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Can't have it both ways
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Date Posted on this Site
June 27, 2006
Publication
Toronto Star
Publication Date
June 21, 2006
Published Content
Can't have it both ways
ROSIE DIMANNO
What a great deal of holier-than-thou there is going about.
We've got the Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus, peace activist Jim Loney, some seriously anti-doctrinaire Catholic laypeople, the gay constituency and begowned academia — strange bedfellows in a ménage-à-plenty — all laying claim to the moral high ground this week.
There seems not enough room on that ledge of sanctimony.
At issue are two controversies — unrelated technically but flowing from the same wellspring of indignation — each seizing upon accusations of intolerance and homophobia.
That would be discrimination (bad), in the case of allegations that the Knights have kiboshed a summer camp program, purportedly because Loney was spreading the gay gospel there, if merely by his presence as a staff member; and discrimination (good), which allows for the heckling, name-calling and condemnation of a renowned ethicist whose opposition to same-sex marriage rendered her unfit, detractors insist, as recipient of an honorary doctorate from Ryerson University.
The Knights of Columbus — specifically, the Ontario State Council chapter that operates and funds a five-day Ontario Catholic Youth Leadership Camp on rented premises in Orillia — maintain Loney's sexual orientation had nothing to do with their abrupt decision to close the facility this year pending a "complete review" of the camp's "mission, vision and administration."
Yesterday, the Knights of Columbus did their talking through a news release, declining to discuss the situation further when contacted by the Star. That statement read, in part: "The decision to close the camp this year was NOT caused by James Loney's sexual preferences as he alleges in the press. His sexual preferences were not a factor at all in the Knights of Columbus' decision. We resent the allegation."
They also resent Canada's legalizing of same-sex marriage. No other inference can be drawn by their record of cancelling the scheduled wedding reception of a lesbian couple at one of their halls (in British Columbia, for which they were smacked by a human rights tribunal) and their vigorous campaign to have the Stephen Harper government revisit the contentious same-sex legislation in Parliament.
It seems a disingenuous denial, given their disapproving stance on gay marriage and the timing of their camp edict, which followed Loney's return to Canada from his misadventures in Iraq as a member of the Christian Peacemakers Team.
Loney, when he's not being held hostage by militants and staying well silent on his homosexuality — a prudent move, given that such a revelation might well have ratcheted up the odds on his threatened execution — is an openly gay man in a longstanding relationship. Both he and his partner last night were feted with the "Fearless" award, as part of this week's Pride Week festivities, in recognition of their perseverance during Loney's abduction ordeal. (Loney and two colleagues were rescued in a daring operating by British Special Forces. He, at least, expressed gratitude for the risk to their own lives that those soldiers took in freeing the hostages.)
Loney — if arguably naïve in the way of many fervid peace activists — is obviously a decent and gentle man. His courage is beyond question. He is also, in his own mind — and personal conscience counts for a great deal in how Catholics practise their faith, where the vast majority ignore those bits they don't like — a true Catholic.
"I am a Catholic and I love the church," Loney said at a news conference yesterday.
But does it love him back? Does it really?
Clearly, Loney is not following the proscriptions of the Church, which makes unreasonable demands on gays by basically requiring celibacy of them. The Church splits theological hairs: Decry the sin, of homosexuality, but love and embrace the "sinner." This is blandly illogical.
Still, it's their Church and their rules.
It does seem to me that, whether or not one subscribes to the views expressed by the Knights of Columbus, they do have the right to demand that traditional dogma be respected in programs they operate, including the aforementioned leadership camp.
Was Loney doing otherwise?
He admits that, in closing sessions where staff members discuss their own lives with the campers, he has spoken of his own sexual orientation. He denies ever "promoting" homosexuality. (And what does that mean, anyway? How does one promote, or not promote, the intrinsic essence of a person, an essence that includes sexuality?)
In any event, those questions are moot because the Knights of Columbus denies that Loney was a factor in its decision.
But we're not believing them, are we?
(It should be noted here, by way of clarifying published reports, that there are two separate and distinct camps in Orillia with Knights of Columbus involvement. The five-day Ontario Catholic Youth Leadership Camp is the one that's threatened. The Knights also fund a three-week Columbus Boys Camp, which rents space from the privately operated, secular Youth Leadership Camps Canada. That program is continuing, as is the broader YLCC enterprise. Many parents were confused and unnecessarily alarmed yesterday.)
I will say this: Loney — and maybe this is inevitable given his experiences — seems drifting towards the realm of martyrs.
He spoke yesterday, however gentle his delivery, with messianic tendencies in referencing some of the Church's more spectacular historic boners, including the burning of heretics, the justification of slavery, and its insistence the world was flat. He equates the persecution of gays — my word, not his — with such ignorant (and reversed) orthodoxies.
"We don't believe any of that anymore. I think the Holy Spirit is speaking to the church through the ... oppressed and the marginalized, through gays and lesbians."
The Catholic Church is hardly alone among monolithic religions in its obstinacy about homosexuals.
That principle, however — the wrongness of persecution for what a person is or thinks — is something the gay community might keep in mind, when it excoriates those who believe otherwise, specifically on the issue of same-sex marriage.
A great many Canadians — not a majority, according to recent polls, but lots — are resolutely against sanctioning such marriages, even if they support civil unions. That doesn't make them, automatically, homophobic, a slur — like racist — that's tossed around too easily in public discourse. It's lost its meaning, if not its sting.
It was unseemly, the bullying demonstrated by some gays and their back-turning faculty supporters over Ryerson investing that honorary doctorate on Margaret Somerville, though not as tawdry as the modest defence of academic expression summoned by university president Sheldon Levy.
Levy is just another timid mouse from the groves of academe, a pedant with neither courage nor conviction, paying lip service to free expression while distancing himself from the messiness of it.
But gays and lesbians, who've known the hurt of labels and condemnation, should know better.
You can't demand tolerance and not give it.
My Response Letter
Rosie DiManno's portrayal of both the Catholic Church and Catholics in general is ignorant and hostile and hardly what one would expect from a veteran journalist. Among other things, Ms. DiManno should know that
- The Church does love James Loney. It loves him enough to tell him when he is doing something that adversely affects his relationship with God.
- It isn't just "the Church" that splits theological hairs. Even a quick read of the Gospels will confirm that Jesus also decried the sin but loved the sinner.
- Unsupported generalizations about Catholics undermine any credibility she might possess. Her assertion that the "vast majority [of Catholics] ignore those bits [of Catholicism] they don't like" is lacking any sort of supporting evidence and quite hard to believe given the one billion plus Catholics around the world.
Ms. DiManno is capable of much better journalism.
Jason Gennaro
Was my response published?
No
Did I get a response?
No