Diocese of Little Rock is urging its members not to donate to a breast cancer foundation
27 February 2008 by StardustSaw this in the news this morning and it really burns me up. Once again religious fucktardery threatens scientific research.
Catholics asked to stop Komen donations
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Diocese of Little Rock is urging its members not to donate to a breast cancer foundation known for its fundraising races across the globe because the group supports Planned Parenthood.
The diocese says the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, which has invested about $1 billion in cancer outreach and research, gives money to Planned Parenthood to hold breast exams and offer education to women in its clinics.
“Donors cannot control how an organization designates its funds,” a diocese statement reads. “Therefore, money donated for a specific service … directly frees up funds to support other areas of an organization’s agenda.”
Marianne Linane, director of the diocese’s “respect life” office, said those other agendas includes abortions and contraceptive services. The Catholic church’s policy is that abortion is wrong in every instance.
[But allowing women to die from breast cancer is ok.]Linane said the Little Rock diocese, which oversees all churches in Arkansas, used the same statement sent out by the church’s St. Louis diocese last year. However, the end of the Little Rock letter included addresses of Arkansas hospitals parishioners could donate to that would eliminate “the administrative funds for a middle broker.”
Monsignor J. Gaston Hebert sent the statement to parishes and Catholic schools this month and planned to send out a follow-up letter, Linane said. Hebert did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
Little Rock follows other dioceses in raising concerns with the foundation. In 2005, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston abandoned its support of the foundation, while in 2006 the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix took issue over Komen’s Planned Parenthood funding.
Rebecca Gibson, a spokeswoman for the Komen foundation, said the group invested $69.6 million in more than 1,600 community-based education and screening programs during 2007. Planned Parenthood received less than 1 percent of that money, she said.
“It’s insignificant in relation to all of the funding we do,” Gibson said. “I think it’s just really unfortunate undue attention is being shed on organizations that are providing vital services in those communities.”
The diocese’s decision comes as northwest Arkansas prepares for its running of the Race for the Cure on April 19.
Officials estimated Little Rock’s running last year brought out more than 43,000 participants and raised more than $1.65 million.
27 February 2008, on 12:20 pm
Letting some women die of breast cancer is worth it if you can save a few fetuses and and stop the use of contraceptives. Can someone say misogyny?
27 February 2008, on 12:56 pm
I just lost my aunt to breast cancer. I used to be a Catholic-sympathizer (sp?) because I was taught evolution in my Catholic school, and we openly discussed the dangers in literal interpretation of the Bible and identified many contradictions and mistakes in it. I thought “hey, the Catholics were once murderous pigs, but nowadays, compared to evangelicals and Muslim extremists, they seem like angels!”
I am now officially done with the Catholic fucking church. Fuck them…
27 February 2008, on 1:24 pm
The catholics are the most confusing. They seem so reasonable in their support of education and scientific research on one hand, then their dark-age beliefs surface to deter scientific research on the other. The right-to-lifers of any denomination are the same with their contradictions…they want to save zygotes, embryos,fetuses (and even against preventing them from being conceived in the first place), but have less concern about people who are already living.
27 February 2008, on 2:13 pm
Stardust…I must practice saying “religious fucktardery” a few times; and, of course, incorporate it into my, increasingly venomous, anti-religious, vocabulary tool kit.
What!…”It has a nice ring to it”?
Yeah, having lived through, and escaped, my very own, childhood brainwashed “fucktardery”, I feel a tad more liberated, these days, as an increasingly more aware and ever evolving…skeptical atheist.
I can’t help wondering, however, if, indeed, I’ve now developed into an increasingly raging…
“skeptard”?
Is that, perhaps, a new descriptive word? If it is…
“SHHH!…Don’t tell anyone about it!”
27 February 2008, on 3:47 pm
The xians need a theme song. But it’s hard to work “evil, backward, dangerous and hypocritical” into an upbeat hymn.
