Pride Goeth Before the Fall

I have previously noted that while Minnesota has horrible winters (though better of late, thanks to global warming) and too many mosquitos (though worse of late, for the same reason), the most odious and annoying thing about this state is the continued, inexplicable employment at the Star Tribune of Katherine Kersten.

Kersten can always be counted upon to go after Muslims or women, or Muslim women, if she can work it out. She also can be counted upon to defend people who hang nooses in college newspaper offices. And she can be counted upon to attack The Handmaid's Tale by saying, "For many female college students, the challenge is going to be, not resisting male tyranny, but finding an equally well-educated man to marry," thus destroying irony for this and all future generations.

In today's column, Kersten is in fine form, as she gets to not only defend the Catholic Church -- one of her favorite institutions going -- but attack homosexuals, to boot. It's a Kerstengasm of epic proportions. Epic fail proportions, that is.

Last week, controversy erupted when Archbishop John Nienstedt informed St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis that it could not hold a gay pride prayer service in its sanctuary. The service -- held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Gay Pride festival -- celebrates the gay identity.

So, church holds event in conjunction with Pride every year until the new Archbishop says not to. This is interpereted as bigoted and wrong by pretty much everyone. This is why Kersten will defend it utterly.

In response, organizers moved the celebration outside the church. One gay activist attended in what must have struck him as a clown's outfit, given the occasion -- the robes of an archbishop, miter and all. David McCaffrey of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) condemned what he called Nienstedt's "reign of homophobic hatred." In an e-mail to the group's members, he characterized the archbishop's decision as "yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at GLBT persons and their families."

Well...yeah, pretty much. It's hard to see it any other way. Unless you're Katherine Kersten, and you hate gay people, that is.

Clearly, there is hatred here. But it is not coming from the Catholic Church.

Of course not, sillys!

Rather, it's a tool of those who are trying to compel the church to conform to their personal demands with caricatures and public mockery.

Okay, on the one hand, you have a huge and powerful organization with two thousand years' history and 1.1 billion members that is preaching directly and overtly that GLBT individuals are second-class citizens and sinners. On the other hand, you have a loosely-knit organization of activists saying they aren't evil, and that it would be nice if the church would stop saying they're evil. Yep, I can see why Kersten is outraged -- the Catholic Church is in for it now!

Opponents charge that the church does not welcome gays. They point to the fact that the archdiocese won't sponsor a gay pride prayer service as evidence.

But the truth is different: The church welcomes everyone. Far from rejecting gays as sinners, Christianity teaches that all human beings are sinners. In fact, it maintains, it is precisely because we are sinners that we need the Christian message.

Of course, when Kersten says they "welcome" homosexuals, she doesn't mean "into the church." That would be crazy talk! No, the homosexuals and transpeople and bisexuals and icky folks like that should stay the heck out of the churches. That will prove how welcoming they are.

So Michael Bayly of CPCSM got it wrong when he told the Star Tribune that "the archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for." The church advocates prayer for all, straight and gay alike, because it regards all as sinners.

Of course, the prayers are different, as are the sins. I don't recall ever having anyone pray that God would turn my spirit so I would be attracted to boys, for example.

But "gay pride" is a different matter.

Wha--?

Why? To answer, we must consider why we are called to go to church in the first place. We go to acknowledge our sins, to ask forgiveness and to seek redemption and a new life in conformance with God's will for us.

And being gay is a sin that can only be forgiven by being not gay, ipso facto there can be no pride in that. Score one for specious logic!

Already, we've reached epic levels of insanity. And yet Kersten is not done.

As a result, pride has no place in church. Indeed, Christianity views pride as a sin.

Which is why the Catholic Church refuses to allow celebrations in its churches on St. Patrick's Day or Columbus Day. Celebrating Irish or Italian pride is right out.

What? They don't do that? Oh. Well...uh...look, Prince Caspian!

The theologian C.S. Lewis called pride "the great sin" -- the root of almost every other transgression. Pride, he wrote, "has been the chief cause of misery ... since the world began."

I know that when I want to talk about Catholic dogma, the first person I think of is Anglican theologan Clive Staples Lewis. I didn't know that the C of E had patched up its differences with the Catholic Church. When did that happen?

So "gay pride" is out of place in church. But so is straight pride, black pride, white pride -- or any kind of pride.

Yep, church is all about misery and self-hatred. Come on down on Sunday, a bad time will be had by all!

Seriously, at this point I'm about to chuck myself out the second-story window here, and I'm only keeping myself from doing it because I don't think the fall would be fatal. Are you frakkin' kidding with this, Kate? "Pride" is a defining strain in American Christianity, as anyone who has been a member of a Christian church knows. Not every Christian is prideful, of course. Many actually seemed to pay attention when they read about Jesus and the loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek and whatnot.

But many other Christians are like Kersten -- smug, sanctimonious, secure in the knowledge that they are God's Chosen People, and you are not. I know, Kersten would never say she was proud of her Christianity, which she wears on her sleeve and trots out every other column. But there can be no better definition of pride than to parade one's own salvation around like a totem.

But Kersten prays like the hypocrite she is, and truly she has already received her reward.

The organizers of St. Joan of Arc's gay pride service seem to think that if they complain shrilly enough, they can compel the Catholic Church -- by embarrassing and humiliating it -- to come around and embrace their enlightened views.

