Although I promised myself when I started this blog that I would avoid writing about political issues like I avoid watching films/shows that feature Andy Dick, I regard the following statement as more than political; these are human issues, fundamentally rooted in who we are as a somewhat intelligent species on this planet. I’ll gladly leave the reporting and commentary on your run-of-the-mill seat-swapping and adulterous philandering scandals to more qualified, albeit duller, bloggers.
To my friends and family, my condemnation of the Catholic Church’s actions regarding child abuse, gay rights, and evolutionary ignorance is (or should be) well known. I watch the local (California) news with my mouth agape and my mind reeling and twitching, wondering how we humans, who have come so far in areas of technology, art, science, and medicine, can fail so spectacularly when it comes to basic decency towards our fellow man.
When our grandchildren look up at us someday and ask why our generation allowed other human beings to be openly persecuted and denied basic civil rights and access to the knowledge that would have saved their lives, I won’t know what to say, other than that many of us fought against it, but the vast majority simply did nothing, never stood up, gave there silent assent, and allowed it to happen for so long. I hold hope that in time our actions may be excused as ignorance, but I know right now that it’s simply not the case; it’s blind animosity, fear, inertia, and political kowtowing to religious juggernauts with ample campaign money who are the true enemies of mankind, the forces working maliciously against a better world.
With unmatched eloquence, Stephen Fry gave the following speech at the Intelligence² debate, and touched on quite a few points that were very interesting (the Church’s campaign of lies regarding the use of condoms in AIDS-ravaged Africa, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, etc.) and went on to propose an innovative, if somewhat unlikely, way that the Church might go about fixing things.