Chuck A.,
Your mention of your personal childhood is close to my own and I wanted to say hello from a fellow cult survivor.
I’ve been using the term ‘religious fuctardery’ for a while. Also ‘religious butt fuckery’ a variation of my own. Both are amusing and fun. Well, to me anyway.
Don’t you just love the incredible, mind numbing hypocrisy the religious types? Every sperm is sacred but if you’re dying of cancer and think sex ed is good then you’re going straight to hell and we should help you get there as soon as possible.
Wow. So thick you could hit it with a railgun and not dent it but these idiots can’t even fucking see it.
I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got so much shit… uh.. I mean jebus in your eyes.
27 February 2008, on 4:12 pm
Wouldn’t it be something if catholic parishioners could earmark their donations to the collection plate exactly how they want the money to be spent? And if they could say they don’t want even 1% going toward the upkeep, cover-up and legal fees of pederast priests!
27 February 2008, on 4:53 pm
This makes my head hurt. So what if millions of women die from breast cancer, so long as a few thousand fetus are born into poverty, and or parents who don’t or can’t want them for whatever their own personal reasons are. MUCH BETTER!
27 February 2008, on 6:49 pm
Love it how the catholic church thinks it has the right to preach to us about morality.
27 February 2008, on 7:36 pm
I’ve got a question- the church that brought you the Inquisition and now this aside. You know how they say that, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament? Well, how does the inordinate amount of attention to this one particular form- one female form- of cancer(okay, technically, men can get breast cancer but you get my meaning), fit in with that (correct)notion of male hegemony vis a vis socio-medical issues? Is it because prostate cancer- while equally prevalent and just as desexualizing as breast cancer, is particularly icky with the whole finger up the butt imagery? Is it because men don’ want to talk about their innards, period? Is it because colon cancer is just gross to think about even when Katie Couric says the word “rectum”?
Or..
Is it because men will go to any length, even sacrificing our own health, to protect our beloved tits- pardon my French? I mean, you don’t see any restaurant chains featuring waiter dudes in package hugging shorts- called, say, “Bulges”.
Don’t get me wrong. Both my Mom and a close friend of mine are survivors- Mom almost 20 years, and I don’t begrudge the dollars going to research. But, considering the vast amounts raised for this one particular form, shouldn’t they be further along- and ready to share their finding with the researchers working on the less glamorous stepchild cancers?
Sorry, just had a bit of a burr under my saddle- which is not, BTW, the same saddle I use to tenderize that evening’s Steak Tartar. In case you were wondering.
Hope I haven’t offended anyone. Okay, that’s a lie.
27 February 2008, on 8:15 pm
So no money to this foundation because it supports Planned Parenthood, but continue to fund places that provide lies to AIDS ravaged Africa about contraceptives and, in a way, allow this horrid disease to continue to spread and slowly, and painfully, kill poor Africans, who are already dying from starvation and constant civil warfare.
Right…
27 February 2008, on 11:24 pm
AUM:
The sooner those dark children of JEEWHIZ die, the sooner they can go to a “better place”.
I think I’ve finally figured out what it is that bugs me the most about KKKristians. They are smarmy and suffocatingly sweet, but it’s because they all know that every lie they tell brings them one step closer to life everlasting–what a fucking concept.
27 February 2008, on 11:27 pm
RDZ;
I think some of the reason that breast CA gets more attention is because it is also one of the more disfiguring kinds of CA, and in a civilization highly focused on appearance, that counts for something.
To answer your question as to why they don’t “share their finding with the researchers working on the less glamorous stepchild cancers:” no two kinds of CA are alike–different tissues have different cancers.
The Catholic church is a mystery to me. I attended a Jesuit college for grad school, and honestly, as much as I detest religion as a whole, I don’t have much bad to say about the Jesuits (except for their nominal alliance to the Catholic church.) The are focused on scholastics and charity almost exclusively. The University Health Center had a jar of free condoms sitting at the front desk, and we had a pro-euthanasia nun (who was one of the coolest people I have encountered) talk about the importance of a living will and the evils of life support for the brain dead (while never once bringing up her mythological beliefs.)
