Baseball sports writer Dayn Perry over at a CBS sports blog commented on an article that dealt with the state of gay athletes in pro sports.
Like in the New England Patriots' locker room. Earlier this season linebacker Brandon Spikes sent out a tweet claiming to be homophobic "just like I'm arachnophobic. I have nothing against homosexuals or spiders but I'd still scream if I found one in my bathtub."
Spikes later said he was joking. But former Angels outfielder Torii Hunter, among baseball's most thoughtful and intelligent players, isn't kidding when he says an "out" teammate could divide a team.
"For me, as a Christian … I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it's not right," he says. "It will be difficult and uncomfortable."
Hunter is of course entitled to his personal beliefs (although one wonders whether he is similarly affronted by, say, shellfish and neatly maintained beards, which are also forbidden by the holiness code of Leviticus), and when he talks about potential problems within the clubhouse, he may well be correct .......
This is rather unfortunate and a person that writes for Washington Monthly, ESPN the Magazine, The Miami Herald, The Montreal Gazette, Reason, and The New York Sun, and many others should be held to a higher standard. The shellfish arguemnt is often presented as a grand gotcha .
However Christians of all Faith traditions have actually thought about those verses . For instance see here , here , and here all of which is easily available to find within minutes on the internet. It should be noted of course that the Angel baseball player did not even cite what portions of the Bible he was referencing by this seemed of little importance to Mr Perry.
Pro athletes of Faith I suspect in the future will note that Mr Perry might not exactly take the time to take their Faith seriously
Sunday, December 30, 2012
CBS Sports Writer Dayn Perry Unleashs the Shellfish Argument on Angels Baseball Player
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Isn't it interesting how none of these bigots, hypocrites, and hate-mongers are never the slightest bit concerned about the whole myriad of "scripture" of which they live their own lives in violation. But they cherry-pick the passages which they construe as anti-homosexual and use that to say that the sports industry must discriminate against homosexuals.
The sports writer doesn't have to play the shellfish card, which requires a modicum of biblical understanding to make. He lacks that requisite knowledge.
But the fact is, we are all sinners.
"For me, as a Christian … I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it's not right," he says. "It will be difficult and uncomfortable."
I assume the player is therefore equally as hesitant to share a locker room with people who don't keep the Sabbath.
And this is a legitimate argument. We are all sinners, and it seems that too many Christians are willing to pick and choose which sins we are going to be offended by publicly. So gay marriage is "shoved down our throats" while no one suggests the government mandate keeping the Sabbath or ban lying.
We live in a world of sinners, and Christians can certainly NOT hold their noses too high to break bread and claim brotherhood with folks their faith tells them are sinners.
What a crisis of conscience this man must face every time there is a baseball game on the Sabbath!
Katy I think you have a good point. Of course the situation here is that the interview person is not exactly engaging the baseball player at any depth about the view.
I guess I am not just finding this shellfish argument that powerful and it seems to be the weakest. Yet peoiple throw it out there all the time
I definitely think there is something to said about some who make sodomy a super-sin to the point they won't share a locker room. Jesus surely didn't hang out with only the squeaky clean.
However the unfortunate "shellfish meme" got great energy from Pres Obama. As a practicing Christian, he should have some familiarity with Scriptural hermeneutics.
If the shellfish prohibition is not significant for you, how about Leviticus 20:18 which says that if a man should lie with a woman during her menstrual period, or for 7 days thereafter, both of the shall be cut off from other people. It is my understanding that the Catholics teach their people to live in direct violation of this standard as "natural birth control."
The point of course, is that the hate-mongers do not care about the scriptures, and they have no concern whatsoever about their own violations of those scriptures. They simply pick out passages of scriptures to use against those of us lesser creatures which they hate with such a vengence because of a personality characteristic which we did not choose, and can not change.
I came back to this website to say how extremely frustrating it is that nobody notices that these hate-mongers are not just saying, "We don't want you in our church, you just stay away from our church, you low-down dirty sorry homosexual". In this particular case, the man is saying that we are not allowed to play baseball because of his religion. They try to shut us out of every little tiny area of life, and certainly they do not want us to be able to work and earn a living. I know that they pine away for those long lost days when they could stack up the faggots and burn them like firewood.
Mark, I don't think you read the linked articles. "As is made clear in a separate article, the Church has authority. Catholics accept the Church's infallible teaching and its role in interpreting scripture. The simple answer to the question of why Catholics eat shellfish and not kosher-slaughtered food is, rather starkly, 'the Church says so', and she says so because Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit passed this knowledge to the Apostles."
If you want to blatantly ignore this bit of information, that is fine. However, there are plenty of attributes that "we did not choose, and can not change", but which I'm sure you would agree are monstrous. From TruTV "Henry Lee Lucas blamed his upbringing; others like Jeffrey Dahmer say that they were born with a "part" of them missing. Ted Bundy claimed pornography made him do it. Herbert Mullin, Santa Cruz killer of thirteen, blamed the voices in his head that told him it was time to "sing the die song." The ruthless Carl Panzram swore that prison turned him into a monster, while Bobby Joe Long said a motorcycle accident made him hypersexual and eventually a serial lust killer. The most psychopathic, like John Wayne Gacy, turned the blame around and boasted that the victims deserved to die."
In a reductio ad absurdum argument to your assertion that "a personality characteristic which we did not choose, and can not change" should be supported by society, shouldn't any abhorrent characteristic that one is born with be entitled to equal protection under the law, even if that characteristic leads to serial killing? However, this of course assumes one is remotely capable of free will (a religious phenomenon) for if not, we have no control over what we do, so, like a robot, one cannot be punished for what they are pre-programmed to do.
Andy, how dare you to compare innocent homosexuals to all of those serial killers? What an unmitigated hate-monger you are! And the subject of this post is has nothing to do with the Catholic Hate Group, and child molester protection syndicate, (so-called church), and your lecture about the authority of that dispicable hateful old man in Rome does not interest me in the least. The subject of this post is the baseball playing hate-monger who says that homosexuals should not be allowed to play baseball.
I am at a bit of a loss as to why someone who refers to the Pope as "dispicable [sic] hateful old man in Rome" would even bother with a blog site called "Opinionated Catholic."
My own policy about blogs is that I try to learn something from the pages I frequent whether or not I think I agree with them.
reductio ad absurdum: disproof of a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads when carried to its logical conclusion.
It was not an equivocation, it is logic...but I'm fairly sure you got that on your own.
Katy, I make comments on religion blogs only if the post is a promotion of hatred and discrimination of homosexuals outside of the religion. If they want to say that homosexuals are not welcome in their so-called churches, that is none of my business. If they say that homosexuals are not allowed to play baseball, earn a living, marry a person appropriate to our own sexual orientation, be discrimated against in life outside of that religion, that is when I make comments. I do google search often, looking for hateful, discrimation promoting blogs to comment on. And about that hateful, wretched, evil old man who calls himself the "pope", it was so gratifying to see the internet light up with people taking exception to his utterly detestable speech again marriage equality a little over a week ago. In fact, the Christian Post is reporting that a large number of people in the Netherlands are seeking "de-baptism" in response to that speech. I don't understand what "de-baptism" means, and it looks to me like they could simply renounce it, after all it was something done to them by their parents without their consent anyway. But it is very exciting to see how much progress has been made toward equality, and how many heterosexals are renouncing the hatred of various religious figures.
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