Brant Pitre's book seems to be a runaway bestseller, perhaps to his own surprise. There have been several excellent reviews but I felt the need to add my own two cents' worth, if only because it's a way of processing the book in my own head. Like a book report. The book really is inspiring and not to be missed. Anyway, here's my review for Amazon:
To Michael Barber's extremely helpful review, I can only add a lay perspective. This is not my area of research or scholarship but for me the book was inspiring and eye-opening.
Dr. Pitre carries his scholarship lightly, so the text is not weighed down with the customary footnotes of biblical research. But for those who want the documentation, there are two dozen pages of notes at the end of the book.
Pitre's tone is engaging, almost conversational, and his book manages to be revealing and modest at the same time. He shows us how deeply embedded the Christian story of the New Testament is in the salvation narrative and context of the Old. Almost from the start, there has been a tendency for some Christians to see the Old Testament as an embarrassing prequel, full of slaughter, dirty tricks, and an irascible, jealous God, all of which is rendered irrelevant by the New Testament.
Pitre, like Popes Benedict and JP II, and a few other biblical scholars - see for example, Roy Schoeman, Salvation Is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History and Taylor Marshall, The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity - brings home to us that such a view impoverishes and distorts Christianity. As Benedict puts it, "the message of Jesus is completely misunderstood if it is separated from the context of the faith and hope of the Chosen People" (quoted by Pitre, p.9).
Pitre shows how an understanding of this Jewish context deepens our appreciation of the Eucharist as the "source and summit of the Christian life". It revivifies the Christian story in its historical concreteness and particularity, in its unity of spiritual and physical, the story of God's incarnation in the context of Jewish liturgy, ritual, experience and expectations. After decades of "beige Catholicism" (in Father Robert Barron's term Eucharist (Catholic Spirituality for Adults)) - a disincarnated, accommodationist approach that reduced Christianity to timeless teachings and personal experience ("spirituality") - and after centuries of downplaying the Christian faith's Jewish roots, the new biblical scholarship represented so well by Pitre is a much-needed corrective.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Secularist State Tyranny in Europe II: Germany
In Germany, home-schooling is illegal. The state claims responsibility not only for protecting children from abuse and neglect in their homes, but also from their parents' teaching and values. In a recent case, a mother of 12 has been sentenced to prison for refusing to enroll her children in sex ed classes. Such classes, as in the U.S., normalize premarital sex.
A German mother is in prison as a result of resisting state measures to force objectionable “sexual education” on her children. Her husband has already served his 43-day sentence. The couple bring the number of Christian parents imprisoned for this reason to 10.
In January 2010, a U.S. immigration judge granted political asylum to a German family persecuted by the German state for wanting to homeschool their children.
Another German family sought asylum in Alberta, Canada after fleeing there to avoid persecution in their native country.
Mother of twelve jailed in Germany for refusing to enroll children in sex ed classes
BY MATTHEW CULLINAN HOFFMAN
Wed Feb 23, 2011
Authorities Ask German Homeschooling Family to Give up Custody of Other 5 Children
GERMANY, February 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mother of twelve has been sentenced to 43 days in jail in the German town of Salzkotten for refusing to enroll her children in the sex education program in a local elementary school, according to two German Catholic news sites, Kath.net and Katholishes.info.
The woman, whose name is not revealed in the articles, is reportedly a Baptist who is opposed to the program based upon her religious convictions. The couple says that their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Germany is a signatory, are being ignored.
They cite article 2 of the convention’s first protocol, which states: “the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” The local elementary school has reportedly ignored this right since 2005, and is being supported by the judiciary.
The woman’s husband says that “his wife has really missed her family, but finds her solace in God” according to Kath.net, which also reports that the younger children “miss their mother,” but that suffering injustice is part of the experience of being Christian.
The persecution of Germans who homeschool or reject government sex education is an ongoing phenomenon. In April of last year the website Kopp Online reported several cases of German mothers who reside in Salzkotten spending up to a week in jail for refusing the local sex ed program for their children. Similar persecution was reported in the same town, which is located in the district of Paderborn, in December of 2009.
