Of course there are. I didn’t mean to imply that I think there aren’t.

I’m willing to bet Noonan *does* think left-wing Catholics exist–we’re just “bad Catholics” who dare to look at the whole of Catholic social teaching instead of focusing exclusively on the rights of zygotes. And judging by your assumptions here, it seems you feel the same way.

I don’t feel the same way at all. Frankly, my agnostic ass doesn’t really care about these “good vs. bad Catholic” squabbles, which are something for Catholics to hash out amongst themselves, except insofar as they get used as political or social weapons. But I think that if anybody in this equation is a “bad Catholic,” it’d be Mark Noonan because he’s 100 percent invested in the dogma without bothering to look at what’s behind it, and also because he’s fixated on one issue–zygotes–to the exclusion of the other stuff you mentioned (poverty, social justice, etc.). He strictly adheres to the letter of the law without caring about the spirit of it.

But Noonan has repeatedly said that left-wing Catholics are not true Catholics because they don’t adhere to the dogma like he would like them to. It’s not that you’re “bad Catholics” to him; when you cut right to the chase, you aren’t Catholic at all in his estimation. His belief is that being Catholic requires you to believe a certain list of things, and if you don’t believe them, then you aren’t Catholic–either you’re all in or you’re all out, no half-stepping. Naturally, his list of necessary beliefs overlaps almost completely with hardcore conservatism.

Principal Blackman: So there are no pro-life left-wingers? I was unaware that this was the litmus test for being a liberal. Forget social justice, forget poverty, forget peace–the bottom line is how you feel about fertilized eggs, eh?

Also, the comment I quoted was Gavin’s, not Mark Noonan’s. And in any case, I’m willing to bet Noonan *does* think left-wing Catholics exist–we’re just “bad Catholics” who dare to look at the whole of Catholic social teaching instead of focusing exclusively on the rights of zygotes. And judging by your assumptions here, it seems you feel the same way.

Actually, according to Nooners, they don’t exist. For if you are left wing, then according to his calculations, you cannot be a real Catholic even if you might call yourself one.

This goes back to his overarching conspiracy theory, which is that “the left” is a gigantic conspiracy to completely utterly remove God from society. Ergo, “the left” cannot be Christian, and “the left” certainly cannot be Catholic. If nothing else, folks on the left are pro-choice, and that is not in accordance with the Vatican’s teachings. Of course, neither are Mark Noonan’s support of the Iraq war or his embrace of creationism/rejection of evolution.

Right, I forgot that left-wing Catholics don’t exist.

*vanishes*

And here we get into that grey area – not really covered in the linked document – of just what is torture. I cannot hold that an act by the interrogator which does no physical harm can be considered torture. Feeling bad about it afterwards isn’t good enough – there has to be a bruise, a broken bone…something, anything to indicate that someone applied brute force to the body of the terrorist.

You can put someone through a lot of pain without leaving a mark, dumbass. Let me just get my bag of oranges and show you.

Awesome.

Bill Bailey – “You get somebody to explain the Trinity to you, they’ll say “Well God, he’s God, and Jesus is God as well, and the Holy Spirit is…(mumbles indistinctly)”. “What?” “He’s the fecund spirit of the Lord who impregnates Mary, then gets a bit up himself and is reduced to light clerical duties?” Let’s examine that in joke form: three male divine natures go into a cosmic essence, giving and receiving love, but not in a gay bishop way, to which the whole of Islam goes “Wha?”; Hinduism: “Nah!”; or Buddhism: “Ssh!”.”

He’s going to piss off Amanda Marcotte?

I also post on B4V and don’t think Mark is a bad guy. However, he suffers from the same fault as Leo and Matt in that he cannot fathom his views are not absolute truths. This makes any debate pointless because he has long since reached a conclusion.
You are right to say Jeremiah is comedy gold. He can’t be real. If he isn’t whoever is behind him deserves an award. I like it when he talks about how he will make homosexuality a capital crime. His big plan for finding out who is gay is to give everyone a questionnaire asking “Are you gay?”

Point was, there’s not a whit of difference between the twelfth century thugs that flayed people alive, the people who flew those planes into those buildings and the fuckwads like Dobson. They want EXACTLY the same things, and it’s IMPOSSIBLE to not see that.

They want the same society, the same thing for women, the same justice system, the same legal structures, and yet they continue to call for the the death of the other.

Man, this is some weird shit, eh?

mikey

Let’s see.

Hosni Mubarak.

Bandar bin Sultan.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

James Dobson.

John Bolton.

John Yoo.

What part of this fucking criminal travesty are you missing?

mikey

Yeah, waterboarding is pretty weak sauce compared to being torn to bits with red-hot pliers while stretched on a rack. And yet it still manages to be morally repugnant!

I think the same kinds of people were condemning porn and condoning torture in the 12th century as today, too.

Gavin: thanks for the Milton quote!

“It’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway!”

Gene Wilder’s not in History of the World Part 1– he and Mel had very much gone their separate ways by that point.

As for ProChoice = For Abortion, the answer is “sometimes”. ProChoice also means PRO Sex education, PRO condom distribution, Pro inexpensive birth control pills or injection, Pro inexpensive quality Child Care, Pro Higher Minimum Wage, Pro Women getting Equal Pay for Equal Work. and so on and on.