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More NYT Double Standards?

A group bought an ad in The New York Times urging liberal Catholics to quit the Church. Excerpt from the full text: Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a […]

A group bought an ad in The New York Times urging liberal Catholics to quit the Church. Excerpt from the full text:

Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, and to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers? When it comes to reproductive freedom, the Roman Catholic Church is Public Enemy Number One. Think of the acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, social evils and deaths that can be laid directly at the door of the Church’s antiquated doctrine that birth control is a sin and must be outlawed.

More:

You’re better than your church. So why? Why continue to attend Mass? Tithe? Why dutifully sacrifice to send your children to parochial schools so they can be brainwashed into the next generation of myrmidons (and, potentially, become the next Church victims)? For that matter, why have you put up with an institution that won’t put up with women priests, that excludes half of humanity?

No self-respecting feminist, civil libertarian or progressive should cling to the Catholic faith. As a Cafeteria Catholic, you chuck out the stale doctrine and moldy decrees of your religion, but keep patronizing the establishment that menaces public health by serving rotten offerings.

I don’t really object to the message here — I mean, the organization has a point; if you believe these things, then you really ought to think hard about whether you should remain in the Church — but the language of the ad is hysterically spiteful. I find it impossible to believe that the Times would have allowed an organization that denounced Judaism or Islam in those terms to purchase an advertisement. For The New York Times, some religions are more equal than others.

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