I took this picture at Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens which I visited with my fiancee yesterday. It is, I have to say, a fantastic day out for people of all sexual orientations and none.
Yet, your roving, outrageously homophobic, queer bashing, closeted, self-hating, massive queen of an unemployed Catholic opinion blogging, independent journalist for free was there to catch an even bigger story than this. Could there be a bigger story than this? Yes. Yes there could be.
For behold, readers, these gardens, which have been open to the public since they were first opened public ages ago, are to close this June, so hurry up and visit these beautiful gardens which must contain, in the flora alone, I dare say, all the colours of the rainbow.
"Why are these beautiful gardens to close?!" I hear you cry in a voice louder than even the National Gay Men's Gospel Choir itself? Well, an 'anonymous foreign businessman', according to The Times, has purchased the whole plot of land, and like the greedy git that he patently is, is closing it so that only he and his rich mates can enjoy it! Outraged!? I know I am and I sure hope you are too! Get him boys, and indeed, girls, don't get me! He's the bad guy, look!
This breathtaking show of wealth and arrogant abrogation of beautiful national heritage and stunning scenery is worse than the sin of Sodom and could well be unforgivable even in the sight of the All-forgiving, merciful and loving Redeemer who loves everyone including gays who He longs to forgive and reconcile to Himself, like all sinners, in the Sacrament of Penance through His Priests.
If there is one issue that can unite all of us, one campaign that should see the entire World perhaps unite and forget all of our differences so that I receive less online hate mail, it has to be this one!
Is it a rich Arab? Is it a Russian tycoon? I don't know, but I think we can, all of us, traditional, orthodox Catholics or heretical LGBT lobby propagandists unite in condemnation of this stinking rich man, whoever he is, or wherever he is from, for coming over here, buying our gardens and lakes for around £8.5 million and not sharing them out with anyone, not even the people of West Sussex, let alone the poor or disabled. What an awful bastard! I think, given that he's bought the land a Facebook campaign might fail, but with the power of the LGBT political lobby behind us, I believe that anything is possible.
Let us all unite and condemn this rich landowner for being the selfish toerag that he is. Whoever you are, whatever your cause, or whosoever's rights you are currently campaigning for, drop it now, because Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens have been sold to a filthy rich foreigner and now he is grabbing all this beautiful land hitherto enjoyed by the great British public for just £8 during the week and £9 on Saturdays and he's going to turn it into his personal playground, for him and his filthy rich, millionaire friends.
This doesn't cut it as an apology.
ReplyDeleteDo the honorable thing and apologise properly. Really, your mocking only serves to put salt upon the wound you have inflicted.
I'm not a politician. I don't have to apologise to you for speaking my mind and voicing my opinion because you are offended.
ReplyDeleteI asked my son, yesterday, how his generation responded to people who 'come out' One of his fellow students did admit to being homosexual to a couple of 'friends' after they had noticed he had become very withdrawn. As my son termed it, the boy was 'rinsed' by nearly all the other pupils, which apparently means to be teased and tormented relentlessly. He became very isolated and depressed within the school community. It would be no surprise to me, to hear that this boy seeks out some sort of acceptance amongst the active gay community, even though as Catholics we are called to offer acceptance, compassion and respect ,not mockery. He did not try to make a big deal of his sexuality, but the heterosexuals certainly did. Should I direct him to this post, in order to gain a deeper understanding of his 'state' in God's eyes or would the jokes, maybe the one about the Gay Men's gospel choir (imagine God allowing gay men to sing His praises?)make him think he had come accross more mockery? I wonder exactly what he would gleam of Christ's love for him, by reading the words here. The world is not as accepting and cut and dried as some people would have us believe. And Christ, in His Church and through the Catechism states, regarding people with same sex attraction:
ReplyDelete"They must be
ACCEPTED with respect, compassion, and sensitivity". (CCC, 2358)
This is the true message of the Church, anyone who is hearing something different, is not hearing Christ. Talk to your heavenly Mother, who always sees us as her children, whom she loves. She will not mock you, nor poo poo the fact that in this world, your sexual orientation may constitute for you, a trial (as the cathechism terms it, even if some practising Catholics would have you believe otherwise). If you are doubting God's love for you, approach Mary, she will open your heart to your true value and man's opinions and prejudices will fade away. This has been my experience, not my opinion. The Gospel is Good News, truly. It is Christ you seek, do not miss meeting Him. Ask Our Lady of Mount Carmel to meet with you, today. Expect fast results! God bless all people's struggling in these areas. May the Love of Christ be infused in your souls, and the true intimacy of relationship available in Christ and sought by all men be manifest in your being, Amen.
