EWTNNews: Online petition to White House to label Catholic Church a “hate group”

From EWTN News:

White House petitioned to label Catholic Church a ‘hate group’

By Michelle Bauman

An online petition asking the White House to designate the Catholic Church as a “hate group” for its views on marriage is drawing criticism for generating unjust animosity.

The petition reveals an “underlying agenda,” which is not simply to prevent violent crimes, but to “stigmatize any disapproval of homosexuality at all and essentially to silence us,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
He explained to EWTN News on Jan. 3 that applying the “hate group” label to organizations that are morally opposed to redefining marriage is simply “name-calling designed to cut us out of the public debate.”
Initiated on Christmas Day, [But of course!] a petition on the White House website had collected 1,640 signatures by Jan. 3.
The petition – which is aiming for 25,000 signatures by Jan. 24 – argued that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Christmas address to the College of Cardinals “demeaned and belittled homosexual people around the world.[I wrote about that HERE.  This is tied up with the destructive “self-chosen gender” fallacy.]
“Using hateful language and discriminatory remarks, the Pope painted a portrait in which gay people are second-class global citizens,” it charged.
“Pope Benedict said that gay people starting families are threatening to society, and that gay parents objectify and take away the dignity of children,” the petition said. “The Pope also implied that gay families are sub-human, as they are not dignified in the eyes of God.”  [These enemies of the Church are deft with the Alinsky tactics, aren’t they? See Rule 13.]
It called for the Obama administration to recognize the Catholic Church as a hate group, as defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

[…]

Are you ready for “camp life”?

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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32 Comments

  1. StJude says:

    We are living in insane times.

  2. mschu528 says:

    This may sound cynical, but Obama might as well go ahead and do it. It’s obvious that he already believes it. I’d rather he explicitly identify himself as an enemy of the Church of Christ. At least then he could not pretend to care about the concerns of the Church like he did in the wake of the wicked HHS mandate.

    No matter what the secular world wants to label us, the Faith is the Faith. “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you” (Jn 15:18).

    Blessed Miguel Pro, pray for us.

  3. Northern Ox says:

    This isn’t a big deal. Anybody can start a petition on the White House website, so of course 99% of them are loony. And it’s not hard for a loon to attract a thousand compulsive petition-signers to join him/her.

  4. jrpascucci says:

    Bring it.

    I’m curious about history, though: was there a particular tipping point that had the Bishops assume local, temporal powers, as huius saeculi potentes (as St. Gregory the Great said) in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire?

  5. Titus says:

    People are stupid.

    There is no provision in United State law for the designation, by the president or any executive-branch official, of “hate groups.” Nor is there any legal significance to being designated as one, if designation as one were provided for or actually done.

    The term does not appear in the United States Code. It appears once in the Code of Federal Regulations: apparently one of the duties of the Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Boards is to report on “Criminal or illegal activities involving cults or hate groups.” (One of the few benefits of being an attorney is getting to play with powerful search tools.)

    So at the end of the day, big hairy deal. (Yes, it’s bad that people think these things, and troubling that they go about voicing that opinion in public. But that they put it on one webpage instead of another? So what.) The whitehouse.gov petition utility is a toy for bored government computer techs and nothing more: what I had for supper last night has more legal significance than everything all people will ever upload there (unless someone manages to use it to make threats against government officers).

  6. anilwang says:

    mschu528 says: “This may sound cynical, but Obama might as well go ahead and do it. ”

    I doubt it. I’m not American but I don’t see Obama as being so dumb that he’d make a direct assault on the Church. If he acted, he’d more than likely add the Catholic stance to hate speech the Human Rights Board of the U.S. (if such a board doesn’t exist, expect it soon since they exist in many countries already and already pressing the Church to keep quiet…or else). Since it’s “a general mandate” and not directed specifically at the Catholic Church (even though it is), he’ll just go by the same script he played with the HHS mandate and use his CINO Catholic advisors as proof that one can be Catholic and not believe all the articles of the faith.

  7. mschu528 says:

    @anilwang:

    I didn’t say I think he will do it. I said he might as well, because it’s obvious he already believes it to be true. Frankly I think Mr Obama is too much a coward to publicly admit his actual views on the Catholic Faith. When they’re shooting our bishops execution-style in the public squares, they will still lie and say that they are doing so out of love for “tolerance.”

  8. Patrick-K says:

    It would be interesting to see what happens if this gets 25k signatures and Obama has to respond to it. I’m not sure that Obama opposes the Church on a personal level. I don’t think he has many deeply felt beliefs. I think he mostly just has Nate Silver run the numbers and see what will get votes and support. Publicly calling the Church a hate group would not go over well with the liberal Catholics who voted for him, therefore he likely will not do it.

  9. Supertradmum says:

    Persecution stage four rapidly coming into five……Satan is reaping his crop before he is stopped. I wish some Catholics would wake up to what is really happening in the States…this is all so similar to what happened to the Jews in Germany.

  10. Supertradmum says:

    Patrick-K, Potus is a puppet. He has no substance except his own narcissism. When those in power are finished with him, he, too, will be marginalized, discarded. And, of course he hates the Church…as a Chicago Gramscian, he knows we are the only ones who really understand what is going on.

  11. Andy Lucy says:

    ‘Are you ready for “camp life”?’

    Honestly, Father, I really don’t think that will be much of a problem ;)….. I don’t much fancy waiting around for the endgame of this chess match to be forced, leaving a board decidedly not in my favour. Once Die Endlösung der katholischen Problem is implemented, it will be too late to try to work for change.