In January of 2010 a German family was granted asylum in the United States after years of harassment by the German government for homeschooling their children.
Contact information:
Embassy of Germany in the United States
2300 M Street NW
Washington, DC 20037
Phone (202) 298-4000
Email: http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/Kontakt.html
Embassy of Germany in Canada
1 Waverley Street
Ottawa, ON, K2P 0T8
Tel.: 613-232-1101 Fax: 613-594-9330
Email: germanembassyottawa@on.aibn.com
Embassy of Germany in the United Kingdom
23 Belgrave Square
London
SW1X 8PZ
Phone: 020 7824 1300
Fax: 020 7824 1449
Email: http://www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/Kontakt.html
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mother-of-twelve-jailed-in-germany-for-refusing-to-enroll-children-in-sex-e/
A German mother is in prison as a result of resisting state measures to force objectionable “sexual education” on her children. Her husband has already served his 43-day sentence. The couple bring the number of Christian parents imprisoned for this reason to 10.
In January 2010, a U.S. immigration judge granted political asylum to a German family persecuted by the German state for wanting to homeschool their children.
Tennessee Judge Lawrence Burman ruled that, after several years of run-ins with the authorities in Germany, the Romeike family’s human rights were being violated in their own country and that they had “a well-founded fear of persecution” if they stayed there. Burman said homeschoolers “are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress” and this was “repellent to everything we believe as Americans”. Strong stuff, and it is not yet clear what political actions may follow.(Retrieved March 4, 2011 from http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/german_homeschooling_family_granted_political_asylum_in_usa/)
Another German family sought asylum in Alberta, Canada after fleeing there to avoid persecution in their native country.
Canadian Member of Parliament Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, CPC) has decried the German law, and called on the Alberta board to protect the rights of this family.---
“Canada has a strong legacy of parental rights and home schooling has been an accepted expression of these rights in Canada,” he said. “I commend these valiant parents for the commitment and devotion they have to the best interests of their children. I hope the Immigration and Refugee Board in Alberta gives a favourable hearing to this case.”
Mother of twelve jailed in Germany for refusing to enroll children in sex ed classes
BY MATTHEW CULLINAN HOFFMAN
Wed Feb 23, 2011
Authorities Ask German Homeschooling Family to Give up Custody of Other 5 Children
GERMANY, February 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mother of twelve has been sentenced to 43 days in jail in the German town of Salzkotten for refusing to enroll her children in the sex education program in a local elementary school, according to two German Catholic news sites, Kath.net and Katholishes.info.
The woman, whose name is not revealed in the articles, is reportedly a Baptist who is opposed to the program based upon her religious convictions. The couple says that their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Germany is a signatory, are being ignored.
They cite article 2 of the convention’s first protocol, which states: “the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” The local elementary school has reportedly ignored this right since 2005, and is being supported by the judiciary.
The woman’s husband says that “his wife has really missed her family, but finds her solace in God” according to Kath.net, which also reports that the younger children “miss their mother,” but that suffering injustice is part of the experience of being Christian.
The persecution of Germans who homeschool or reject government sex education is an ongoing phenomenon. In April of last year the website Kopp Online reported several cases of German mothers who reside in Salzkotten spending up to a week in jail for refusing the local sex ed program for their children. Similar persecution was reported in the same town, which is located in the district of Paderborn, in December of 2009.
In January of 2010 a German family was granted asylum in the United States after years of harassment by the German government for homeschooling their children.
Contact information:
Embassy of Germany in the United States
2300 M Street NW
Washington, DC 20037
Phone (202) 298-4000
Email: http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/Kontakt.html
Embassy of Germany in Canada
1 Waverley Street
Ottawa, ON, K2P 0T8
Tel.: 613-232-1101 Fax: 613-594-9330
Email: germanembassyottawa@on.aibn.com
Embassy of Germany in the United Kingdom
23 Belgrave Square
London
SW1X 8PZ
Phone: 020 7824 1300
Fax: 020 7824 1449
Email: http://www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/Kontakt.html
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mother-of-twelve-jailed-in-germany-for-refusing-to-enroll-children-in-sex-e/
More on the Yuck Factor
Zac Alstin | Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Is “Yuck!” a good enough reason?
