my post. But his article made it faintly sound like photographers are somehow bound like slaves to accommodate couples' weddings, when of course they can pick and choose what business to take...just not on the basis of sexual orientation/race/religion/whatever.

Regardless, that's not really something specific to this legislation. Gay people already hire photographers, and hotels, and bars etc. etc. and it's already illegal to discriminate in the provision of such services on any number of grounds. People already don't have a 'freedom of conscience'/license to discriminate on those fronts.

LookingFor

Lots of letters in the Irish Times again today, articulating many points and insight better than I could have.

http://www.irishtimes.com/letters/

What of the photographers and registrars who believe there is a morality deficit where the marriage of a Protestant and a Catholic is concerned? Where the marriage of a couple of different races is concerned? Are they being forced to co-operate in acts which they consider in good conscience to be morally wrong?

I would argue they are merely being prohibited from discriminating in the provision of services connected with wedding ceremonies on the basis of race or religious denomination.

And the subtle implication that such conduct is prima facie immoral given that any objection to it is obviously “in good conscience” only serves to disappoint further. The spectre of the minority of secularists imposing their repugnant views on the rest of society fuelled by a “liberal-progressive” media holds little water.

A bastion of the “liberal-progressive” media saw fit to publish his article. Will The Word be publishing a response by Senator David Norris? Time will tell.

Leaving aside the string of non-sequiturs, hackneyed talking points (liberal media tyranny, etc) and the unforgivable presence of bullet points in Fr Vincent Twomey’s opinion piece (June 29th), his central objection to the Civil Partnership Bill appears to be that functionaries of the state will be obliged to follow the tenets of a law they disagree with. I sincerely doubt that every public servant endorses every aspect of Government policy that concerns them, yet (in theory at least) they follow it.

For my own part, I disagree with many Government spending decisions, but I pay my taxes. That is “democracy, Irish style”, and if certain learned gentlemen think that abhorrent, there are certain regimes in sub-Saharan Africa that they may find more amenable.

Vincent Twomey says (Opinion, June 29th) that “conscience is the only bulwark against the totalitarian tendencies of all states”. Given the well-known history of the Roman Catholic Church, is he here insinuating that the church has no conscience or that totalitarianism is only acceptable when it is the church that is enforcing its own brand of totalities?

eightyfish

Another letter today. This one is... weird...

Madam, – Angela Kerins’s contribution (Opinion, June 30th) offers the usual shallow nonsense about “discrimination”, “equality”, and “human rights” without any consideration being given to the consequences for the institution of marriage and for society at large.

It is part of a wider agenda of so- called “liberal values” that is currently being imposed on Irish society. It is rooted in an atheistic outlook summed up by the remark “this is as good as it gets, so you better enjoy it now”.

Everything must be twisted and turned and made fit this earthbound view of creation. Since there is no answering in an afterlife for our actions in this life everything is relative to the exigencies of the moment with all its implications.

This state of affairs brings to mind an extract from the writings of Archbishop Fulton J Sheen which I believe was written about a half a century ago.

“It is a characteristic of any decaying civilisation that the great masses of the people are unaware of the tragedy. Humanity in a crisis is generally insensitive to the gravity of the times in which it lives. Men do not want to believe their own times are wicked, partly because they have no standard outside of themselves by which to measure their times.

“If there is no fixed concept of justice, how shall men know it is violated? Only those who live by faith really know what is happening in the world; the great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on, because they have lost the vision of the heights from which they have fallen.” – Yours, etc,

PATRICK J PYNE,
Castleowen,
Blarney, Co. Cork.

LookingFor

Much more recently than 500 years ago our supposedly social and moral betters were decrying another move in civil rights as being incompatible with the sustenance of civilization and all that clap-trap; in that case, the move to extend universal suffrage to all males.

Yes! Even such a humble goal was greeted with warnings of the fall of civilisation in certain corners of society. As it seems most moves to extend freedom and equality are.

I genuinely feel sorry for someone whose thinking is so limited. I can only feel grateful that it's not such a prevalent ailment any more.

PeterIanStaker

I'm straight and if I ever marry it'll be a civil ceremony.

as for the Joe Duffy fan club outside the Dail, well the TDs inside for once had the good sense to ignore them and pass the bill.

www.countmeout.ie

DubArk

Bottom line … who gives a flying Fu*k what Fr Vincent Twomey thinks! He and his imaginary friend are out dated and in line for redundancy.

Can’t wait till every church in Ireland is converted into trendy restaurants, night clubs or apartments! I’m might bye one and live there with my Partner!!!

I wasn’t the slightest upset by the article if anything it made me laugh… bring it on! :D:D

Bye bye Fr Vincent!! The rest of the world has left you behind…. :P

eightyfish

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

as for the Joe Duffy fan club outside the Dail,

Was this ever mentioned on JD? Would be an amusing podcast.

PeterIanStaker

eightyfish wrote: »

Was this ever mentioned on JD? Would be an amusing podcast.

I dont know, but I was referring to them as the Joe Duffy fan club because they're cardigan wearing, mass going, Fianna Fail voting, meddling oul wans.:D

eightyfish

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

cardigan wearing, mass going, Fianna Fail voting, meddling oul wans.:D

Oh that Joe Duffy Club. Got ya.