I am sick of the intolerance towards Catholics

[JohnKleeb]

Sick of it, intolerance is ALWAYS wrong, ALWAYS. There is good and bad in everything. I admit it, I feel like a minority as an American Catholic, there is so much subtle discrimination that Catholics go through, I am not saying other groups have it easier but I feel like a minority but you know something, I am determined and I'll keep on believing what I choose to beleive.

[DemBones DemBones]

1. One thing that kills me is that Republicans are probably

much smoother in their bigotry. I'm guessing they care about your vote too much to insult you whereas the idiot Dems at DU will insult Catholics over the slightest pretext. They did it the other day in a thread about Jews!!!

Bigots don't deserve our respect.

[JohnKleeb]

2. I am too angry to post which is why you havent seen me

They did against Jews? Good god
BTW I PMed you.

[FarLeftRage]

3. I hear ya John.

Most of these BIGOTS are on my ignore list and will stay there until they are banned from DU.

Sooner or later, people that are on my ignore list are banned...

[DemBones DemBones]

4. That's always been true for me, too, that people

I put on Ignore eventually get banned. Kind of validates our judgement, doesn't it?

It's been months since I've had anyone on Ignore, but now I have some people there again.

[AngryOldDem]

6. If I put everyone on ignore...

...who bashes the faith, I'd be reading just maybe five posts a thread.

BTW...concerning your thread here that got locked (concerning the Jesus statue) I did reply and got some illogical arguments that were not worth my time to refute. What people don't understand is, if intolerance toward one group is seen as acceptable, that opens the gate to intolerance toward everybody. You'd think by now most people -- especially those who pride themselves as being "progressives" -- would get it.

My time on DU is extremely limited anymore, just for this reason.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. No, it's really not that many people. I'm going to try an

experiment when I get time, because you've given me an idea I want to test. Now I'm thinking of another idea to test. I'll let you know the results later.

I'm sure you remember "Illegitimi non carborundum!" (Don't let the bastards wear you down!) Stay with us, we need you at DU!

[AngryOldDem]

11. I know it's not a lot,

but when they get going, it sure feels like it. And the hell of it is, I feel like whatever I say in response is never good enough.

Thanks...nice to know I'm needed!

:hi:

[JohnKleeb]

5. Thanks,

Its really annoying to me, anti Catholicism is hell I think one of the reasons why my dad's mom's family left Ireland, they were sick of being discriminated because of their faith.

[Tweed]

7. Yeah, alot of people here on DU will diss Catholics whenever they can

When you say Catholic, they say pedophile priests as if a small group of individuals ruin the whole Church. Grrr....

[JohnKleeb]

8. I know

Its so wrong.

[AngryOldDem]

24. Has anyone asked the admins about this publically?

DemBones probably has, but has been on DU longer than I.

Reason I ask is, I was just over at Ask the Administrators and someone sent Skinner a note about the perceived gay=bad threads. (???!!!) He replied that he wasn't aware of the general tone of those threads.

I've done my share of whistle-blowing, but there is no way the administrators can know about everything that goes on here.

What can we lose by asking for a public explanation of the intolerance here toward Catholics? (Latest example: Thread on LBN that cites exit polls as showing the Catholics voted as a majority for Bush. Yes, these are the same exit polls that everybody has criticized for being crap.)

Just a thought...

[SOteric]

9. It is frustrating,

but I feel like the church needs those of us who are both liberal and Catholic more than ever it has.

[AngryOldDem]

12. And you know what?

I think there are more liberal Catholics than conservative ones -- it's the handful of conservative loudmouths like Burke, Bruskewitz, and Donohue that make the rest of us look bad. We are the silent majority. It's time that changed.

My philosophy on religion is guided by two things: Matthew 25 ("whatever you do to the least of these you do to Me") and Christ's only two commandments: Love thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself.

The rest, as my brother-in-law is so fond of saying, is commentary.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

13. Excellent summation.

I can't believe the crap the get away with, providing it's anti-Catholic. If I were to post a thread "I can't STAND atheists, they're ruining the world!" it would be yanked in half a second. AND I'd probably get banned from DU.

[Princess Turandot]

14. It remains the accepted public bigotry...

Living in NYC all of my life, except during my college years, I never had a sense of how intense the bigotry towards Catholics actually is. I went to parochial school for 6 years, then to public school afterwards, and have friends/coworkers of many religious & ethnic backgrounds. I 'knew' some people were biased against Catholics, but never met anyone who was, least of all my many Jewish friends. I sort of had those types in the same bucket with Ian Paisley, the Bob Jones family & Mel Gibson's father.

The most bizarre thing is that it wasn't until a net friend told me about DU that I realized how many people in the US are biased against Catholics. And this was bias coming from people who were long term posters at DU. I was also surprised at the bias against Jews, and I've never even ventured into the Palestine-Israel forum.I emailed my friend and asked him why the board was so anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish, since being a Democratic haven, I would never have expected this.(He's not a big poster, I think, more of a lurker.)

I also think that some DU people are using their anger at Fundamentalists (and that's the correct word: it comes from similar movements in the US in the 19th C to make Christianity a literal Bible-based faith) as a pretext for showing their true colors of bigotry. (In that statue thread, if it a Muslim symbol being defaced, there would have been universal condemnation.) And they are not the least ashamed of it.

And don't get me started on the 'sex-abuse' issues in the Church. I know I have some feelings about that which would not be politically correct on DU or in other places.