Do taboos on incest and infanticide have a rational basis?
The father of modern astronomy, Galileo, did not win converts to his theories through their obvious truthfulness. Rather, the younger generation of astronomers were drawn to the new and exciting research possibilities that came with Galileo's telescopes. Older, more established astronomers doubted that the new technology could be trusted. We moderns take for granted that what we see through the end of a telescope is real. Yet some of Galileo's contemporaries refused to even look through one of his telescopes for themselves.
We are amused by such stubbornness today but we live with the advantage of a much greater body of evidence that reinforces the reliability of telescopes and microscopes. We have been to the moon, and confirmed with unaided vision the ruggedness of its surface. In a different context, “new and exciting” theories might prove to be nothing more than a fad.
It is my grave duty to inform you that the same is true of the discipline of ethics, where the most reasoned and convincing arguments nevertheless rest upon a set of basic assumptions which we simply must accept or deny. Those who best represent traditional ethics exist in a kind of parallel universe to most modern academic ethicists, and, it seems, never the twain shall meet.
Hence, such philosophers as the renowned and infamous Peter Singer can freely condemn the irrationality of moral intuition or “the yuck factor”, thereby defending in principle such remaining taboos as bestiality and incest.
“To explore the way in which people reach moral judgments, Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, asked people to respond to the following story: Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are travelling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decided that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love but decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret between them, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that, was it OK for them to make love?
"Haidt reports that most people are quick to say that what Julie and Mark did was wrong. They then try to give reasons for their answer. They may mention the dangers of inbreeding, but then recall Julie and Mark used two forms of birth control. Or they may suggest that the siblings could be hurt, even though it is clear from the story that they were not. Eventually, many people say something like: “I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong.”
"Evidently, it is the intuitive response that is responsible for the judgment these people reach, not the reasons they offer, for they stick to their immediate, intuitive judgment, even after they have withdrawn the reasons they initially offered for that judgment, and are unable to find better ones.”
Singer goes on to argue that our disgust at things such as incest is an emotional response, which we have evolved in order to protect the species from inbreeding. His broader claim is that our moral intuition is entirely composed of such evolved emotional responses, and is in fact morally irrelevant. If we cannot give a rational argument why incest is wrong, then our disgust is irrational.
Singer knows that the majority of ethicists take our moral intuitions seriously, and formulate moral theories to fit our intuitions. Singer rejects this view, arguing that:
“In everyday life, as Haidt points out, our reasoning is likely to be nothing more than a rationalization for our intuitive responses – as Haidt puts it, the emotional dog is wagging the rational tail.”
Singer's proposal is that:
“Alternatively, we might attempt the ambitious task of separating those moral judgments that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history, from those that have a rational basis. This is a large and difficult task. Even to specify in what sense a moral judgment can have a rational basis is not easy. Nevertheless, it seems to me worth attempting, for it is the only way to avoid moral scepticism.”
True to his word, Singer has exhibited his moral theory in defence of abortion, infanticide, incest and bestiality, clearly seeking the advance of rational judgement against the false morality of our evolved emotional responses.
But this kind of appeal to evolutionary theories of morality is not new. Nor, fortunately, are sound rational refutations. In 1922, the great British writer G.K. Chesterton answered thus the speculations of his contemporary eugenicists, as they pondered the evolutionary demerits of incest:
“Dr S.R. Steinmetz, with that creepy simplicity of mind with which the Eugenists chill the blood, remarks that ‘we do not yet know quite certainly’ what were ‘the motives for the horror of’ that horrible thing which is the agony of Œdipus. With entirely amiable intention, I ask Dr S.R. Steinmetz to speak for himself. I know the motives for regarding a mother or sister as separate from other women; nor have I reached them by any curious researches. I found them where I found an analogous aversion to eating a baby for breakfast. I found them in a rooted detestation in the human soul to liking a thing in one way, when you already like it in another quite incompatible way.”