Well...yeah. I mean, that is what they're going for. And they're doing a pretty good job of it. I know a lot of people who were raised Catholic, and not nearly as many people who are still Catholic into adulthood. And the Catholic Church's positions on homosexuality, abortion, female ministry, and birth control tend to be major reasons why.

The organizers of the service are doing what they can to try to point out to the church the error of its ways. As is their right. After all, is not the Catholic Church quite fond of pointing out the error of the organizers' ways?

This attitude should not surprise us, because it reflects the dominant cultural mood of our age.

Today, we want wardrobes, homes and vacations that "fit my lifestyle." We want a God who does the same. Transcendent truth? We prefer to believe there's no such thing. If 52 percent of Americans disagree with the church about something, we conclude it must be the church that's wrong.

Theology, cafeteria-style.

Don't even bring up that Kersten has most certainly eaten lobster at some point in her life, because she's not even cognizant of what she just said. It's just a macro.

Kersten is deeply, deeply hurt that Americans don't recognize that just because some churches seem to be wholly out of touch with life here in the nineteenth century, that the church is right and they're wrong. And how dare anyone have the nerve to actually suggest such a thing! The church is right -- end of story. Shut up, get back in the closet, and start having babies.

But there is a religious vision that dissents from this cafeteria-style theology. In 2008, it often comes into conflict with trendier views on the flashpoint issue of sexuality -- perhaps the greatest preoccupation of our age.

For the fundies? Yes, it is.

For GLBTs? Not so much. I had a friend come out when he was a virgin, and he remained so for a couple years afterward. He didn't come out because he was having nothing but crazed gay sex 24/7; he came out because he realized he was attracted to men, and that if he was able to fall in love with someone, it would be a man.

Being gay is not about sex. Oh, sex is part of it, just as it's a part of heterosexual relationships. But just as my life is not defined by my constant sex-having with women, gays are not defined by their constant sex-having with men, and lesbians with women, and so on, and so forth. Frankly, if the gay sex was as constant and great as the fundies claim, and if sexual identity was as plastic as fundies claim, we'd all have gone gay a long, long time ago.

For 2,000 years, Christianity has taught that God had a purpose in creating human beings as male and female. He gave the two sexes complementary bodies and natures so that they could become "one flesh," and in the process generate new life. The faithful, committed sexual love of man and woman holds a special dignity in Christian teaching, which sees it as mirroring God's love for humanity.

As long as you're producing children, ladies. And that goes for you too, fellas. "Ev'ry sperm is sacred," and all that.

In recent years, however, a different vision of sexuality has grown fashionable. In this view, sex of all kinds -- whether straight, gay or otherwise -- is best understood as a vehicle for pleasure and self-expression.

Actually, masturbation is a vehicle for pleasure and self-expression. Sex usually involves at least two people. I can understand your confusion, Katherine, as you seem to approach sex as an anthropologist might approach some disgusting and horrifying ritual from an alien species, but if you're trying to do sex as a means of self-expression, you're probably doing it wrong.

Today, this vision of sex dominates our entertainment industry, is taught in our schools and inspires events such as gay pride celebrations.

Ceiling Fucking Cat.

The controversy at St. Joan of Arc is part of a larger picture. When the gay rights movement emerged several decades ago, its leaders asked only for tolerance -- a live-and-let-live attitude on the part of the larger society.

Well, that was a step forward from the "kill the f---" mentality that had been the previous norm.

Today, the movement increasingly demands both approval of and conformity to its creed.

Obey, minions! Become gay/lesbian/bi/trans! You have no choice! Conform!

Seriously, Katherine, it takes chutzpah for a straight woman to tell the GLBT community that they're trying to make us conform. Last I checked, you weren't hiding that you're straight for fear of what the neighbors might think. Indeed, you've flaunted your heterosexuality often, telling us all about your "husband" and "children" and all the other parts of the heterosexual lifestyle. TMI, Katherine, TMI.

More and more, it labels all dissent -- even that based on religious conviction -- as "hateful."

And that's wrong. It's not hateful for the church to say that you're damned to eternal torment and torture if you act on the sexual impulses God gave you. But it is hateful to say that it's not good for the church to say that. Orwell must be so proud.

Secular institutions have largely acquiesced.

This is news to the partners of GLBT Minnesota state employees, who continue to be denied health insurance. Or to the millions of gays and lesbians who don't live in Massachusetts or California. Or anyone with a functioning brain.

The church alone perseveres in the conviction that human sexuality has a larger purpose. That is why it is now a central battlefront in this crusade.

And this crusade is the crusade to stuff the genie back in the lamp, to stuff the GLBT community back into the closet, and to deny the most obvious truth in the history of history: that sex can be kind of fun. I can understand why Kersten is touchy, though. One group says that sex is not fun, it's work, the work of God to make babies and more babies. The other says no, sex is fun, and more fun when it involves people you actually are attracted to. One of those messages runs counter to all human experience ever. It isn't the crazy, nutty, coo-coo libertine one.

Kersten doesn't want the church's position questioned for the most obvious of reasons: it's a losing position. The position that GLBT individuals should have to deny their humanity, deny their sexuality, and live as ascetics their entire life is a cruel and hateful one, and everyone knows it. The position that everyone, no matter their orientation, should channel their sexuality into narrowly defined, strictly enforced, gender-prescribed norms is a cruel and hateful one, and everyone knows that, too. I doubt strongly that the church is right in those teachings; in my soul, I know it's wrong. But no matter the rectitude of the argument, its persuasive ability is nil. No wonder Kersten wants everyone to shut up.