http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=8919878f-3fb9-4541-8f0e-570e73713541Not peace, but a sword
Why we are not civil
Notes from a Cultural Madhouse
By Christopher Zehnder
I am often a little amused, and more often bemused, by some of the comments California Catholic Daily receives on its stories. Having engaged in Internet discourse on a few sites, I have long come to expect little from it; for it mostly seems a screaming match across an abyss. It's not that Internet discussions are vehement (I do not object to vehemence), or that they are uncivil or downright rude, but that they are so cliché. One feels, at times, that he is being assailed by hurled bumper-sticker slogans. And then there are the inapt responses, made without regard to the obvious opinions of the other party in the discussion.
We received one such response to an article we published about a man who claims he is a woman, has received treatments to become a woman, and is suing a Catholic hospital because it wouldn't accommodate him in his continuing transformation. (See "God made you a man," Jan. 8, 2008.) In response to the article's insistence on using male pronouns when referring to the "transsexual" Charlene Hastings, one commentator wrote the following: "Regardless of your religious beliefs, Ms. Hastings deserves the simple courtesy of referring to her as the woman she is, legally, emotionally and psychologically, not as 'he' and 'him.' I am appalled at such blatant disrespect by this supposedly Christian publication.""