On the other hand, you have these fucktards, who fail not only to realize how immoral this bequest is, but to even engage in enough research to realize that Planned Parenthood prevents more abortions than they provide.
Oh yeah, I forgot, PP also provide little rubber caps to put on the end of your John Thomas during intercourse. How evil!
27 February 2008, on 11:28 pm
That’s the Catholicism I knew.
28 February 2008, on 1:00 am
And Fritzy, let’s not forget that the doctor during the procedure will, for lack of a better term, abort the abortion if he/she feels that the woman is doing this against her will or hasn’t thought it through completely.
Meanwhile, the xians are, more or less, doing the complete opposite: forcing women to carry to term babies they either don’t want, was forced on them, or can’t physically have.
I wonder where they stand on those rare occasions children younger than twelve get pregnant, seeing as how they qualify for all of the above.
28 February 2008, on 1:59 am
OurLady of Perpetual Motion…
May I call you OurLady…or perhaps…OLPM?…
[What a great name, by the way, for a..."very progressive"...Catlick School? Somehow, I can hear a nun saying...
"Keep moving everybody! Whatever you do...ALWAYS...keep moving!"...
Less of a target?]
Yes; there are probably a ‘goodly’ number of us “fallen aways” in the world.
“Oh…the agony of it all!”…?
I’ve commented here, there (and everywhere?) on GifS about my roots…I almost joined a Benedictine monastary after college, way back in 1964. That was a brief return to believing; a period of post-college, worldly disillusionment, after my 1963 graduation and JFK’s assassination. And, the fact that I had, practically speaking, a somewhat useless BA degree with a Music major/English minor; not enough Ed. courses to teach…the Viet Nam War raging…yada, yada.
Something like…
“HELP! Is there a cave SOMEWHERE…where I can hide out from this insane, cruel world?”
It only lasted a semester in the fall of 1964; after which I went headlong back into my growing alcoholic style agnosticism, followed by a long trail of “New Age”/Edgar Cayce Eastern oriented Reincarnational beliefs/UFO interest; and finally atheism at the end of the 1980s.
[The book, by the way, which clinched it for me (ca. 1988), was Lloyd Graham's: "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible"; which I highly recommend.]
Not to blab on TOO much more; my main point in this response relates to my rather recent 50th Catholic High School reunion back on May 7th, 2007. My attendance at the dinner, made me realize just how extremely powerful dogmatic religious upbringing is. I did, earlier that same day, meet with one of my best friends from high school; and spent a long time catching up with each of our intervening years’ experiences. We were born on the same day (in Sagitarius), by the way; he’s wealthy and I’m…not?…He’s got 7 kids; I got nada…yada, yada.
[So much for astrology?]
I told him I’m an atheist; and was somewhat surprised when he admitted to also being somewhat of a skeptic…and certainly didn’t exhibit any shock to my disclosure. We’re still in touch occasionally by email.
My impression at the reunion dinner table that evening, however, in observing the reaction during prayers, (my not)saying grace, and other heavily religious leaning talks by a mix of Christian Brothers, prominent fellow students, etc.; left me with the feeling that…overwhelmingly…the majority of those present were still “faithful” believers. I had one careless moment when I reacted verbally to a speaker’s derogatory comment about bible skeptics; blurting out some unnoticed (I think) agreement with the skeptics.
[Then sheepishly looking around for possible 'dagger looks' coming my way?]
Cutting to the chase; it may well be that the older generations of Catholic school attendees from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, have a bit harder time escaping all the heavy programming that existed in those eras. Of course, I’m somewhat out of touch these days, being a semi-retired singer/musician. I DO know that most of my older musician associates ARE still believers, in one form or another. And since I, upfront, unabashedly proclaimed my atheism to many of them; I don’t hear much from them anymore!