In the subsequent 89 years, we have achieved such progress that Professor Singer can now state with certitude the evolutionary rationale for our disgust at incest. In the same period, Western ethical formation has lapsed to the point that Chesterton's entirely rational elucidation of our moral intuition is now forgotten or ignored by the majority of modern ethicists.
To be fair to Singer, our moral intuitions are not an infallible guide. Traditional ethics indeed recognises that the human conscience must be informed and cultivated, for it to function accurately. Our “moral intuition” is really our emotional response to our intellectual perceptions; hence these emotional responses are only as informed as the intellect behind them.
But Singer's claim that moral intuition lacks a rational basis is simply false. As Chesterton demonstrates, our disgust is a function of our rational refusal to treat things in mutually incompatible ways. We cannot love babies and also eat them. The two actions are incompatible. Hence, when we hear of someone consuming human flesh, we immediately deduce the failure of human love implied in that action. We are rightly disgusted at the thought of someone abandoning their love of human beings to such an extent.
The same applies to incest. We understand with an immediacy or primacy that belies Singer's sophistication, the fact that siblings and parents cannot be loved as siblings and parents, while also being loved as sexual partners. But we need not even consider incest, to understand this principle: even Singer must understand that we cannot treat friends of the opposite sex as lovers without them actually becoming lovers and ceasing to be merely friends.
Our moral disgust at bestiality follows a similar principle: we recognise immediately that a person who engages in sexual activity with an animal has denigrated their own human sexual capacity. Our disgust in this instance is at the irrational behaviour of a person who treats something important and revered as though it were fit for animals.
Ultimately, I cannot help but feel a growing disdain (if not disgust) for an ethical theory that is so oblivious to the profound rationality of our moral intuitions. This emotional response is, contra Singer, entirely rational, and all the more intense when I consider the ethical tradition our civilisation has abandoned. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
“Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a defect in myself—just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind. And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it. ”
Zac Alstin works at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/is_yuck_a_good_reason/
Is “Yuck!” a good enough reason?
Do taboos on incest and infanticide have a rational basis?
The father of modern astronomy, Galileo, did not win converts to his theories through their obvious truthfulness. Rather, the younger generation of astronomers were drawn to the new and exciting research possibilities that came with Galileo's telescopes. Older, more established astronomers doubted that the new technology could be trusted. We moderns take for granted that what we see through the end of a telescope is real. Yet some of Galileo's contemporaries refused to even look through one of his telescopes for themselves.
We are amused by such stubbornness today but we live with the advantage of a much greater body of evidence that reinforces the reliability of telescopes and microscopes. We have been to the moon, and confirmed with unaided vision the ruggedness of its surface. In a different context, “new and exciting” theories might prove to be nothing more than a fad.
It is my grave duty to inform you that the same is true of the discipline of ethics, where the most reasoned and convincing arguments nevertheless rest upon a set of basic assumptions which we simply must accept or deny. Those who best represent traditional ethics exist in a kind of parallel universe to most modern academic ethicists, and, it seems, never the twain shall meet.
Hence, such philosophers as the renowned and infamous Peter Singer can freely condemn the irrationality of moral intuition or “the yuck factor”, thereby defending in principle such remaining taboos as bestiality and incest.
“To explore the way in which people reach moral judgments, Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, asked people to respond to the following story: Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are travelling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decided that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love but decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret between them, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that, was it OK for them to make love?
"Haidt reports that most people are quick to say that what Julie and Mark did was wrong. They then try to give reasons for their answer. They may mention the dangers of inbreeding, but then recall Julie and Mark used two forms of birth control. Or they may suggest that the siblings could be hurt, even though it is clear from the story that they were not. Eventually, many people say something like: “I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong.”
"Evidently, it is the intuitive response that is responsible for the judgment these people reach, not the reasons they offer, for they stick to their immediate, intuitive judgment, even after they have withdrawn the reasons they initially offered for that judgment, and are unable to find better ones.”