  12. daveams says:

    Is it just me, or does 1600 signatories in eight days seem really low? I mean, haven’t there been Fr. Z polls that got 1600 votes in like a couple of hours?

  13. acardnal says:

    Just confirms what you have said on this very blog and my own belief; the “thought police” are
    a-comin’ for us Catholics. (After all, a so called hate crime is really about thought not what the person did.) Remember Bishop John Fisher and St. Thomas More folks. Oh, and priest holes, too. Can anyone really criticize Fr. Z for his resolution to obtain a concealed carry permit?!

  14. Joseph-Mary says:

    Yes, good called evil, etc.
    I would say the hate and bullying is on the other side trying to silence people of conscience and not only silence but destroy them if possible and anyone who does not agree with the homosexualist agenda.

  15. Blaine says:

    I don’t put too much stock in those White House petitions – I once signed one asking President Obama to rescind the HHS mandate. It had a lot of signatures too, but oddly enough it’s still the law! (Please view the last seven words as sarcasm.)

    Honestly, I agree with above by mschu528. I’d much rather we stop the finger snapping dance number and just get down to the business. Im dying to know which Bill of Rights amendment is the first to (officially) go (they’re all unofficially ignored by our slavemasters dear leaders), and how many before the wars go hot. But then, I’m impatient. I just received For Greater Glory for Christmas, and think I’d look dashing with a mustache and gun belt. ¡Viva Christo Rey!

  16. rodin says:

    It does seem that the White House web site is rather hate filled. It might be appropriate to send letters to the President protesting his hateful activities.

    Does it strike anyone that there is a similarity of sorts to the developments in Germany in the thirties? Shades of Bonhoeffer perhaps.

  17. Y2Y says:

    Bring it on – just got my second Bushmaster………

  18. Burke says:

    Sounds to me that those who want to label the Catholic Church ‘a hate group’ must be a hate group themselves; perhaps someone should start a White House petition against them … I imagine it would get the needed signatures for a response in no time flat!

  19. I just did:

    http://wh.gov/U7Ht

    Sign the petition to call the anti-Catholic bigots a “hate group”!

  20. rodin says:

    Thank you Patrick Thornton. I just signed it and passed on the information.

  21. PostCatholic says:

    When you open the doors to “We the People” you’re going to meet some of the We that are on the fringe. There have been a lot of ridiculous petitions that have gone nowhere, this will certainly be another.

  22. rodin says:

    Post Catholic–hence the term wheeeee the people?

  23. New Sister says:

    @ Supertradmum – I just called POTUS a puppet on another post [before seeing your apt comment]; how right you are. People give him way too much credit. He’s an ideologue but more so a puppet. BTW, thank you for the essays on Gramsci on your blog.

  24. catholicmidwest says:

    For once, Postcatholic, you and I agree on something. This is lunatic fringe stuff, and Catholics are a little hysterical lately, unfortunately. Unnerving, isn’t it? But only a nuisance, I think.

  25. wanda says:

    Burke and Patrick Thornton, great idea and thanks for the creating the petition. Catholic Vote has the petition up, too.

  26. mammamia says:

    Blaine, first one to go (well right after they ditch that nasty preamble) will be the 1st Amendment.

    Ten bucks (which is a lot to me right now, but I’m confident I’d win this wager) that, as happened last year, they will release the HHS “women’s health” final-final ruling in the fri night document dump on the weekend that tens of thousands racist, bigoted, bullying, hateful, misogynist pro lifers descend on DC for the March for Life, and that the regs are going to be against the Church (and any and all, religious or not, that believe in the dignity of life.) That’s just how they roll–the more in-your-face they can make it, the more I think they enjoy it.

  27. Mundabor says:

    This seems to me the same as with the “judgmental” thing: how can you say to another he is being “judgmental” without revealing you are being judgmental at the same time? How can you say the Church is a “hate group” and gather signatures without admitting you want to create a “hate group”?

    Still, make no mistake: 1,600 signatures today, 1.6 million in ten years’ time. This is what happens when people capitulate to political correctness, a monster that eats his own children.

    M

  28. SKAY says:

    The idea is to try to get the pro Obama MSM to begin to discuss the possibility so that it becomes an acceptable idea to think this is possibly true. Then they can introduce it into public schools as an acceptable topic for discussion.

    “Does it strike anyone that there is a similarity of sorts to the developments in Germany in the thirties? Shades of Bonhoeffer perhaps”
    I agree rodin..
    I also agree that Obama is a puppet–of much smarter people than he is.

  29. Well, if by hate, they mean: the dignity of the person beyond sexual “orientation” , belief that the blood of the innocent not be taken, then by all means, bring it. Just being Catholic is enough for people to hate us, might as well make it official.

  30. wmeyer says:

    STM said: Persecution stage four rapidly coming into five……Satan is reaping his crop before he is stopped. I wish some Catholics would wake up to what is really happening in the States…this is all so similar to what happened to the Jews in Germany.

    I have lately been reading Herman Wouk, and have seen some films produced in Germany about the rise and fall of Hitler, and there are some frightening parallels.

  31. VexillaRegis says:

    @wmeyer: I’m afraid you are right. People fled Germany and Austria and went to other countries (if they were fast enough), but where, I ask myself, where would millions of American catholics go today? Obama knows this and loves playing with you.

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