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Manhattan Diary by Cahir O'Doherty

Cardinal Francis George: gays are the new KKK

Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 09:04 AM

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Chicago's Cardinal Francis George has made the headlines for some unconscionable comments he made on television last week.

Hours after he learned the organizers of Chicago's annual gay pride parade would delay the start of 2012's citywide pride march to avoid disrupting morning Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, the Cardinal still found the opportunity to take (and give) further offense.

'You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism,' he told visibly startled Fox News host Dane Placko.

Let's just reflect on the Cardinal's total inversion of reality for a moment. Essentially he's telling a group that fosters strength through diversity (in the face of widespread social exclusion) that they're the equivalent of a longstanding racist hate group that lynched people for the color of their skin.

Perhaps there's been a competition waging in right wing Catholicism to formulate the most toxic and insupportable anti-gay rhetoric? If there is, then Cardinal George is this month's winner.

Even Fox's Dane Placko was visibly appalled by the analogy, telling him it was a 'little strong.' But the Cardinal was resolute. And he hasn't apologized. In fact, he has since claimed it is 'an obvious comparison.'

The former president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2007 to 2010, the Cardinal would be familiar with other holders of over-the-top opinions like Daniel Avila, who advised the Cardinal on Marriage and the Family (the capital letters are his own, of course).

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Avila suggested recently the Devil can enter a mothers womb to make her child gay. No, he's not kidding: 'Whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God,' he wrote, in an article that was published and then pulled by The Boston Pilot, the nations oldest Catholic newspaper.

To be clear, the route of this years Chicago pride parade was selected to address safety concerns, including accessibility for emergency vehicles, for a march that attracts up to 800,000 spectators. The route was certainly not selected to antagonize the Cardinal, and it will not start until two hours after mass has been said in the Catholic Church on Belmont Avenue in the city.

Cardinal George already knew this. Apparently he wasn't concerned with mending fences with Chicago's gay community. The church recently opposed a new law allowing civil unions for gay couples in Illinois, and they abandoned state foster care contracts because they refused to license gay couples as foster parents.

Now it's quite possible for a gay pride parade to march past a church without throttling anyone's religious beliefs. The fact is the parade has already been doing so for decades. Amping up the anti-gay rhetoric to operatic levels doesn't draw attention to the rightness of Cardinal George's bizarre claims - it rather highlights how far he has to go these days to take offense or dismiss their calls for equality.

It was unfortunate talk for the Christmas season, which we usually associate with good will to all. Haven't we all had enough of the Church's pretzel theology that says you must love gay people whilst condemning them, relentlessly, for who God made them to be?

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stephen1553 | Jan 04, 2012, 12:01 AM EST

SRI the keyboard does some strange things, Picking up from the blog below this one (most likely) The understanding of the churces Endless HIDDEN molestation of children, to be polite, did not sit well. So its like the church is fighting its battle of the bulge, and a lot of its animus towards gays may be both to deflect attention from its own horrible misdeeds as well as the top down - is tyranny to strong a word? from the Pope.............Who wants to even undo Vatican II re call to convert the Jews going back into the good Friday Litergy. ( a call that in the middle ages brought forth murderous riots against the Jews, and ULtimatly morphed into Hitler and the Holocaust. which btw included aall the gays the SS could find, 200,000 soviet prisoners etc. hundreds of thousands of Croats etc. Free speech is a wonderful thing. The good catholic people, more and more are fed up with the church, its becoming more of a club for holiday get togethers. And another simple example - the church is dead set against artificial birth control. Yet polls say that 90 % of catholics use it. My best friend btw - he's lawyer, parents very catholic yet as one example his 1 of only two children. As are most of my other catholic friends....................The bottom line is that the Vatican is so encumbered with its own propaganda, that it cant even imagine something different could exist................ Well I guess maybe God is watching all this enfold, and encouraging it. We shall see and I hope the USA will follow all the other countries in giving our gay friends and neigbors equal marriage rights UNDER CIVIL LAW............ Yes the church is fully within its rights to discriminate re marriage via the church. But has no right to impose its beliefs on others under our civil law.