Singer goes on to argue that our disgust at things such as incest is an emotional response, which we have evolved in order to protect the species from inbreeding. His broader claim is that our moral intuition is entirely composed of such evolved emotional responses, and is in fact morally irrelevant. If we cannot give a rational argument why incest is wrong, then our disgust is irrational.
Singer knows that the majority of ethicists take our moral intuitions seriously, and formulate moral theories to fit our intuitions. Singer rejects this view, arguing that:
“In everyday life, as Haidt points out, our reasoning is likely to be nothing more than a rationalization for our intuitive responses – as Haidt puts it, the emotional dog is wagging the rational tail.”
Singer's proposal is that:
“Alternatively, we might attempt the ambitious task of separating those moral judgments that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history, from those that have a rational basis. This is a large and difficult task. Even to specify in what sense a moral judgment can have a rational basis is not easy. Nevertheless, it seems to me worth attempting, for it is the only way to avoid moral scepticism.”
True to his word, Singer has exhibited his moral theory in defence of abortion, infanticide, incest and bestiality, clearly seeking the advance of rational judgement against the false morality of our evolved emotional responses.
But this kind of appeal to evolutionary theories of morality is not new. Nor, fortunately, are sound rational refutations. In 1922, the great British writer G.K. Chesterton answered thus the speculations of his contemporary eugenicists, as they pondered the evolutionary demerits of incest:
“Dr S.R. Steinmetz, with that creepy simplicity of mind with which the Eugenists chill the blood, remarks that ‘we do not yet know quite certainly’ what were ‘the motives for the horror of’ that horrible thing which is the agony of Œdipus. With entirely amiable intention, I ask Dr S.R. Steinmetz to speak for himself. I know the motives for regarding a mother or sister as separate from other women; nor have I reached them by any curious researches. I found them where I found an analogous aversion to eating a baby for breakfast. I found them in a rooted detestation in the human soul to liking a thing in one way, when you already like it in another quite incompatible way.”
In the subsequent 89 years, we have achieved such progress that Professor Singer can now state with certitude the evolutionary rationale for our disgust at incest. In the same period, Western ethical formation has lapsed to the point that Chesterton's entirely rational elucidation of our moral intuition is now forgotten or ignored by the majority of modern ethicists.
To be fair to Singer, our moral intuitions are not an infallible guide. Traditional ethics indeed recognises that the human conscience must be informed and cultivated, for it to function accurately. Our “moral intuition” is really our emotional response to our intellectual perceptions; hence these emotional responses are only as informed as the intellect behind them.
But Singer's claim that moral intuition lacks a rational basis is simply false. As Chesterton demonstrates, our disgust is a function of our rational refusal to treat things in mutually incompatible ways. We cannot love babies and also eat them. The two actions are incompatible. Hence, when we hear of someone consuming human flesh, we immediately deduce the failure of human love implied in that action. We are rightly disgusted at the thought of someone abandoning their love of human beings to such an extent.
The same applies to incest. We understand with an immediacy or primacy that belies Singer's sophistication, the fact that siblings and parents cannot be loved as siblings and parents, while also being loved as sexual partners. But we need not even consider incest, to understand this principle: even Singer must understand that we cannot treat friends of the opposite sex as lovers without them actually becoming lovers and ceasing to be merely friends.
Our moral disgust at bestiality follows a similar principle: we recognise immediately that a person who engages in sexual activity with an animal has denigrated their own human sexual capacity. Our disgust in this instance is at the irrational behaviour of a person who treats something important and revered as though it were fit for animals.
Ultimately, I cannot help but feel a growing disdain (if not disgust) for an ethical theory that is so oblivious to the profound rationality of our moral intuitions. This emotional response is, contra Singer, entirely rational, and all the more intense when I consider the ethical tradition our civilisation has abandoned. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
“Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a defect in myself—just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind. And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it. ”
Zac Alstin works at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/is_yuck_a_good_reason/
Obama Defies Congress, Attacks Marriage - USCCB Statement
In instructing the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed by majorities of both parties in both chambers of Congress, President Obama has joined the attack on our most pro-child institution.
