However, as much as I want to say that I agree with you because of my own very Catholic upbringing, I have to disagree. Every time that we go to mass, we are complicit in the blatant and terrible discrimination and crimes that the Catholic church has perpetrated or helped perpetrate. Every single Catholic, starting with the priests, should leave the Catholic Church until (in no particular order) 1. women are allowed to become priests, bishops, even the pope, 2. until the rhetoric around family planning and contraception changes, 3. until hateful language about LGBT individuals completely leaves the church, and 4. until every single priest/clergy person/ church official who has committed a crime ESPECIALLY sexual assault is handed over to the civil authorities and pays for their crime.

Just because we want the church to change, doesn’t mean that it will. I agree that we have power within the church however imagine if all of the sudden the Catholic Church lost most of its constituencies, they would have to reform or be willing to let their church die. I personally would rather not compromise my values in order to reform other people’s.

Would love to discuss more!

But even putting all of that aside,your argument doesn’t even work on theological grounds. The fact that you are willing to “update” the Church to fit in with modern morals also highlights the fact that it is a pointless institution. How can an organization claim to speak for an unchanging almighty God and then change its doctrine based on popular opinion? This isn’t just a problem with the Catholics though, but with most religions. The faster people begin to realize that morality does not come from religion, the quicker the world can rid itself of it altogether.

The last paragraph is completely and very obviously one-sided. It talks about South Asian diaspora but doesn’t at all mention that there was a Jewish diaspora as well. In addition, the idea that there is “no mention of its colonial occupation of Palestine” is ridiculous. The mixer exists because they know that there is a conflict in the area, and therefore want to promote peace among the relevant Stanford communities. The Stanford Israeli and South Asian students are not, as Janani seems to believe, completely unaware of the situation. Janani has to stop thinking that everyone else is unaware. They are aware, they simply disagree that this mixer is offensive.

Sometimes, people you admire will be wrong. Don’t follow everything they say based on what they represent. Follow them based on what they are in fact saying. And if what they say becomes absurd and racist (e.g. an open attack against the entire Israeli community), diverge.

Your response to this anonymous person here was grossly and blatantly racist. Granted the anonymous person was not nice either, but his analogous line to your “young, angry, white cis boy” did not make any reference to color or trans/cis. The very fact that you criticize – the anonymity – and that you made these assumptions proves that YOU are racist.

Also, it’s worth noting that statistics show that the biggest victim of LGBT violence are trans* women of color (http://www.advocate.com/news/daily-news/2011/07/12/lgbt-violence-significantly). But of course that just gets lumped into the larger LGBT umbrella as a means for orgs like HRC to continue getting $$ to fund “marriage equality” movements