Shadowlands, I am not mocking gays, I am having a go at heretics who wish to fashion the Church in their own image, rather than subject themselves to the Magisterium and have their consciences and opinions informed by the Holy Spirit.
ReplyDeleteWe ALL fall short of the Glory of God, straight or gay. God loves us ALL unconditionally and waits patiently for our repentence. That does not mean that God loves all that we do, think or say.
Above all, we Catholics, whatever our own sexual orientation, are concerned with Truth, since it is the 'truth that will set you free'.
If all of these people who are so angry with me are Catholic (and I doubt that they all are), then indeed the problem I have highlighted is made only more evident by their fury and anger, because we are entitled to ask what all of these Catholics are doing going to Mass and being so heavily involved in a political movement which seeks to undermine and subvert the Church.
I agree that we all need to be compassionate on each others sins, yet the hallmark of many of the comments on this blog directed at Church teaching is one of defiance.
I'm sure, by the way, that the National Gay Men's Chorus are very good, I just disagree with their discriminatory policy towards heterosexuals.
ReplyDeleteWe are not trying to subvert the Church, there is, as Shadowlands observes, no theological sanction for your argument.
ReplyDeleteIt is in fact you who are guilty of imposing your own views on the Church's teachings. Anyway, as a few people have observed, the sin of homosexuality is theologically no greater than the sin of non-procreative sex within marriage, so why do you spend so much time bashing gays? Either you have misunderstood Church teachings or you have gays on the brain (presuming the latter to be the case, you might want to think about whether entering into a joyless marriage with your fiancée is fair on either of you)
Laurence, I do truly believe, that your personal testimony holds more power than your opinions, as indeed does each man and woman's. It contains your experience, what happened to you, what touched you, and changed you, and gave you hope and brought you into full comunion with Holy Mother Church. You can't argue with a man's experience, as it is a part of history, and therefore fact.
ReplyDeleteThe people you deem as 'heretics' may not have found the truths that your opinions proclaim, and therefore to judge them in such a manner as to term them 'heretics' is to claim that you can see their hearts. Are they deliberately and in full conscience calling truth (as we believe it) to be error.
Our judgments on others may turn out to be stumbling blocks in their own discovering of the Love Christ has for them, as they may sense, in our 'having a go at them,' that we are speaking Christ's thoughts to them, which of course we are not.
I think George Herbert sums up very concisely and very gently, how most souls feel when sincerely approaching God for the first and umpteenth time. Certainly describes my experience, and why I continue to encourage all men and women of all persuasions to approach their heavenly Mother, who's love melts one's heart, the way love does. You know, that feeling of immense generosity of spirit that sweeps over you, when you first realise another human being truly loves you and that your whole existence, far from being meaningless, was planned to be for all eternity. Now that is the Good News of the gospel, a love that last forever, and heals you, slowly but surely, in a world full of lonely people, and OK, maybe some of the lonely people are actually heretics, but guess who loves heretics, and therefore we must too? Yeh, Jesus! I'll shutup now, I'm beginning to sound like Billy Graham, and post the poem by George Herbert. everyone reading, this is the Jesus I have met, as a person afflicted with many defects and issues. May you met Him too, today. May I always strive to be to others, what Christ has and is being, to me.
"Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin
Buy quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd any thing.
A guest, I answer'd, worth to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love. And taste my meat
So I did sit and eat."
-- George Herbert
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteBecause there is, as yet, no pre-marital sex group seeking to gain special recognition and rights within Holy Mother Church.