It is good to see that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, often perceived as pro-Democratic and especially pro-Obama, has on this issue at least taken a firm stand. Here is USCCB's news release:
Archbishop Dolan Calls Refusal to Defend Defense of Marriage Act an ‘Alarming and Grave Injustice’
WASHINGTON (March 3, 2011)— “Our nation and government have the duty to recognize and protect marriage, not tamper with and redefine it, nor to caricature the deeply held beliefs of so many citizens as ‘discrimination,’” said Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). His statement followed the February 23 announcement that President Obama has instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a move Archbishop Dolan called an “alarming and grave injustice.”
Archbishop Dolan’s full statement follows:
The announcement on February 23 that the President has instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an alarming and grave injustice. Marriage, the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife, is a singular and irreplaceable institution. Only a man and a woman are capable of the “two-in-one-flesh” union of husband and wife. Only a man and a woman have the ability to bring children into the world. Along with that ability comes responsibility, which society historically reinforces with laws that bind mothers and fathers to each other and their children. This family unit represents the most basic and vital cell of any society, protecting the right of children to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their mother and father. Thus, marriage represents the bedrock of the common good of society, its very foundation and future.
Contrary to the Attorney General’s statement, DOMA does not single out people based on sexual “orientation” or inclination. Every person deserves to be treated with justice, compassion, and respect, a proposition of natural law and American law that we as Catholics vigorously promote. Unjust discrimination against any person is always wrong. But DOMA is not “unjust discrimination”; rather, it merely affirms and protects the time-tested and unalterable meaning of marriage. The suggestion that this definition amounts to “discrimination” is grossly false and represents an affront to millions of citizens in this country.
The decision also does not stand the test of common sense. It is hardly “discrimination” to say that a husband and a wife have a unique and singular relationship that two persons of the same sex—or any unmarried persons—simply do not and cannot have. Nor is it “discrimination” to believe that the union of husband and wife has a distinctive and exclusive significance worthy of promotion and protection by the state. It is not “discrimination” to say that having both a mother and a father matters to and benefits a child. Nor is it “discrimination” to say that the state has more than zero interest in ensuring that children will be intimately connected with and raised by their mother and father.
Protecting the definition of marriage is not merely permissible, but actually necessary as a matter of justice. Having laws that affirm the vital importance of mothers and fathers—laws that reinforce, rather than undermine, the ideal that children should be raised by their own mother and father—is essential for any just society. Those laws serve not only the good of the spouses and their children, but the common good. Those laws are now under relentless attack. If we forget the meaning of marriage, we forget what it means to be a human person, what it means to be a man or a woman. Have we wandered away so far in our society as to forget why men and women matter, and eroded the most central institution for our children and for our future?
The Administration’s current position is not only a grave threat to marriage, but to religious liberty and the integrity of our democracy as well. Our nation and government have the duty to recognize and protect marriage, not tamper with and redefine it, nor to caricature the deeply held beliefs of so many citizens as “discrimination.” On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I express my deep disappointment over the Administration’s recent decision. I have written of these concerns to the President in separate correspondence, and I pray that he and the Department of Justice may yet make the right choice to carry out their constitutional responsibility, defending the irreplaceable institution of marriage, and in so doing protect the future generations of our children.
---
# # # # #
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/11-043.shtml
It is good to see that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, often perceived as pro-Democratic and especially pro-Obama, has on this issue at least taken a firm stand. Here is USCCB's news release:
Archbishop Dolan Calls Refusal to Defend Defense of Marriage Act an ‘Alarming and Grave Injustice’
WASHINGTON (March 3, 2011)— “Our nation and government have the duty to recognize and protect marriage, not tamper with and redefine it, nor to caricature the deeply held beliefs of so many citizens as ‘discrimination,’” said Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). His statement followed the February 23 announcement that President Obama has instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a move Archbishop Dolan called an “alarming and grave injustice.”
