Scottish Bishop in gay holocaust controversy
A Catholic bishop has infuriated members of the Scottish Parliament with about gay people. The Labour MSP George Foulkes has now tabled a motion condemning the statement by Bishop Joseph Devine, the Bishop of Motherwell. In a lecture given at St Aloysius' College, Glasgow, on Tuesday, that gay people attend Holocaust memorial events in order to "create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution". Mr Foulkes dismissed the comments as "unfortunate, outdated and un-Christian."
A separate motion has been filed by the Liberal Democrat MSP Iain Smith calling on Cardinal Keith O'Brien, President of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland, to disassociate himself from the comments and pledge support for gay asylum seekers from Iran who may face the death penalty if deported from the UK.
The bishop seems to think that gay groups are trying to hijack Holocaust commemorations. Yet, in addition to the millions of Jews who died in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust, other minority groups also lost their lives, including people with mental and physical disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Roma, Serbs, Poles, and political prisoners. Gay men also faced significant persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Tens of thousands of gay men were sent to camps for "rehabilitation", where they were required to wear the distinctive pink triangle on their prison uniforms. Sometimes castrations were ordered by the courts. Torture and sexual abuse of gay prisoners was not uncommon. For this reason, the pink triangle later became a symbol of the international gay rights movement. Unlike many of the other groups who were liberated from the camps at the close of the war, homosexuality remained illegal in post-war Germany and other European countries including Britain.
Perhaps the Bishop of Motherwell is unaware of the persecution of gay men by the Nazis, which would make the presence of gay groups at a Holocaust Memorial entirely appropriate.
Meanwhile, that Christine Shaw, the head of the U.K. 's Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, has made a statement underlying the importance of remembering all the victims of the Holocaust, 'be they Jewish, disabled, gay or lesbian people.'" Ms Shaw's statement emphasizes that Holocaust Memorial Day "is also about learning the lessons of the past to encourage society to tackle all forms of prejudice, including anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia."
Comments
brian mcclinton;
This was the sanitized version which in the Bishop's mind was politically correct enough to be said in public. I'm sure his private thoughts and conversations on the subject have far more intensity in both their opinions and what should be done. Can you imagine an entire continent ruled by people of this mindset. You don't have to, just read a book of European history ...or a European newspaper. The intolerence of diversity in Europe is endemic. Don't belive it? Just ask disaffected Moslems in the UK, you don't have to even go to France or Germany to find them. They see themselves as Moslems first and foremost and therefore fall prey to being recruited as terrorists than their better off far more integrated counterparts in the United States. Moslems in America are on average better educated and earn more money than the average of Americans as a whole. They also have no problems getting jobs they qualify for or housing they desire and can afford. They are also accepted socially in most organizations. The same is true for homosexuals and all minorities. Now just travel East a few hundred miles to say Russia which also happens to be part of Europe and you will see homosexuality is still illegal and severely punished there. What about other European countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia? You tell me. The operative mode of the European mind is subservience to authority no matter what and conformity to the norm. That's how children who are born neither good nor evil become evil and stay that way all their lives. That is why there aren't riots in the streets all over the EU protesting the coming tyranny which will radiate from Brussels. Most are either resigned to it or actually welcome it. BTW, the Anglican view in the UK is virtually identical.
There seems to be a competition running between the Catholic bishops to out-hardline each other. Perhaps they’ve worked out that this is the way to curry favour with the traditionalist Ratzinger.
We’ve had the Carlise one blaming floods on the gay, the Lancaster one equating criticism of the church to Holocaust denial and the lot of them dropping support for those evil organisations Red Nose Day and Amnesty.
I think it unlikely that this latest hateful statement is simple lapse of historical knowledge, but even that would be shameful enough.
The bishops can get as hardline as they like, and its better to have their views out in the open so the population at large can see how out of touch they are. What they should not be entitled to do is drag the education system back to the dark ages with them at the taxpayer’s expense.
The MP select committee quizzing Bishop of Lancaster seemed taken aback at his absolutist stance regarding education. It seems perverse that the government is passing laws promoting equality whilst increasing handing over ethical education of the young to religious bigots.
