What does it say about our culture that
people become famous for being bigots? Cue the Trumpster but I’m not going to
write about him. It’s enough already. I’m talking about Kim Davis.
Who's now achieved global exposure for her bigotry courtesy the man everybody is
hailing as a walking, talking saint. Talking a lot, saying what he wants to say
where he wants to say it, politics in the Vatican and in the countries he
visits be damned.
Who wouldn’t admire this man? Even the most
hardened against popes and the Catholic Church are moved by him. Myself
included. But here’s the problem. We all long for a hero, and if somebody isn’t
truly heroic it’s easy to put the blinkers on those aspects that don’t qualify
and just focus on the ones that do. It’s a quick step dance from there to
creating fantasy qualities.
I hadn’t graduated to making the Pope my
hero. I think it’s weird the way so many people worship him. People who live by
the Commandments, one of which mentions something about worshiping false idols.
Hallo. Still, I have been admiring him and revisiting my original skepticism of
him—you know, considering he’s the leader of one of the most morally and
materially corrupt organizations in the world. Then I read the headline that he
met with Kim Davis on the QT. And all the skepticism I’ve thought was
dissipating came into clear focus again, a hot sun rising above the mists of
hopeful fantasy, burning them away.
Here’s the thing about integrity. You
either have it or you don’t. You can’t have it in some areas of your life, or
in some ideas that you support, but not in others. If you do, then sometimes
you’re honest and sometimes you’re not. But you don’t have integrity. It’s the
same with order versus chaos. By definition there’s either one or the other.
Being controlled by politics is another of
those absolutes. I've come to think that maybe this Pope isn't a puppet of the
politics of the powers within the Vatican. He's spoken out and is taking action
against pedophilia, corruption, material obscenity within the entire Catholic
church. But he's obedient on the subject of gay marriage. Ergo he's
controlled by politics end of story. His compassion that he says is there for
all is in reality only for a select few. Because of Vatican politics.
If you’re a supporter of human rights you
support them all; you can’t pick and choose. If you don’t support them all you
may be a person who sometimes or even often behaves with courage, compassion
and honesty towards others but you’re governed by double standards. That makes
you a bigot. Whether you’re a clerk or a pope.
Il Papa’s visit to Kim Davis was
underhanded, done on the sly, and neither he nor his spokespeople will talk
about it. Why? One thing we’re sure of; this Pope isn’t afraid to speak his
mind, no matter where he is. So what’s up Doc? Did you do something you didn’t
want the world to know about? Did you think the world wouldn’t find out? Are
you that naive? The last two are rhetorical, especially number two.
Kim Davis has the right to not support gay
marriage. She has the right to say that God tells her not to. She has the right
to believe the Bible is the Word of God and to interpret the words in any way
she fancies. She has the right to not make friends with gays who are married.
As morally repugnant as some or all of these things might seem to many, she has
the right. She has the legal right, too.
But she doesn’t have the right to impose
her beliefs on others. She may have the capacity but not the God-given right;
none of us do. Nor does she have the legal right, as a clerk, to refuse to fill
out gay marriage licenses in a State that has legalized gay marriage. It’s
against the law.
To say that these distinctions are unclear
to Francis would be to say that he’s muddle-headed. And he’s not, we know that
for a fact. The man is as sharp as a tack. So he comes to the US with
grandiloquent gestures and magnificent words about human rights for all. Then
of all the people he could have met in private he meets ‘in secret’ with Ms Davis
and tells her that he supports her right to deny the rights of others. He even
gives it a name—conscientious objection.
Can you hide bigotry behind a cloak of
seeming integrity? For a while, yes. But bigotry will out one way or another.
Cloaks are all very well but the emperor’s new clothes comes to mind. More than
that though, bigotry will out because it wants to be heard. It wants to
control. More than anything it wants to punish.
Can anybody really rout out the double
standards, the moral degradation, that lies at the core of the Catholic Church,
an organization whose foundation is built of disrespecting so many human rights
it boggles the mind? I doubt it. Should we get into the marital,
infidelity and divorce history of the woman elevated in this underhanded way by
the Pope?
Not today folks. It’s enough now. I need to
go and wash my hands.