I would not have felt impelled to write a blog post on the Rainbow Sash Movement, if it was not all too apparent that they are deliberately drawing attention to themselves and their desire for recognition in the Church, over and above the true mission of the Church, to preach Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
Every man and woman, be he or she, gay or straight, has, in his or her Priest, a Confessor who can offer both Absolution for their sins and spiritual direction.
The Church both now and down the ages has had heroic men and women with a same-sex attraction, as the Church still does today. As Catholics we are called to point to Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, not ourselves.
Oh and by the way, if I want some random commenters guidance who is so ashamed of his own identity that he can't bring himself to use his real name, on how to govern my personal life, I will ask for it.
ReplyDeleteSomeone called 'Randy' emailed me, I think, yesterday with an email entitled, 'About the Bones...'
ReplyDeleteI deleted it accidently in my junk mail, so if you want to resend it try again.
"The Church both now and down the ages has had heroic men and women with a same-sex attraction"
ReplyDeleteYeah no shit Sherlock - hitherto that observation I was assuming that the beardy-weirdy bent Irishman who presided over my local church as a child, or the mad-as-a-hatter 70 year old nun who spends her day locked in a convent with other women, were well adjusted heterosexual citizens who just happened to seek a life of self-abnegation, the company of their own sex, and a frankly mental doctrine of sin and evil. Enjoy wasting your life in a loveless marriage while fantasising about boys, I'm sure it will all be worth it when you die and God lets you into heaven for having a fucking miserable life on earth
I thought well wishers would be few in number.
ReplyDeleteUse your real name, Anonymous, as I do, otherwise I readers will suspect your vulgarity is equalled only by your cowardice.
If I were you, I would delete all the bullying comments, Laurence. Don't argue with people whose sole purpose is to make you upset. Pray for them and otherwise ignore them.
ReplyDelete(Just to clarify, I am not for one minute labelling shadowlands' respectful disagreement as bullying. I think she makes some good points.)
Wow, you've really hit a nerve with the previous post. So much hatred in those comments. Some people just can't stand a bit of criticism, poor delicate things.
ReplyDeleteThe more I read such things the less I feel for the gay community. Bullying is so unattractive.
Shadowlands makes some very good points.
ReplyDeleteThe catholic chaplin at my school used to reguarly suck me off, didn't do me any harm. I did quite well out of it actually, I always got chosen for paid jobs like decorating and gardening. He had a big dick so wasn't so keen on blowing him though but then it it not better to give than recieve?
ReplyDeleteIf I were you, I would delete all the bullying comments, Laurence. Don't argue with people whose sole purpose is to make you upset. Pray for them and otherwise ignore them.
ReplyDeleteLaurence, it seems that the only pupose of your post was to upset and bullying others. If you had ignored them and prayed for them in the first place then you would't be getting your collar felt.
''Wow, you've really hit a nerve with the previous post. So much hatred in those comments. Some people just can't stand a bit of criticism, poor delicate things.''
ReplyDeletepilfrim - it wasn't criticsm it was downright offence. laurence said that gay people prey on youngsters, as you know the scientific literature shows that the proportion of peadophiles in the gay community is not greater than the general population. gay people are padophiles is an unfounded urban myth spread by homphobes like laurence.
Laurence - in my area there is a woman's choir, a choir of people with learning disabilities, a caribbean gospel choir choir, an african choir plus i am sure many others.
ReplyDeletedo you disagree with their discriminatory policies? what you seem to be about is your aversion to diversity.
''because we are entitled to ask what all of these Catholics are doing going to Mass and being so heavily involved in a political movement which seeks to undermine and subvert the Church.''
ReplyDeletewho says that gay catholics or gay peoples generally are heavily involved in a political movement? that seems to be a huge assumption on your part.
you don't need to be part of a movement to be politically aware or able to soeak up for yourself.
plus, don't think you're any less political than those you condemn. your article was a highly political statement.
''I thought well wishers would be few in number''
ReplyDeleteyou can say that again you rancid snatch.
keep digging lozza, it won't take much more to earn a gay demo on the doorstep of your church next sunday
ReplyDeletePssst Laurence? I bet your fiancee have a cock?
