Is Democratic-Liberalism Compatible With Catholicism?

by Justin La Grange

To start, I'm not here to condemn, criticize, or pass judgment on any of my fellow Catholics who may be, uh, liberally or Democratically inclined. God judges a person by their heart to serve and intention to be good, not by whether they may have voted for a candidate that supported an abortion bill. I simply want to voice my opinion on how I think that as Catholics, the Democratic Party (and liberalism) may be incompatible with our lifestyle and religious ideologies.

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Let's start with the obvious.

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It's no secret that the Democratic Party and the liberal interest groups that have provided its lifeline over the last few years (moveon.org, etc) support very liberal pro-choice ideologies. Since we as citizens have the power to place and remove officials in and from elected office, we are complicit in the ideologies they support if we supported them -- if they have supported policies and forwarded interests that further erode restrictions to the termination of an unborn child, we are complicit. Whether or not I agree with this isn't the point -- the point is that if you firmly support the Catholic teachings and the word of the Bible, you should think about how you are complicit if the person you vote for goes in stark contrast to such an extremely serious ideology of the Church.
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Now moving to a kind of a devil's advocate position (no pun intended), I'll be honest here -- I don't think embryonic stem cells and supporting gay marriage are really abberations in the eyes of God. However I think it's unacceptable to pass judgment on those who disagree with that opinion.
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With regard to embroynic stem cells, take note that a lot of these "embroys" are little lab cell things that would often be destroyed anyway. Whether using these cells is really playing God is not something I can really answer to, but I can probably say that God would not have a problem with regrowing an arm for a soldier wounded in Iraq using embroynic stem cell tissue.
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Gay marriage and homosexuality are difficult issues. Here you get into this gray area where some of these teachings in Leviticus (etc.) are just too antiquated and no one follows them anymore. While I invite you to look back at my previous notes for more discussions about this, I refuse to believe that if God created a gay person, God would condemn what he produces. Combinatorially, marriage is now an institution of the government, not the church, and therefore it is not the place of government to not provide a service all taxpayers pay for. This is going to be one of those things like interracial marriage that is going to be old news in 20 years, so we might just suck it up now and get with the program.
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That being said, I think there is a serious modern day problem in the gay community of being severely wrapped up in far-left ideologies that defame Christian and traditional culture, support anything anti-Catholic out of spite, and support these out-of-control feminists (their fag-hags) who love to get tickled by their doctor's abortion utensils. And some of the far-left elements in the gay community need to understand that these exact elements of a "perceived" gay counterculture can turn people way off and make them not want to have such abberance associated with a traditional marriage ceremony. When folks see news footage of these counterculture far-left America and Christian haters at the forefront of the pro-gay marriage side, they enrage good people who don't necessarily hate gays but simply dislike the grotesque San Francisco SP counterculture they've become associated with. When it comes to helping themselves on gay marriage, I think gays just continue to shoot themselves in the foot with imagery of bondage queens at their high-profile rallies.
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Moving onto economics, too many elements abuse and usurp charitable Catholics teachings to support leftist redistributional economic paradigms. This is a gigantic abberation. Catholics are supposed to condemn those who covet thy neighbors house (and things) -- and liberal economic paradigms are the pinnacle of covetness. Despite the poor in America having a grotesquely high standard of living (by global measures), ala nearly all have a dwelling unit and a color TV (and the majority owning an automobile), apparently liberals think they need more and life is supposed to be a cakewalk. Jesus and Catholic teachings would say the following about this:
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First, you don't rob Peter to pay Paul -- heavy redistributionist paradigms to support both the slothful, covetous, and a large useless bureaucracy amounts to theft and robbery (one of the major commandments). Second, slothfulness -- statistically shown by Bill Clinton via the Welfare Reform Act to be largely produced by welfare -- is a major sin. Third, God and Catholic teachings want us to be charitable people by the good nature of our hearts. They never call for large bureaucracies and corrupt politicians mandating redistribution as they see fit. That is an abberation of church teachings that is abused by liberals trying to woo unsuspecting Catholics and runaway political bully pulpit priests like the Archbishop of Los Angeles. In fact, despite being disheartened by the gross taxation they must endure at the hands of leftist ideologues past and present, conservatives give a larger percentage of their income to charity by a large margin. So much for liberals really being the ones with the bleeding hearts. It's all talk the talk but no walk the walk.
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You might notice I have yet to really discuss the Catholic Church -- as in the large bureaucratic organization riddled with Italian bureaucracy and corruption, and non-ironically headquarted in The Vatican/Rome. Let's just say that I refuse to give the Catholic Church a free pass because it's the "supposed" voice of all things Catholic. I'm in a state of fury with the organization at large -- it's a getting to be a huge bureaucratic corrupt entity, often spending hundreds of millions of dollars settling sexual abuse lawsuits instead of helping out the needy in its communities. The Catholic Church lives large, often sparing no expense while some of its most devout and loyal parishoners have not stopped tithing 10% of their incomes while their homes get foreclosed on. To add insult to injury, some priests are developing grand political bully pulpits to espouse liberal worldviews on illegal immigration and economics, despite not having quite covered those topics in Seminary. The church has lurched to the left and I think it's something we should be worried about. In order to be the best Catholics we can be, it's prudent to not follow some runaway politicos at the Vatican and simply do our best to follow God's teachings and live our life in service to others -- it's that easy.
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In conclusion, I'd urge my fellow Catholics to do some deep introspection of whether your voting patterns coincide with real Catholic beliefs and teachings. My own introspection of the matter leads me to believe that Catholic ideologies aren't compatible with the ideologies on the Democratic-left -- not to mention the fact that lots of people on the left are hostile to religion period. We will be judged by what we do on Earth, and voting is an action that makes us a part of setting an ideology in motion. As Catholics, can we in good conscience set liberal ideology in motion? Hey, I'm not the judge.
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Here's a complimentary article by Michael Gerson discussing Obama's "Declaring War On Catholics":http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/declaring_war_on_catholics.html