I could not care less that there are people on DU who do not believe in God. I sometimes wonder if the hostile posts that come from atheists who post here are an attempt to make themselves somehow more relevant or important, by discussing persecutions against them. One of my best friends is an atheist (one of my college roommates, who was raised as a Catholic.) She's a scientist, which is largely the catalyst behind her personal beliefs. She doesn't obsess about religion, because she doesn't care about religion.

I could go on, but I'm off to a doctor's appointment.

[AngryOldDem]

15. I think some need anger management

In my better moods, I chalk this hate up to displaced anger. People are still raw over the election, and like it or not religion played a much bigger role in politics this year than in previous. But the Democrats made their fair share of mistakes too, but it's easier to point fingers than to step back and objectively assess just what went wrong.

Catholics always stand out because of our belief system and age-old misunderstandings on the part of others. We are easy targets. I wish people could see that when they bash a particular religious organiation, they are forgetting that 1) like anything else, it is a human institution subject to the same foibles and follies as anything else; 2) Most of us separate our faith from the institution, and let our faith, and not necessarily dogma, ultimately guide our lives; 3) When they trash a belief set, they are also trashing their fellow travelers -- you know, the people who are on the same side on many issues politically. In short, they make the logical fallacy of hasty generalization, and you can't easily argue against such hysteria.

And as for the sex scandal -- I finally reached my limit on another thread today that was discussing charities. Someone a few days back put in a good word for Catholic Charities. Inevitably, someone shot back a retort about the sex scandals and the "anti-woman" policies. I replied that both arguments are getting to be pretty boring to most Catholics, who know full well all the human failings of the institution, but are trying to live out Christ's commands anyway.

I fully expect to get flames to that, but I'm ready.

I just get fed up with the hypocrisy here. If you said one-tenth of the things said about Catholics against any other group, it would not be tolerated at all. Threads bashing Catholics go on for over 100 posts before someone decides that the discussion is "not productive" and it gets locked. It's beyond ridiculous.

After awhile, you just get tired and frustrated.

ON EDIT: Make no mistake, I am in NO WAY dismissing the sex scandal and treatment of women as serious issues facing the Church. It's just that I get tired of those things being held up as reasons to insult the faith and trash it altogether. It is tiresome, especially if you are working toward resolving those issues (such as through Voice of the Faithful) as well as living out the faith. You can be critical of the institution and wish change, yet stay loyal to it. The trick is to get others to see and understand that point.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. Some DUers just don't get it that

a politically and socially conservative Catholic like Bill Donohue or Pat Buchanan represents Catholics as a group about as well as Zell Miller represents Democrats as a group.

I appreciate Donohue's zeal in defending Catholicism against its many attackers and I sometimes agree with Buchanan on an issue, just as I agree with Miller on some things and appreciate the good he did as our governor in Georgia, but in the main, all three are far more conservative than I am.

[struggle4progress]

16. Try making a list of ALL the victims of prejudice in America:

people with the wrong color skin
fat people
fundamentalists
people who don't speak English very well
poor people
atheists
people who are too educated
children
the handicapped
catholics
little old ladies
marxists
people with disfiguring illnesses
...

[Princess Turandot]

18. I think this thread is speaking of posts on DU more than life in general..

your list would be a bit shorter under that condition.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Yes, and would NOT include atheists, people who are too educated,

Marxists, or the poor -- at least theoretically speaking, though "trailer trash" and "rednecks" are loathed here. DU is a microcosm that magnifies hatred of Catholics and Southerners and ignorance of those with disabilities. Catholics and Southerners are regularly treated to long threads trashing their very beings, while threads that try to gain attention for the special problems affecting the disabled, or ask for DUers to make phone calls about bills that affect the disabled, are sure to sink like stones, rarely garnering more than 10 posts, and all of those from disabled DUers. Being a Catholic, a Southerner, and a person with disabilities, I have been getting an education in how others view "me" (without knowing me at all) and developing a very thick skin in my years at DU.

Sometimes I think there are a lot of Republicans posting here, trying to divide Democrats. It won't work on me but I fear it has driven others away and will continue to do so as long as DUers put up with hateful behavior here. Those of you who are relatively new may not know that a year ago this time, Skinner attempted to bring civility to DU through some fairly strict and specific rules about name calling, ridiculing, etc. The mods enforced the rules strictly, many people were banned, but it was unwieldy and people continued being asses, so the rules were put away.

Civility can't be legislated but peer pressure can bring it about. Sometimes people don't realize how rude a post sounds until someone points it out to them.

[DemBones DemBones]

19. Interesting idea! I'd add

"stupid" people and the mentally retarded

people who are "too" intelligent -- you know, "eggheads," "Mensa types"


Also add "the rich" (the poor are already on your list) and I defy you to find anyone who hasn't experienced being teased, judged, or disliked due to their economic status or intellectual capabilities. Someone always thinks you're too stupid or too smart, too poor ("trailer trash" is a phrase also seen at DU) or too rich. Or they think you're too ugly or too attractive.

[struggle4progress]

22. That's pretty much what my point is. I don't know what it's like ...

... in the rest of the world, but American culture seems to me to exhibit constant frothing-at-the-mouth prejudice directed against almost everyone.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

21. Let's see how this plays out...

If this were a 'You might be a Catholic if' thread, I can envision 300 "LOL!" replies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2834311#2834328

[Cuban_Liberal]

23. It's terribly frustrating, at times.

We're often (inaccurately) portrayed as a harsh, cold Church divorced somehow from real-life problems, and yet the Church I know is the most gentle, loving and comapssionate around. The disconnect is terrible. WHY are we demonized this way?

:shrug:

[JohnKleeb]

25. I know

Isn't it? The people who really made me a compassionate person with an open minded look on the world are church going Catholics, my grandparents.