The Ring of Fire
So our dear Amy went to see Walk the Line the other night, and because she mentioned that the Brokeback Mountain trailer ran, the intrinsically disordered homophobes had one of their (completely predictable) en masse explosions in the combox. And some have asked me why I cut the comments here?
Good God, people -- stop screaming about a movie and, if it's real mano-on-mano action you're looking to hate on, then look no further than the Brokebed Seminaries which might just be in your backyard.
As a friend of the late Pope's who observed him in the company of women said to me the other day, "Karol had this 'Me, Tarzan. You, Jane' macho-ness about him." God love him.
But look around, liebchins. Tell me how much of that you see from the living -- and I'm not talking about the "Bodies by Nautilus, Brains by Mattel" variety, either.... And then, when you take the blinders off and realize that the cultural controls and conditioning which got us into this mess to begin with are still in place (and possibly at even more pungent levels than pre-2002) then you have to wonder whether the Visitation is either: 1. the biggest joke of all time or 2. a bella figura ruse to distract you (because many of you lot have shown yourselves easily distractable), to make you think that the "problem" is being taken care of.
And I can say all this because, as I've always said, I honestly don't give a fig. So long as a man is faithful to his vocation and living his chaste celibacy as a charism of the commitment to which he has been called (as opposed to a means to the end of grandiose titles and vesture privileges the rational mind cannot fathom), his orientation is immaterial. Period. And if he isn't capable of that, then he should go -- and "go" means "go," not "go to another seminary." And if the state of affairs isn't to your liking, then how about the one means of action which would have an exponentially greater effect than even if the Pope showed up to boot the gays himself: hit 'em where it counts and stop giving money. That'd get their attention real quick; believe me, it beats screaming.
Quagmire settled, shall we get back to the work of changing the world for the better, which is what we're actually supposed to be doing, as opposed to wrecking the church one forced outing at a time?
As for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is in it, and she's annoyed me ever since she broke out on Dawson's Creek. (Say what you will, but she's not my type -- Anne Hathaway, however...? Good. Keira Knightley? *DROOL* I love her. To bits and frickin' pieces. She's amazing, like buttah.)
If you want to scream credibly about something, however, try this on for size: one of Michelle Williams' co-stars on the Creek (you know of whom I speak) went through 12 years of Catholic school, but apparently was not convinced that the faith and church of her childhood was relevant, and so she found solace in and converted to a better-witnessed faith, one based on... Phaetons.
Does this make any sense to you whatsoever? For some strange reason, it must, because I don't hear a peep about it. Ever. At all.
If it's a problem you want, if it's a crisis you want, if there's a battle you should be picking, that's the microcosm of it -- the church is hemhorraging members of my generation because when we should be seeing how it's an uplifting force in the lives of good people and a standard worth hewing to, those who should be witnessing are too damn self-absorbed in its ephemera, issuing fatwas to others they deem as falling short, as opposed to actually living it.
And who loses there? You tell me.
Don't blame society. Don't blame the Devil. And, most of all, don't blame gay cowboys in a movie. For the love of God, just get your heads out of the sand, cut the armchair quarterbacking and get on the ball. Yet again, it's past time -- and none of us are getting any younger.
Thoughts for the author? E.mail him.
-30-
Good God, people -- stop screaming about a movie and, if it's real mano-on-mano action you're looking to hate on, then look no further than the Brokebed Seminaries which might just be in your backyard.
As a friend of the late Pope's who observed him in the company of women said to me the other day, "Karol had this 'Me, Tarzan. You, Jane' macho-ness about him." God love him.
But look around, liebchins. Tell me how much of that you see from the living -- and I'm not talking about the "Bodies by Nautilus, Brains by Mattel" variety, either.... And then, when you take the blinders off and realize that the cultural controls and conditioning which got us into this mess to begin with are still in place (and possibly at even more pungent levels than pre-2002) then you have to wonder whether the Visitation is either: 1. the biggest joke of all time or 2. a bella figura ruse to distract you (because many of you lot have shown yourselves easily distractable), to make you think that the "problem" is being taken care of.
And I can say all this because, as I've always said, I honestly don't give a fig. So long as a man is faithful to his vocation and living his chaste celibacy as a charism of the commitment to which he has been called (as opposed to a means to the end of grandiose titles and vesture privileges the rational mind cannot fathom), his orientation is immaterial. Period. And if he isn't capable of that, then he should go -- and "go" means "go," not "go to another seminary." And if the state of affairs isn't to your liking, then how about the one means of action which would have an exponentially greater effect than even if the Pope showed up to boot the gays himself: hit 'em where it counts and stop giving money. That'd get their attention real quick; believe me, it beats screaming.
Quagmire settled, shall we get back to the work of changing the world for the better, which is what we're actually supposed to be doing, as opposed to wrecking the church one forced outing at a time?
As for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is in it, and she's annoyed me ever since she broke out on Dawson's Creek. (Say what you will, but she's not my type -- Anne Hathaway, however...? Good. Keira Knightley? *DROOL* I love her. To bits and frickin' pieces. She's amazing, like buttah.)
If you want to scream credibly about something, however, try this on for size: one of Michelle Williams' co-stars on the Creek (you know of whom I speak) went through 12 years of Catholic school, but apparently was not convinced that the faith and church of her childhood was relevant, and so she found solace in and converted to a better-witnessed faith, one based on... Phaetons.
Does this make any sense to you whatsoever? For some strange reason, it must, because I don't hear a peep about it. Ever. At all.
If it's a problem you want, if it's a crisis you want, if there's a battle you should be picking, that's the microcosm of it -- the church is hemhorraging members of my generation because when we should be seeing how it's an uplifting force in the lives of good people and a standard worth hewing to, those who should be witnessing are too damn self-absorbed in its ephemera, issuing fatwas to others they deem as falling short, as opposed to actually living it.
And who loses there? You tell me.
Don't blame society. Don't blame the Devil. And, most of all, don't blame gay cowboys in a movie. For the love of God, just get your heads out of the sand, cut the armchair quarterbacking and get on the ball. Yet again, it's past time -- and none of us are getting any younger.
Thoughts for the author? E.mail him.
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 22:22
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