## Wednesday, February 13, 2013

### Klaus on abdication of Benedict XVI

I was sorry to learn about the reports that Benedict XVI resigned. Whatever the reasons behind the Pope's surprising decision were, the decision makes me sad.

For 8 years, Benedict XVI has been not only the leader of the Catholic Church but also a globally prominent statesman. In the wake of our meetings – both his visits to the Czech Republic, as well as those in the Vatican – but also from his numerous public appearances, speeches, and texts, I could perceive the proximity of our attitudes. He belonged among the rare personalities of the contemporary world who don't ride the cheap wave of the omnipresent progressivism. He was aware of the dangers that follow from the loss of the traditional values, the threats posed by the decaying institution of a family and a nation state as well as from the precipitous European integration project. He was able to make these concerns of his visible. That is why he was frequently attacked by the media – something I could understand well, too.

The lightning was genuine.

Despite his relatively short pontificate, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has left a visible trace in the world. I view his resignation as a symbolic part of the symptoms of the end of an epoch in which the voices warning about the direction that the contemporary world has taken could still be loudly heard. This is also how I understand the unsuccessfully masked joy of those who accepted his unexpected gesture with hypocritical acclamation. Those who are losing an important political and intellectual ally have no reason to rejoice. Pope Benedict XVI surely deserves thanks for his brave yet unfinished struggle.

Václav Klaus, February 12th, 2013, original in Czech

1. What struggle exactly? (Am not expecting a clarification from Klaus; just to make myself clear.)

2. To a certain extent, I have to agree with Klaus. The Pope has a
legitimate right to say, "we do churchin one way; if you don't like it,
join another or start another or don't go."

3. I do believe that the Church should allow priests to marry. At the end of the day this ban is not a dogma but a tradition that appeared in 12th century...(because the Pope and others were unfairly giving the best positions to their sons etc...). Anyway, in France the government has agreed to allow homosexuals to marry and adopt... and soon they will also be allowed to pay a surrogate mother to bear their children... I think any other old man or woman would be shaken by this change... The politically correctness bans any intelligent analysis of the consequences this could bring on society. Let's screw up and then repair, it'll occupy us for another century.

4. Congratulations to France, Shannon. Your government is doing a good thing in bringing about justice for all your citizens.

In my country the hope is that the US Supreme Court will throw out the regressive Defense of Marriage Act. There is simply no rational argument against homosexuals sharing the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Your country played a key role in the creation of my country and it is satisfying to see France leading the way in the inevitable advance of gay rights.

5. Gene, what about the kids ? Oh sorry , who cares, by the time we worry they are already adults. Anyway there will be business for lawyers for gay divorces etc... 90% rate of divorce in gay couples...

6. There is no rational argument for gay marriage. Institution of marriage was taken from religion and its purpose is procreate. That's why infertile people are not allowed to marry in many religions including Roman Catholicism. Homosexuals are unable to procreate so there's no need to give them the right to marry. Pacs was all they need.

7. Does this mean that Father Guido Sarducci finally gets his shot?

8. That’s just bullshit. There’s a hell of a lot more to marriage than procreation and, unless you are really warped, you know it. My wife and I have many dear friends in wonderful, childless marriages. Marriage is the ultimate partnership. Married people are healthier than unmarried ones and they live longer. France, a Roman Catholic country, is leading the way and my hat is off to them. Vive la France!

9. Children can be raised just as well by a gay or lesbian couple as by a heterosexual couple. If it is a committed, loving relationship gender is of little importance.
I don’t know about the 90% divorce rate, Shannon, or even what it means if they can’t get married. I do know several successful, lifetime gay couples.

10. That is complete bullshit, Gene. Letting homosexuals adopt children is child abuse. Maybe you should just come out of the closet.

11. Woodnfish: Over seven decades I have known many homophobes like yourself but I have never known a single one who was not a gay man at heart, admitted or not. You need to do some serious soul searching, my friend, in order to understand your fears of your own sexuality. You can do it.
You may ask my wife whether I continue to be distracted by the female form after 53 years of marriage. I plead guilty as charged and assure you that she has never feared male competition nor have I ever feared female competition for her attention. We are both as hetero- as you can get.
Of course child adoption needs to be based on one thing alone and that is the welfare of the child. Very few gay couples choose to raise children; that is understandable but to characterize the possibility as child abuse betrays your homophobia. I wish you well in your struggles.

12. This retirement is a good thing. Recent unpleasantness has shown that a certain amount of energy and to detail is required for senior church management, and B16 had responded by implementing age based retirement for cardinals. Now he's 85 and has parkinson's, he's retired himself. It's an example he'll be remembered for.

