This anti-Catholic crap is getting to be annoying

[Moonwalk]

187. So, you wouldn't criticize a Southern who had a confederate flag and belonged to...

...an organization that supported segregation and argued that slavery was actually a good thing for the slaves?

You're actually comparing apples and oranges with your "all southerners are racists" example of what's being said to you. Let's say I meet someone from Alabama. They didn't ask to be born and raised there. They didn't choose to have the accent they have. And being born and raised in the south doesn't mean that they will be racist. So if I accuse them of being racist simply because they are from Alabama, then I'm being unfair and bigoted.

But if someone was raised in a republican family, and if, in adulthood, they remain a member of the GOP, going to it's conventions, giving money to it, then even if they argue that they, personally, don't believe in all that GOP stands for or does, I can still say that in remaining in that organization, they are supporting its bad doings. A southerner can't not-be a southern. But being a member of the GOP is a choice. A far more apt comparison for you (and to better understand where people criticizing you are coming from) than the "all southerners are racist" would be, "Anyone who is a republican is against Obamacare." That may not be true, but the republicans keep trying to kill Obamacare; so how you can be one, and support that organization and still say you're in favor of Obamacare?

Now we will grant that all organizations have their saints and sinners, their angelic sides and devil sides. I don't think we here at DU can or should accost you for remaining in the Catholic church if we're not also willing to accost, say, those nuns on the bus who battled with the Bishops over helping the poor rather than preaching against abortion. There may, indeed, be republicans who favor Obamacare.

BUT....BUT...I think we can ask what you, like those nuns, are doing to fight this organization from the inside and bring down those who keep leading it into sin rather than into sainthood. And if you aren't doing anything, and if you are giving it money and support by belonging rather than battling for its soul, then I think we can offer criticism. Just as we would criticize anyone belonging to the GOP, giving money and time and support to the GOP, who wasn't trying to bring it back from it's Tea Party madness. And I'm afraid that just like someone who says they belong to the GOP, you do have to prove that you are on the side of the angels. Because the organization you belong to has badly damaged the trust it might have had in its goodness. And that makes it harder for some to believe that those belonging to it, seemingly supporting it, aren't (knowingly or unknowingly) supporting the devil.

Wouldn't it be the same for you if you met someone who claimed to be a registered republican? Wouldn't you want to know why they were still a member and what they were doing to change the GOP? And again, the fault for this is with the Church. If it was Amish, not involved with politics and making secular laws that affect everyone, no one would care why you belonged to it, etc. I'm sorry, but your Church has so too much world power (and power in the US) that your private matter of faith becomes a political and social statement. Just as many Jews have to defend their faith in light of its organized support of Israel. That's just the way it is.