Friday, November 23, 2007

Cigarette #6: Queering Catholicism (No jokes!)

SIXTH CIGARETTE, 6:45pm
Back home on the porch
DRINK: Tamdhu single-malt

Sitting on the porch, smoking and reading Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture by Frederick Roden, which quotes Andre Raffalovich (1896):
The literature of today dares only in such moments of sensual and sentimental defiance what the poets of divine love have cooed about and moaned over with delight.

And John Dalgairns (1901):
The very object of Monasticism is to give a proper outlet to devotional feelings which are stifled in the real world because it would be fanatical to indulge them. . . To throw oneself at the feet of another and call oneself a miserable sinner in a convent is part of the rule.

Catholicism creates a safe space for people with deviant sexual preferences (homosexuality, masochism, sadism, etc.), allowing them to shout from the rooftops desires that they would otherwise be forced to keep hidden or subversive. All it requires is that we play by its rules (devotion between men is okay, but no sex!), or direct these desires towards God.

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