Posted: May 04, 2012 1:21 am
Crocodile Gandhi wrote:
My first question to Lion is:
Q.1
If, as you have argued, some individuals' freedoms should be restricted due to statistics pertaining to a group to which they belong, do you believe that it should be made illegal for any Catholic priest to work with children due to incidences of child-abuse which occur at the hands of the clergy as a whole? And If not, why not?
Where in this debate have I argued that what should be restricted are real/actual/tangible -“individual freedoms”?
It’s a complex question – statistics...if not...why not...individual freedoms.
Anyway, notwithstanding your efforts to convince me that discriminating against people on the basis of their sexual “orientation” amounts to bigotry, I will attempt to answer the question as best I can.
I’m challenged firstly to contemplate how one would know the difference between a member of the clergy (a biblical theist) and someone simply pretending to be. Should the actions of atheists hiding in the clergy also be similarly inspected? What about the non-ordained laity? Why limit only male Catholic clergy working with children? What about nuns? These issues make the question somewhat more difficult to answer with a simple yes or no. In talking about the restriction of so-called “individual freedoms,” there is an inference that those “freedoms” actually do exist. But do they really exist?
Example : I certainly don’t have the “individual” freedom to enter a females-only changing room – not even if I dress up as a woman, put on a Dolly Parton wig and demand something called “equality”. Likewise, it can hardly be said that a person in prison, (Eg. a pedophile who wants to escape from jail,) has a civil right to exercise something called “individual freedom”.
In that sense, there is no freedom being restricted because The Law has determined that, for a period of time, such individual freedom ceases to exist. There simply is no existing temporal “right” to exercise individual freedom for a person in prison therfore it doesn’t exist as a right that is being discriminated AGAINST!
The idea that a prisoner has a “right” to “individual” freedom they can exercise at will is logically incoherent because the claim that someone’s “right” is being restricted pre-supposes the existence of that right as an individual freedom.
Nobody has the “human right” to attempt child sexual abuse. Neither the clergy, the laity, the Church, nor religion, nor atheists. Everyone is covered by the exact same legal prohibition. Nobody is having their individual personal freedoms (human sexual orientation) discriminated against because The Law says there is no “right" to that behaviour.
Vocational work involving children, (education, clergy, adoption, etc.) is both lawful and VERY heavily-regulated as it should be. The Law quite RIGHTLY discriminates against numerous categories of people to control and define lawful and unlawful activity. Pedophilia, on the other hand, is entirely against The Law in those same jurisdictions - no matter what your sexual orientation is or your personal opinions about “individual freedoms.”
And this is a law I would ALSO argue should not be changed or re-defined for anyone.