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stephen1553 | Jan 03, 2012, 11:48 PM EST

I'm not alone in this analysis. The catholic church is headed to its well deserved rest in a cemetary unless it changes. I read recently (maybe IrishCentral) that it has collapsed from 90% church attendance in Ireland to about 25%. And I've also seen that in general only about 13-15% of w. European catholics go to church on any regular basis. Even in Poland, home of Good polish pope, its dowwn to 40%. and both gay and trangenders people (about 3-4 total) are now in the Parliment...................Why _ IMHO the whole European world and much of south america is tired of the church meddling in political affairs (which many years ago meant instant excommuncation). Add to that the endless HIDDEN

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irishmary24 | Jan 03, 2012, 06:29 PM EST

Hatred for a whole group of people different from you? Who is acting more like the clan? The outfits are even similar!

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hollabackgurl | Jan 03, 2012, 05:22 PM EST

Help the poor, comfort the sick, sow love where there is only hatred - or skip that and bash gays.

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humilityarrow | Jan 03, 2012, 05:18 PM EST

I don't see gays terrorizing neighborhoods, burning crosses, or lynching straights. I do see them excercising greater self control than their critics do however. No, not like the KKK but more like well behaved Christians mainly.

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seanomelbourne | Jan 03, 2012, 04:57 PM EST

Does the Cardinal include gay priests or nuns? He needs to retire after that ignorant statement.

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pmulvihill | Jan 03, 2012, 04:02 PM EST

What does the cardinal say about his pedophile priests?

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GuinnessGrrl | Jan 03, 2012, 03:53 PM EST

@mikehoulihan, could you please give me the EXACT quote where Jesus speaks out against homosexuality? I have looked & looked in the Bible & I haven't been able to find one word that Jesus said against homosexuality!

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JBRAFTREE | Jan 03, 2012, 03:44 PM EST

The Cardinal simply meant Parades are disruptive enough, but if churchgoers aren't able to get into Mass because of the parade route, that's just wrong. When KKK had their parade, streets were blocked forcing others not to go about their normal business.

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ciaradexy | Jan 03, 2012, 12:02 PM EST

Go away Catholic church and leave people alone to make their own decisions, to lead their own lives and to be happy in their owns skin.

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SeamusMartin | Jan 03, 2012, 11:53 AM EST

I don't appreciate LGBT parading their sexuality in public. On marriage, I'm not sure, a Civil Union seems more apropos. As for the Cardinal Georgie Porgy, once again, It and Its minions, are way off base. This is definitely a way to divert the huge pedophilia issues and payoffs to victims. Incidentally, the payoff monies are coming for parishes that the holy catholic church is shutting down - this is happening all over the US. They (the holy catholic church) sites the reason being that there aren't enough priest to herd the flock. And why is that? Because the pedophiles are being culled out, most twenty-first century men don't buy into celebacy, the church won't ordain women AND many Catholics don't go to mass as in the past because they think the RCC is way, way behind what it takes for the actual worship of Christ. The Church needs a come-to-Jesus meeting within itself!

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canadianirish | Jan 03, 2012, 11:53 AM EST

What a moronic old coot.

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Murph46 | Jan 03, 2012, 11:41 AM EST

How in any way does a statement like that aid good god fearing parishiners who go about their daily business. Being brought up Catholic we were told that priests were to be respected as the Lord would be on earth.Statements like this drive more people from the church.I rather believe cokelly is right -obscuring the real story-otherwise how can you possibly respect the flamboyant statement.

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joan1954 | Jan 03, 2012, 11:09 AM EST

In one way I can understand this, but to use the analogy with the KKK? I think that part of the problem is that the gay community activists try to ram down the throats of people who haven't really thought about it in great detail the idea of same sex marriage. I don't give a hoot what is done behind closed doors but don't throw it at me.

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jamieLM | Jan 03, 2012, 11:00 AM EST

How ironic. No tolerance for gays, but plenty for child sex abusing priests within the RC hierarchy. The Jesus I believe in would not have promoted or sanctioned discrimination and bigotry against anyone. I find George's words very "unChristian."

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