13. Gene says, "There is simply no rational argument against homosexuals sharing the rights and responsibilities of marriage."

How about the argument that the purpose of marriage is to establish a stable home environment for the nurture and acculturation of children? That has been its function throughout most of recorded history and in every primitive society known to anthropology.

Fundamental cultural values -- including the ones embedded in our modern democratic civilization with its liberal institutions -- have to be transmitted from generation to generation or else they die out. There is no proven way to acculturate children outside the family.

14. Gene, If gay couples adopt children then by all means they should be allowed to marry. In fact they should be required to. Likewise couples without children should be allowed to divorce freely, no questions asked, which should most certainly not be the case where children are involved.

The fundamental error in this whole debate is the sentimental notion that marriage is about the happiness of the couple joined together in matrimony, that marriage is a celebration of their love for each other. When in fact it is all about the children and the future of our civilization.

15. Gene, the vote at the Assemblee Nationale was 329 for, 229 against. A lot of French people are worried about the children growing up with gays. I personally would have hated having two mothers (I can't bear the face of some ugly manlike fiercely jealous and possessive lesbians, it would have given me nightmares).

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/lesbian-couple-guilty-of-gruesome-murder-1.270415#.URyUuKJFDFp

16. I too would like to convey my congratulations to Dr Ratzinger on his well-deserved retirement. Now that he will have more time on his hands, I'd welcome a first-hand account of his experiences and observations in Hungary and Austria during 1944/45. Just for the
record.

17. Gene Day: You use silly arguments ad personam based not on knowledge about particular person but on suspicion and delusions.

"Homophobia" is an empty,meaningless word just like "fascism" - it means nothing. Its not the word to describe people who don't tolerate gays. It's a word used to describe people who are not tolerated by gays.

Before introducing gau marriage in France, they had all the rights and means to live in their partnerships. They had PACS agreements and it was just enough.

If you think that replacing word "pacs" by 'marriage" will cause some people will live longer, you must be a silly person who believes in witchcraft and some kind of cabbala.

19. anon, I have been privileged to know many notable gay individuals over the past seven decades but let me give you just one example:

Keith Kerr is a friend and neighbor who happens to be gay. He is in his eighties and, sadly, lost his lifetime partner several years ago.

Keith spent his entire career in the United States Army and is now a retired Brigadier General. General Kerr was one of the first senior military officers to come out of the closet and he has served on several commissions in Washington in drafting a rational policy for gays in the US military. One of his recent honors was when he was chosen as Grand Marshall of the 2012 Veteran’s Day Parade in San Francisco. Keith has spent a long lifetime helping to make the US a better country and this world a better place for us all. He is a man fully worthy of all the honors he has received and my wife and I are deeply honored to know him. To deny a man like General Kerr the privileges of marriage is a profound injustice, which, be assured, will be corrected. Any child would have been very, very lucky to have been raised by such a man of such impeccable character.

And no, homophobia is not a meaningless term. It refers to anyone who thinks that there is something wrong with being gay. It is far easier to change ones gender than to change one’s sexual orientation as anyone who is not a homophobe or total idiot knows very well.

To deny marriage, which is far more than just a word, to gays and lesbians is deeply, profoundly wrong. It is interesting to observe that many refer to the Roman Catholic Church in disapproving gay marriage, that institution which actually has long been a hotbed of child abuse at the highest levels. You, too, need to look within, my friend.

20. You gave a lot of new evidence that you are a silly person.

First of all, using anecdotal evidence based on argumentum ad misericordiam means nothing more that you are a rabble-rouser.
Maybe mr Kerr is a noble man, but it's not an argument for anything.

And remember, a homophobe is not someone who thinks that there is something wrong with being gay. I had a homosexual friend in my previous place of habitation and I had no problem with him. But when I recently criticized a gay member of parliament of my country, not because he's gay, but because he's a shameful moron who is a disgrace for his occupation, I was openly called a homophobe by many people. Many people also used a silly argument against me that i must be a crypto-homosexual. You have already used this kind of libel in this discussion, so I see that it is a standard practice among blind proggressivists. That's a wonderful evidence proving that "homophobia" is an empty word, a slogan, a cabbala, nothing more.

I dont need Catholic Church to be against gay marriage. I've never been neither its member nor supporter. I dont see >>any<< reason for which state and its government should recognize >>any<< kind of marriage. I dont see any reason for which officials should know about who lives with whom.

