John Holbo: Twitter Thread: "Michael Brendan Dougherty says, reasonably, that Catholics should do some institutional soul-searching, not attributing all misfortunes to rampant liberalism.... But once you notice that buried lede MBD digs out, you can't help but notice a bigger one[:]... 'Liberty... as formerly understood' under pressure... is something that is true of the BEST fights for freedom and rights. It is not a danger sign.... Women's rights resisted because it felt like denial of liberty (men's former liberties). African-Americans. Civil rights, a gross affront to white liberty. Anti-slavery = vicious assault on liberty.... ײַt is weird to point out that some of these changing attitudes might be due to changes in-weaknesses in-the church-rather than symptoms of some monstrous cancer-growth of liberalism beyond its healthy bounds. But then NOT to point out...
...Let's warm up. A lot of jurisdictions legalizing weed. Liberalism itself run reefermad? Nope, people deciding dope isn't so harmful. Let's run through a quick history of attitudes towards the gays, and what to do about it. 1. They are the worst -> treat them the worst. 2. They are pretty bad -> treat them pretty bad. 3. They are kinda bad -> treat them kinda bad. 4. They are tolerable -> discriminate against them. 5. They are fine people -> discriminate against them a bit less. 6. We have so much respect for them it would wound us deeply if people thought we wanted to treat them unfairly in the least -> still discriminate against them. The gays have never had it so good as 6, but the arguments against them are worse than ever. In a sense. More facially unreasonable....
#noted #twitterthread
