IIRC, it's Capital-H Host if it's Catholic, because of the transubstantiation requiring the honorific.

Especially because some of my nearest and dearest are Catholic, I've tried to get some education about the RC, and I've come away with more respect than dismay, (though I can run you down a long list of stuff I don't agree with). Then again, with my low-Church Presby formative experiences, I may just be swayed by the candles and kneeling and incense and nice decorations.

The church needs to get on that.

Except that the church leadership, practically since the death of the pope who shepherded through all the Vatican II reforms, has been just the kind of ingrown social conservatives who are happy to let people like the League speak for them and not terribly eager to disabuse anyone of the notion that Donohue and his ilk are The Church.

So then, unfortunately, it falls on the laity to bitch about it and tell him to STFU, and since most of us are less media-whorishconnected than Donohue, it doesn't always work out so well.

Voice of the Faithful should step up to the mike then.

Oh, I doubt she claimed to be from the diocese. I think a local news station misidentified her and it's gotten repeated each time the story gets recycled.

Also this

S&M Barbie Lashed By Public

Especially because some of my nearest and dearest are Catholic, I've tried to get some education about the RC, and I've come away with more respect than dismay, (though I can run you down a long list of stuff I don't agree with).

In case I was sounding snippy earlier...

I don't disagree, on a broad level anyway. But I have a huge issue with the idea that "disrespect" of a powerful institution is a matter for anything stronger than eyerolling in response. If I come off like I'm smacking at individual believers, it's not intentional.

But I'm incredibly leery of the notion that religious institutions ought somehow to be immune from disrespect. Which is not to say they should be disrespected. But I don't see any reason they shouldn't suck it up like the rest of us.

I put this in a bucket with the "War on Christmas", "how come white people can't say the N-word" and the NiceGuy / Men's Rights Association types - it all does seem very eyerolly and foolish, but it's insidious and I think it's doing us real damage.

I put this in a bucket with the "War on Christmas", "how come white people can't say the N-word" and the NiceGuy / Men's Rights Association types - it all does seem very eyerolly and foolish, but it's insidious and I think it's doing us real damage.

At the very least it shows a basic lack of comprehension on what it means to be in actual jeopardy.

I'm so sorry Drew, peace to your family.

Eh, I do think that the hatefulness inherent in the act of spiriting this away makes it kinda more criminal. Do I think it's a hate crime? Probably not.

Do I think the idea of hate crimes is overused? Probably. Do I say this as a member of a group that is often included in hate crimes legislation, and whose interest groups often lobby for hate crimes legislations? Yes.

But at the same time, when someone can be murdered not just in a random bar fight, but strung up, and "made an example" not to maybe seem gay in the bar? When a schoolkid is beat up not just to silence them, but as a warning to any other classmates who might cross gender barriers? When crosses are burnt on my lawn not just to scare me, but my fellow mosque- or temple-goers? That's not just impacting the person the crime happens to. And I can really see an argument for some punishment that doesn't just say "burning a cross on the lawn did $400 in damage, so that's the same as if you had spraypainted "GONZO WAS HERE" on their door, and done $400 in damage". Because clearly, not the same.

I am brenda.

Not het up about this at all though, because I found this to get all het up over [link]

You will pry my birth control from my cold, dead hands.

I now have: pre-interview paperwork, ten million hoops to jump through, a schedule conflict giving me angst, and the extreme desire to flip out like a mammal.