I’ve been, perhaps…umm…Anathematized?
Please pardon my blabbing on so much.
What!…40 lashes with a (wet) noodly appendage?
28 February 2008, on 9:28 am
ChuckA, tell me what kind of issues you’ve dealt with from other music types, if ya don’t mind. I’m constantly at odds with that.
28 February 2008, on 11:59 am
Benjamin…
In reviewing my comment at the end of the above (15); I’d have to ammend that with the fact that, as a freelance “jobbing” musician for most of my career; the generation of musicians I worked with, pretty much kept religion out of their conversations. I think it related to the old social mantra: “Don’t talk about religion or politics!”
I probably gave the wrong impression, in that my jabbering about my atheism to friends is really a ‘latter day’ result of post-9/11 circumstances. From the ’60s thru ’90s, I think the musicians I encountered were mostly rather liberal, not very religious types; certainly no Fundies; and we didn’t spend much off-time with each other; so we didn’t get into any religious shtick. One musician I roomed and traveled with back in 1969 & ‘70, on rare occasions, used to get into joking about the bible…ala the old Gideon version in the drawer? I even have some old audio tapes of our after-gig impudence (joking of course).
I certainly didn’t do myself any favors by being more open about my atheism; the only real effect, though, happened in 2005, which effectively helped to end my last steady gig.
My advice to younger, working musicians, would be to follow that old ‘mantra’; and if confronted by some asshat…if at all possible…defuse and change the subject. In other words…protect your gig?
And then again…the old “different strokes for different folks”?
It’s also a vastly different Era, from when I first started in the music…erm…”business”!
28 February 2008, on 12:27 pm
Very good advice. I have been worried about being to “open” about my atheism because many people around here are dyed-in-the-wool stoopids. While they’ve never cracked a buy-bull they certainly have an abundance of unshakable faith. I just hope I don’t get invited to any pre-gig prayer circles…ugh…
28 February 2008, on 12:29 pm
I accuse people of being stupid and I mispell “too”, go figure…I’m gonna catch the wrath of the GiFS grammer police now
28 February 2008, on 12:44 pm
ChuckA,
Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Glad you like my moniker. I picked it up from a George Carlin tape. He was discussing his own personal catholic upbringing and used the term.
Thought it was laugh out loud funny.
My ultra RC “I could have been a nun you know” mother didn’t think so. Which probably made it all the funnier to me.
I went through the hell of catholic schools until they were closed for reasons I never cared enough to know. Diminished attendance and money I assume. The only regret I’ve got in regards to my old catholic school is that I was not there when they tore it down. Had I known it was going I would have been there the night before to set it on fire. Or at least show up the day of with a lawn chair, a large bottle of vodka and a “Fuck Religion” pennant to wave at every strike of the wrecking ball. An undertaking which would have been made all the more humorous by the proximity of the parish church.
But I digress.
I took Philosophy and English in university. Comparative, eastern and world religions. I was looking for something via intellect that no amount of wishing, hope or empty prayer had ever brought me. And instead I found the opposite.
Not that I was somehow “doing it wrong” and therefore I was unable to achieve any depth of feeling or any true personal religious experience, but that there was none to be had. The truth about religion is that it’s a lie.
So I was initially cast free from it but it took years of agnosticism, internal argument and playing at being dutiful for a catholic family before I finally came to the only logical conclusion that remained: atheism.
Richard Dawkins is my personal ’savior’ [LOL!]
I have to say “the God Delusion” is my favorite to date.
I think I may have out babbled you
Cheers!
28 February 2008, on 5:07 pm
I went from soft-core agnostic to a deeply devout, hard core atheist with the help of Dawkins’ book and that movie Zeitgeist
2 March 2008, on 6:12 am
What more can be expected from a institution that has perpetuated a myth for the last 2000 years and sucked the life blood out a untold numbers of counties and their populations all in the name of some supernatural sky daddy and his so called son.