Archbishop Dolan’s full statement follows:
The announcement on February 23 that the President has instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an alarming and grave injustice. Marriage, the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife, is a singular and irreplaceable institution. Only a man and a woman are capable of the “two-in-one-flesh” union of husband and wife. Only a man and a woman have the ability to bring children into the world. Along with that ability comes responsibility, which society historically reinforces with laws that bind mothers and fathers to each other and their children. This family unit represents the most basic and vital cell of any society, protecting the right of children to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their mother and father. Thus, marriage represents the bedrock of the common good of society, its very foundation and future.
Contrary to the Attorney General’s statement, DOMA does not single out people based on sexual “orientation” or inclination. Every person deserves to be treated with justice, compassion, and respect, a proposition of natural law and American law that we as Catholics vigorously promote. Unjust discrimination against any person is always wrong. But DOMA is not “unjust discrimination”; rather, it merely affirms and protects the time-tested and unalterable meaning of marriage. The suggestion that this definition amounts to “discrimination” is grossly false and represents an affront to millions of citizens in this country.
The decision also does not stand the test of common sense. It is hardly “discrimination” to say that a husband and a wife have a unique and singular relationship that two persons of the same sex—or any unmarried persons—simply do not and cannot have. Nor is it “discrimination” to believe that the union of husband and wife has a distinctive and exclusive significance worthy of promotion and protection by the state. It is not “discrimination” to say that having both a mother and a father matters to and benefits a child. Nor is it “discrimination” to say that the state has more than zero interest in ensuring that children will be intimately connected with and raised by their mother and father.
Protecting the definition of marriage is not merely permissible, but actually necessary as a matter of justice. Having laws that affirm the vital importance of mothers and fathers—laws that reinforce, rather than undermine, the ideal that children should be raised by their own mother and father—is essential for any just society. Those laws serve not only the good of the spouses and their children, but the common good. Those laws are now under relentless attack. If we forget the meaning of marriage, we forget what it means to be a human person, what it means to be a man or a woman. Have we wandered away so far in our society as to forget why men and women matter, and eroded the most central institution for our children and for our future?
The Administration’s current position is not only a grave threat to marriage, but to religious liberty and the integrity of our democracy as well. Our nation and government have the duty to recognize and protect marriage, not tamper with and redefine it, nor to caricature the deeply held beliefs of so many citizens as “discrimination.” On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I express my deep disappointment over the Administration’s recent decision. I have written of these concerns to the President in separate correspondence, and I pray that he and the Department of Justice may yet make the right choice to carry out their constitutional responsibility, defending the irreplaceable institution of marriage, and in so doing protect the future generations of our children.
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Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/11-043.shtml
Secularist State Tyranny on Rise in Europe I
The implications of this case are staggering. The ruling seems to mean that any faithful ("traditionalist," in the language of the Court) Christian, Orthodox Jewish, or Muslim family can be barred from fostering children in need of foster homes unless they are willing to teach the children in their charge that what they and their traditions for millennia have held to be immoral behavior is in fact acceptable. Orthodox religious belief or even traditional moral beliefs can no longer be tolerated in the Brave New World of secularized Britain. The position advanced by Richard Dawkins, apparently as a polemical provocation - that teaching children the Christian faith (or other religious orthodoxy) is a form of child abuse - is now official state doctrine. We are indeed, as MacIntyre says at the end of After Virtue
in the midst of a new Dark Age. The barbarians are already inside the gates.Here is Michael Kirke's justified rant on the Australian dignitarian blog, MercatorNet:
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This was inevitable – and it is only beginning. Everyone is blaming the judges for the decree handed down by the High Court in Britain on Monday that Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple, married almost 40 years, could no longer foster children aged between five and 10. They are deemed unsuitable, in law, to do so any longer because they are unwilling to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a child. Neither Mr nor Mrs Johns has anything against gay people but they are not in favour of sex before marriage, whatever an individual’s orientation.
But this is not the fault of the judges. The law is not an ass. That is too easy. It is the law-makers who are asses. As soon as the steamroller of “gay liberation” got rolling on its relentless way and sought to have legislation to back all the rights it set itself up as having, the law-makers began to make asses of themselves. And this goes for every other politically correct tom-foolery which late twentieth century men and women allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by and sought legal standing for.
