In light of Jesse Jackson's recent comments about Barack Obama I was wondering how you all felt about holding religious leaders to a higher moral standard
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Though to clarify, outside of their position of power I judge them the same as anyone else. So if they are lying to their congregation, I judge them more harshly than if the same priest was lying to someone off the street, in which case I judge them like I would any other liar. If they preach against lying in church and then go off and lie to people IRL, then I judge them the same as any other liar/hypocrite.
All adults are in a position of power with respect to children, distinguishing between better and worse forms of child molestation is sort of bullshit. I did judge the priests who covered it up more harshly than I do when laypeople cover stuff up though, because again, they are abusing their authority.
There are no better or worse forms of molestation, and I would certainly hope you wouldn't think that I believe there are. However, look at it this way. When a person that grows up in an abusive environment surrounded by drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex turns into an adult that indulges in drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex while raising his family in an abusive environment people find it wrong. However, when a person from a perfectly "normal" family does these things people find it more wrong. Killing someone for money is wrong, killing someone because they are a different color than you is more wrong. There are varying degrees of wrong.
An average dude molesting a kid is wrong. A priest doing it is more wrong. Is the act any worse between the two? No. However, the priest is worse for doing it than the average dude.
I absolutely agree with those first two, because the first set of guys have totally different ideas of what is normal and the second set of guys have totally different motivations.
But child molestation is almost uniformly the same shit, it's all to fulfill a power fantasy, both the average priest and the average layperson will know that it's wrong, they both involve abuses of power and trust.
I would say that an abusive priest is a little more frightening to a parent, maybe so it depends on what level I am looking at it from. Since kid's are naturally naive and trusting, there is always a betrayal, but a parent would probably only trust the priest (though there are plenty of naive adults out there too), so maybe a priest is "worse" for doing it, but the difference is so slight and it's already so far off from any sort of moral behavior that it feels like splitting hairs at that point. Eh, whatever.
I don't know, saying he wants to cut his nuts off is a pretty harsh and immoral thing to say, especially for a reverend. Although I don't think it's fair to say it's equal to the priest molestations, it is still a morality issue. Besides, I only mentioned it because watching his apology yesterday set my mind in motion to ask this question.
It's harsh but not immoral so long as he doesn't actually threaten to do it. I think everyone has wanted to at least smack someone upside their head at least once. Jackson just got a bit more graphic is all. Hahaha
That doesn't make it right that Jackson vocalized his wants though and he should probably check into some damn anger management if he honestly wants to go around mutilating people, I just think all these scandals that keep coming up are the dumbest shit.
Not that I think Jackson's comments about Obama are some sort of moral issue, who gives a shit?
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All adults are in a position of power with respect to children, distinguishing between better and worse forms of child molestation is sort of bullshit. I did judge the priests who covered it up more harshly than I do when laypeople cover stuff up though, because again, they are abusing their authority.
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An average dude molesting a kid is wrong. A priest doing it is more wrong. Is the act any worse between the two? No. However, the priest is worse for doing it than the average dude.
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But child molestation is almost uniformly the same shit, it's all to fulfill a power fantasy, both the average priest and the average layperson will know that it's wrong, they both involve abuses of power and trust.
I would say that an abusive priest is a little more frightening to a parent, maybe so it depends on what level I am looking at it from. Since kid's are naturally naive and trusting, there is always a betrayal, but a parent would probably only trust the priest (though there are plenty of naive adults out there too), so maybe a priest is "worse" for doing it, but the difference is so slight and it's already so far off from any sort of moral behavior that it feels like splitting hairs at that point. Eh, whatever.
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(that is, i agree with you)
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Obama and his balls?
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