Better use our heads.. Two.

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by pettyfog, Oct 8, 2006.

  1. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    As said at the current end of Foley thread, the Dems have now set up 'the perfect storm'

    Michael Gaynor writes:
    "What's 'beanbag', Dad?
    "It's like what we call 'Cornhole', son."
    Umm... Well, sorta. But that's splitting hairs much like Avaricious and {not}Mr Rogers.
    What he actually DID was adhere to the concept that no one has the right to demand formal public recognition and acceptance for their private lifestyle.
    Well, I dunno.... Can the writer {he is Catholic} say exactly what's wrong with that? I dont recall seeing anything hypocritical about it, at the time. Anti-Rome feeling WAS much more widespread, but that is exactly a counter balance.
    But the Republican leadership ALSO embraced the values of the Dems, and turned a blind eye, or refused to raise that eyebrow, on naming him to a sensitve chair, given his rumored predilections toward tasty chicken.
    The writer then gets back on that track by going on to illustrate his point by citing the Dems charges {carried by the media} against Rick Santorum
    However..
    Again, at the end of it... should we use common sense.. we use the Catholic clergy as a template:
    Priests are, one assumes by their religious beliefs, typically heterosexual.
    But one doesnt cast a blind eye if said priest breaks the vow of celibacy... it should not be covered up.
    But, as we can EASILY understand by looking back, priests are ALSO more likely to be closet homosexual.

    So, let's just examine a hypothetical situation {though it has probably really happened} in a red state diocese:

    Two forty-something priests in separate churches are brought up on parisioner charges of inappropriate behavior toward youth in their flocks

    Father Howdy has made advances to at least one 17 year old girl, admired her appearance and asked for a picture and when she would turn 18.

    Father Doody has made advances to at least one 17 year old boy, admired his appearance and asked for a picture and when he would turn 18.

    The diocese responds with reassignments and warnings toward both; telling them they will be relieved from any pastoring duties if any more complaints are heard.

    Unfortunately, Father Howdy is caught en flagrante with an 18 year old girl and it comes out that he began seeing and having sex with her when she was 17.
    The Diocese censures him and removes him from pastoral duties. He accepts that grudgingly, but remains in the church and campaigns to return to pastoring

    Father Doody also fails to abide by the sanctions and another case is found where he is cruising young boys by internet, and gets really hinky in private messages which come into the hands of those who are anti-diocese.
    The diocese is ready to censure and remove him from pastoral duties but he retires, instead.

    It happens,at that time, that the bishop is about to retire and this group, of which Father Howdy is an active participant, decides to lobby the Archbishop to name its choice to succeed the bishop they were arguing with over years.

    So they wait until the right time to reveal the evidence to the press.

    Now... the question is: Is it right and proper to distinguish between the two situations?

    Or is it politics, i.e.; 'Someone is gonna get cornholed, one way or the other.'
     
    #1
  2. HatterDon

    HatterDon Moderator

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Location:
    Peoples Republic of South Texas
    I don't believe there's a lot of people who were going to vote Republican strictly because of their "high moral standing" that will now vote for the DemocratIC Party.

    The most successful achievement of the Bushies is that they became identified with superior moral values. This helped the current president defeat his DemocratIC opponents twice. The Evangelicals held and still hold strong beliefs that the president is governed by a higher moral power. In 2000 and 2004, Evangelicals came to the polls in numbers all out of proportion to their voting history. In 2002 the GOP worked hard to keep the Evangelicals coming to the polls with mixed results. They have worked extremely hard to inculcate in the minds of this people of faith that the Republicans would govern with more moral authority.

    It wasn't so much the Foley-as-preditor experience that soured the Evangelicals as it was the institutionsal nature of the Hastert cover-up. This is being viewed as another example of the Republicans taking the votes of the Evangelical movement and leading lives and governing in the same amoral mode as the Democrats.

    These folks who turned the tide for the president in 2000 and in 2004 won't suddenly switch to the Democrats. What they will do is stay at home. What will win close elections for the Democrats won't be moderates who switch, it'll be people who felt they had little stake in the election before -- in the face of a Republican tidal wave -- who may now be finding a reason to get to the polls.

    Nobody in the liberal arena created this, Petty. This is a Republican screw-up from beginning to end -- as you have stated multiple times in these two posts. This is also chickens coming home to roost in spades. The Republicans have been pretending to be the party of "morality" while taking bribes from contractors and feathering their personal nests. Evangelicals might not desert the party because of Abramoff or Iraq, but they won't take kindly to a widespread coverup of a sexual predator.

    And if the conservsative commentators continue to react to this by saying, "well, the Democrat scandals were worse than ours," if they continue to remind voters of Foley and Hastert by comparing them to earlier Democratic indescretions, all they'll do is convince the Evangelicals that politics in the 21st century is not a place where they can invest their moral capital, rather that it's just politics as usual -- someplace they don't belong.

    The Evangelicals still cling to the president -- the only Republican voting group that does -- but they have weakened considerably in their already tentative support of the Republican Congress.

    The thing is, the president isn't running, and Congress is.
     
    #2
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