Throughout ages, marriage was a procreative thing and for me fighting for gay marriage when you have already pacs is not a fight for anyones rights. It's a fight for destrucion of european tradition by redefining traditional language and concepts. The word "marriage" has simple,clear definition across the whole World and according to it, "gay marriage" is an oxymoron. I dont see any reason for which anyone should change it. "Arguments" about legth of life made my day:)

21. "And remember, a homophobe is not someone who thinks that there is something wrong with being gay"

No? I thought that was precisely what a homophobe is.

22. Look, dummy, you are the one who said said that my arguments were "based not on knowledge of about particular person" so I gave you one example of a particular person. This is not rocket science, jeez! Please carefully re-read what you said.

I could have picked many other examples but General Kerr was a recent example and a good one.
Gays are just like you and me, smart and dumb, noble souls and scum butts, loving and hateful. On the other hand I really do hope that not too many are like you.

Married people do live longer. That’s just a simple and fairly irrelevant fact.

You are on the losing side on this one, anon; gays are on the way to being accepted as full members of society with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else, including marriage. It’s going to happen; get used to it.

By the way, I am not a progressive and certainly not left-wing politically. I am a registered Republican and could never align myself with the other party. I am one-hundred percent with Lubos on environmental issues, especially climate change and the green idiots.

I apologize if I falsely assumed that you were gay. It was obvious that you were either gay or a total idiot and I just gave you the benefit of the doubt. Your writing is inexcusably sloppy, by the way. Please do me and the other TRF readers the courtesy of cleaning it up a little.

23. Out of curiosity, how does 2 men or 2 women affect any heterosexual's opportunity to go out, meet a person of the opposite sex and spend eternity with them? Can't see how it does. I DO know society denying 2 people of the same sex the opportunity to share a life together and recognized as a partnership under the law affects THEIR pursuit of happiness. That's something I'm sure 99.99% of the people on this blog would resent. Nice sticking your nose in other people's lives. And no, the homosexual population is not going to abuse adopted children any more than the heterosexual population so throw that argument out. It's stupid.

25. Listen,dummy, when I wrote

"arguments ad personam based not on knowledge about particular person but on suspicion and delusions"

"Over seven decades I have known many homophobes like yourself but I have never known a single one who was not a gay man at heart, admitted or not. You need to do some serious soul searching, my friend, in order to understand your fears of your own sexuality. You can do it. "

You write:

"Married people do live longer. That’s just a simple and fairly irrelevant fact."

If you think that they live longer because their partnership is called "marriage" instead of "pacs", you must be a cabal loon who believes in lexical magic - there is no other explanation.

"It’s going to happen; get used to it."

I'm getting used to the fact that there are more and more Muslims around the world. So what? This is a kind of an argument?

"By the way, I am not a progressive"

That only means that you have serious problems with semantics ie understanding meanings of words.

26. Only to the ignorant. Try looking up "phobia".

Cheers

28. Anon, could you please try to be more polite in your comments to Gene? I think he deserves it. Thank you.

29. Anon, we are in a civilization shift. It is forbidden to forbid. One can only be an observer. Everything indicates idiocracy is the future. Let it be.

30. Why keep on polluting the basically (and potentially) entirely positive meaning of the word "progressive"!?

You, Gene, are not the only one who does it.

IMO, this word should not be allowed to be patented and used as a device for self-labeling by a certain category of 'overly optimistic' people (to say the least).

[Am actually exasperated with the predominance of shallow and fact fudging opinions/interpretations of what is going on.]

By the same token, nor should this basically 'nice' word (progressive) be given a meaning (or be made to maintain a meaning) that is polluted by a rancid/bigoted political agenda!

31. I apologize for being rude.

On the other hand, using accusations without any evidence against anybody, or suggesting that someone's words are babble of a man immersed in some kind of inner frustation caused by rejecting own sexuality, is very very unplotite.

So I'm not so sure if he deserves to be treated in a polite way.

There's a very good slavonic joke which describes crytpto-homosexuality "argument" used by Gene:

A hare was running for his life through the forest. When asked by another hare what he was running from, he said the bear had said he will kill and eat all the camels he met, so it would be better if they both started to run away.

"Hey, listen, but we are hares!"

"Yes, but after you are caught just try to prove that you're not a camel!"

32. Have you actually read Christian theology? Only an utterly brainless halfwit with the common sense of a barnyard turkey could take it seriously. It is the most ridiculous pile of bullshit ever produced by a supposedly intelligent race. Yet, apparently the pontifex was an expert on the subject. I am sure that he is a reasonable Pope but when the time comes I'm sure God will shunt him into the dunce corner for a few centuries so that he can get his bearings.

33. Dear Casper, just to be sure, I have never endorsed Christian theology, have I? ;-)
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