>The wedding at Cana (John 2)— did Jesus listen to his mother or not?
I can't speak for the other guy, but my contention here would be that we see in the entirety of the gospels one instance that is this strong of Christ being compelled by Mary to take an action on something. If we are to derive the Roman and Orthodox teachings on Mary from scripture, we only have one key instance to point to for that. I attended an OCA church a handful of times out of curiosity and I asked about this stuff specifically, and this was the exact same verse they pointed to. I feel like if our takeaway should be that Mary can intercede and has a particularly strong influence and position to do so, we would have more instances to look towards. I can't think of a single other instance in the entirety of scripture where any core message, let alone something that ought to be that important, is only articulated a single time.
>26When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” 27Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
I would have to double check how my particular denomination interprets this verse, but personally I find this to be far too vague to directly lead to any number of Marian beliefs.
>I simply see too many people who view her as nothing that couldn't have been replaced with an artificial womb
Absolutely true. As a protestant, I see far too many of us deliberately downplaying the significance of Mary being chosen as the mother of Christ, and I do think that deliberately ignoring that or at least not discussing it prevents one from having a full understanding of scripture and the message God intends us to take from it.
>and I think it's an anti-Catholic reactionary view at least sometimes
Absolutely. It's a tragedy how often worldly issues draw the focus away from the actual message where people become so focused on being anti-x or pro-y that certain things are exxagerated or minimized for the sake of something entirely outside of the scope of scripture.