I get the impression that the majority of believers are much more accepting than their religious representatives and I wish they would protest more vocally and not just quietly ignore these medieval pronouncements being made in their name.
I am amazed that this bishop could be so uninformed about the plight of homosexual men (and some women) during the Holocaust. There is a superb play (also a film) called BENT which deals with part of that story of homophobic abuse. The bishop should apologise. He should pay his respects at a memorial to those gay men who were tortured, abused and killed in the work camps, experimentation laboratories and death chambers of the Nazi Holocaust.
Another unfortunate irony, unappreciated by the bishop, is that a number of catholic priests were also murdered by the Nazis in the death camps. Since Hitler did not want to take on the Catholic church per se, his killers redefined some very courageous catholic priests as homosexuals in order to remove them from society. They died wearing pink triangles. In many cases, they weren't gay, but were merely celibate priests who had the courage to speak out against the Nazi regime. They are heroes of the resistance and they died alongside gay men, jews, gypsies, disabled people and others who found that their face didn't fit in the eugenics-madness of Nazi thinking.
The bishop of Motherwell has insulted gay people ad he has betrayed the memory of his brother priests who died wearing pink triangles.
Religious leaders can't say anything these days without the press attacking them. This story is yet another example of the Christophobia that has overtaken our society. I blame the media specificaly for that because the media is dominated by anti-Christian people, pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-drugs, pro-sex generally, pro-anything-goes. This bishop is allowed to state his moral views just like anyone else even if others disagree with him.
PTL- dry your eyes. What a sob story that was. The fact is that the priest just displayed incredible ignorance so why shouldnt it be reported and attcked. No-one and I repeat no-one is denying the priest his right to say whatever he wants. But dont expect people to sit back and accept his views when they are clearly ignorant. You really need to stop with feeling so sorry for yourself.
There is no excuse for anyone to be so ignorant. I find it hard to believe that he didnt realise so many homosexuals were exterminated by the Nazi's. Had he bothered to do the slightest bit of research he would have realised his own ignorance. Personally, I think he knew fine well.
William - in your list of those persecuted by the Nazis you neglected to mention Catholics, and particularly priests and religious, thousands of whom were killed by the Nazis.
The bishop's mistake was to go near the Holocaust. You can't have a rational discussion involving Nazis - you aren't allowed, for example, to point out that many more people have been killed by abortion than were ever killed by the Nazis.
The bishop's central point, that homosexuals are trying, very successfully, to present themselves as a persecuted minority, is correct.
Wasn't Hitler a Roman Catholic?
Smasher- you are hovering very very close to the ignorance levels of the dear old bishop. Did you really claim that more people have been killed by abortion than ever were by the Nazis? If you cant see what is wrong with that rubbish statement then you have serious issues.
And your claim that the bishop is right.......garbage. What about Black people today in the United States smasher? When they attend commemorations for lynching victims? Are they trying to present themselves as a persecuted minority? I want you to explain the difference to me.
The fact of the matter is that homosexuals have been a persecuted minority for centuries. Its only in the last few decades that some form of acceptance and tolerance has arrived. To get there it took security in numbers smasher. Collective action. It happens everywhere. Civil Rights groups smasher, remember the civil rights movement among your fellow Catholics? Same idea. Do you simply expect homosexuals to lose every sense of group identity that it has taken them years and years to foster? Of course you do. But that is because of your Catholic ideology. Just like the Bishop, homosexuals simply offend you, if you were big enough to admit it. It is this that drove the Bishop to make his ignorant comments and you to support him. The fact of the matter is that homosexuals, just like the gypsies, Jews and disabled groups, commemorate the Holocaust because their fellow gays, Jew and gypsies were brutally killed because they didnt fit with the desired social norms of the Nazi regime.
You mentioned Catholics. Now here is an interesting dichotomy. You are always on here crying about how Catholics are not allowed to express thei opinions and about how their is a great conspiracy against Catholics and other Christians. This to me seems like a very bad attempt to paint yourself as a persecuted minority. If Catholics attend the holocaust remebrance ceremonies are they not simply doing the same as the gays? What is the difference Smasher?