ReplyDeletegay lobby representative said:
ReplyDelete'keep digging lozza, it won't take much more to earn a gay demo on the doorstep of your church next sunday'
Does Laurence have his own Church then? Or do you mean you will demonstrate outside the Church he attends? That sounds like blackmail, in order to stop his voice, because it isn't saying what you want to hear. It isn't saying what I particularly want to hear either, but I defend his right to have a voice, as I do all men.
Serious question: Is this a tactic of the LGBT movement? I know nothing of the policies of the latter, but would be horrified to know that any kind of bullying someone into silence takes place. Laurence's Church and it's parishoners have hardly warranted such a demonstartion, surely?
Exactly. It's God's Holy Church, not mine or any person's. I think that's part of the general misunderstanding.
ReplyDelete"They must be
ReplyDeleteACCEPTED with respect, compassion, and sensitivity". (CCC, 2358)
Nowhere does that say "the act of homosexual *sex* must be tolerated, excused, and allowed."
Also, that same respect, compassion, and sensativity needs to be *returned* by gay activists. Harassing Catholics, attacking the Church, and engaging in all manner of aggressive "protests" does not, by any means, promote the love and acceptence that is demanded.
Coffee Catholic said
ReplyDelete'Also, that same respect, compassion, and sensativity needs to be *returned* by gay activists. Harassing Catholics, attacking the Church, and engaging in all manner of aggressive "protests" does not, by any means, promote the love and acceptence that is demanded.'
As Catholics, are taught to turn the other cheek when injured by word or deed. However, I much prefer to be convinced by reason, than subjected by force. I also try and offer this to others, when I am behaving myself and acting like a proper Christian (it does happen, now and again). It's a learning process for us all, surely, this 'love thy neighbour' commandment, and no-one and no group is excluded from trying to perfect loving one's neighbour according to church teaching.
We will be judged on how well we have loved others, as ourselves. Christ himself said this.
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (NIV, John 13:34-35)
We can all use a bit of love, in this world, surely? Lets start with each other. To ALL who have commented here, whoever's comments have incensed you the most, say a hail Mary for them, right now, and see if your heart changes a little, in your attitude towards them. Only a suggestion of-course, I won't visit your family and talk about you, if you don't.
Power to the powerless!
I posted the wrong scripture! Now if I was a 'good old prod' (protestant) that would never have happened.
ReplyDeleteJesus said ........"The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (NAS, Mark 12:28-31)'
No commandments ever known, or ever given to man, greater than the above two. Blimey! They're worth more than a glance over then.
Coffee_Catholic:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your very deep reflections on the fact that a 'condition' of homosexuality not being evil, but two men having anal sex being a ticket to hell. However, I am a bit confused about this insistence on the role of sex within marriage being a sure way to firm-up the family and attract the love of Christ. Did the Lord's son not say:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."(Luke 14:26-)
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."(Matthew 10:34-37 and Luke 12:51-53)
I think you should perhaps re-read your bible and pay more attention rather than spend so much time getting angry about the idea of two men having sex, it is obviously clouding your thought
reply to pilgrim said...
ReplyDeletepilgrim - it wasn't criticsm it was downright offence. laurence said that gay people prey on youngsters, as you know the scientific literature shows that the proportion of peadophiles in the gay community is not greater than the general population. gay people are padophiles is an unfounded urban myth spread by homphobes like laurence.
I suspect your reaction is against classifying teenagers as adults. Because, if I remember correctly, Laurence argued that men who go after 16 year olds are not peadophiles buy gay. Is that such a crazy idea?
I mean, there are some(outrageous) people who want the age of consent to be lowered to 14. I'm sure you're familiar with this. So what would that make a 14 year old boy? An adult perhaps? How convenient to be able to change the definition of a 'child' when it comes to sex.
no my argument is not against classifying teenagers as adults. As clearly stated, the offence is Laurence's suggestion that gay men prey on youngsters. It is no more true than the general population.
ReplyDelete