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And here's a Time article that discussing why Catholic support for Obama may be fraying:http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1890595,00.html

24 Hour Bi-Curious Fitness

by Justin La Grange

Back in high school, my Bible Teacher offered that homosexuality was neither genetic or biological - it was pure "vanity". Vanity, or a love for oneself so extreme that it required one could only envision a carbon copy of his amazing self being worthy for sex or a relationship. One would see themselves or the magesty of their own sex and say, "shit, I'm pretty bad ass. I'd fuck me," and somehow that would translate into either a learned affinity for those traits in other people or result in a lowering of the threshold of sexual permissiveness.

Anyway, I've met enough gays and lesbians to know that this probably isn't the case - but I will offer that this very theory of her's translates to "bi-curious" behavior. Keep in mind that my expertise on bi-curiousness, at least on an academic level, stems from a South Park episode in which Butters was led to believe that he was bi-curious after a mistaken sexualized incident devised by Eric Cartman.

By now I'm sure you want to know why I'm writing this. Well, I just came back from the gym like an hour ago and was particularly astounded by two things.

First, everybody is looking at themselves incessantly in the mirror. I know people do that, but damn tonight was bad. Let's just get some water and stare in the mirror the entire time! Let's just stare in the mirror the entire time you're busting out a set and moan loudly! Damnit, if you're going to go to the gym, I don't want to hear your retarded ass grunting, groaning, and making sexualized noises the entire time. You're not a damn baboon, practice some etiquette for God sakes, and don't make it obvious your two homes are 24 Hour Fitness and a trailer. Anyway, just the way some of these guys are ogling themselves more heavily than a black man ogles the booty of Lil' Rounds from American Idol indicates preference. It indicates acceptance. It indicates the perception of beauty. Beauty and acceptance foster desire and permissiveness. And once you've reached this point, one begins to notice others crafted in their own image. And it spirals forth from there...theoretically...no pun intended.

Second, everybody is checking everybody else out. I scoff at this. When it happens to me I cuss to myself and then strangely appreciate it thirty seconds later. And as I'm improving and progressing at the gym, I'm finding myself doing it more and more! "Damn that guy is buff...that guy's chest is pretty defined, I bet he could bench 250...damn, that's exactly how I want mine to look, I'll give it four months", or even, "shit, I could probably bench more than that guy...look at that idiot doing a lot on the leg press but my legs look so much better."

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I'm staring at myself in the mirror more and I'm comparing more, and I'm not the least bit worried. The sexual part doesn't really concern me, but I don't want to be an asshole. I deride these idiots that stare into the mirror and yet do not fear turning into one of them. I'm unafraid of the magesty of adoring myself. And it's getting worse and worse by the day.

In conclusion, bi-curiousness based on my theories and teacher's theories stems from an evolution into pansexuality which stems from adoring of the self. All this was running through my mind in the car so I figured I'd get it on paper...or Facebook. And surprisingly, I'm unabashed about it. I think most guys would rather put a bullet through their head than admit this stuff out loud. Oh well, my diarrhea of the mouth.

Oh P.S. -- While we're on the gym topic and bi-curiousness, I've never figured out why these idiots have to tote this huge bag into the gym, come dressed in informal clothes, and then change in the friggin gym locker room?! If you're coming in at 10pm wouldn't you just have departed from somewhere informal that you could just change there? Or even in the car, like I do? Why must you go in and do the whole locker room dance? And a shower? Take it at home. Everytime I tote myself into the bathroom to pee (which is a lot since I drink a 44oz Big Gulp before working out), I don't want to sail through a sea of nudity just to pee...especially if you're over thirty.That will be all.