Commonsense has been abandoned. These laws are so flawed and so full of inherent contradictions in the context of the whole fabric of the common law system that they inevitably lead to the kind of judgement which has just been handed down from the British High Court. The confusion, the anguish and the distress of two innocent people is the outcome of this debacle
The statement issued by Owen and Eunice Johns after the judgement reveals the depths of their anguish. “We are extremely distressed at what the judges have ruled today. All we wanted was to offer a loving home to a child in need. We have a good track record as foster parents. But because we are Christians, with mainstream Christian views on sexual ethics, we are apparently unsuitable as foster parents.
“The judges have suggested that our views might harm children. We have been told by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that our moral views may ‘infect’ a child. We do not believe that this is so. We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do, was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.”
But all this is part of a campaign to obliterate any common sense and rational approach to dealing with ourselves as human beings. The language of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the moral views of the Johns may ‘infect’ a child says it all. This is now a society where the Church of the Equality and Human Rights is the arbiter of morality and all other moral viewpoints are dangerous infections against which society must be immunised. British society – and by extension and in time all western societies – are now being defined in such a way that the Church of Human Rights will rule supreme.
These two British judges have now solemnly declared and defined English society to be a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”. The judges remarked that it was not yet “well understood” that in British society the law really has no place for Christianity. “Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century,” they said.
Homosexual rights campaigners of course welcomed the judgment which they describe as putting “21st-century decency above 19th-century prejudice”. The ruling in this case is only the latest in a series of judgments in which Christians have been defeated in the courts for breaching equality laws by manifesting their beliefs on homosexuality. Part of the problem here is that the question of homosexuality is being kept in the realm of “belief”. This protects the lobby from having to engage in rational debate about this issue on health, scientific or simple sociological grounds. As soon as anyone raises these issues there are screams of homophobia, prejudice, and bigotry.
All one has to do to get a glimpse of the depth of hatred towards anyone who questions the politically correct orthodoxy on this matter now is to read the comments on the story in the newspapers. The Daily Telegraph in London, as I write, has already clocked up over 1500 responses to just one of its stories on the subject. An Irish parliamentary candidate in the election there last week who has a somewhat nuanced position of the gay rights issue – she supported civil union legislation but considers marriage per se to be, in the interests of children, something for a man and a woman. The volume of hate mail and abuse which descended on her smelt very much like a jihad.
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican bishop of Rochester, described the High Court judgment as absurd. “However, what really worries me about this spate of judgments is that they leave no room for the conscience of believers of whatever kind. This will exclude Christians, Muslims and Orthodox Jews from whole swaths of public life, including adoption and fostering.”
The judges saw their predicament as follows: “We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to ‘do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’.”
It was in this context that the Daily Telegraph leader article put the blame firmly in the court of the law-makers. It had no qualms about declaring that we were now witnessing the emergence of a modern, secular Inquisition.
“The reason that they were even asked about their views on homosexuality was because Parliament passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations, making it an offence to discriminate on the grounds that someone is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. These are the same laws under which Peter and Hazelmary Bull, Christian owners of a guest house, were fined last month for refusing to let a gay couple share a room. But in the case of Mr and Mrs Johns, where is the victim? They were not turning anyone away. Quite the contrary – they were offering a home to children who will otherwise end up in care, and there are precious few people who will. Furthermore, since the children would be aged under 10, matters of sexuality are hardly relevant – or is it being suggested that they should be? Astonishingly, the High Court suggested that it was not so much their Christian faith as the moral certainties of the Johns that were potentially harmful to children.”
There is another troubling aspect of this case, the Telegraph concluded.
“Equality laws are supposed to uphold the rights to religious belief. Yet the High Court ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds. Why has it been left to judges to decide whose rights trump those of others? This should have been decided by Parliament but, yet again, another sloppily drafted measure will have far-reaching consequences for freedom of conscience in this country. Already the Roman Catholic Church has had to close its adoption agencies because they cannot conform to the law. Perhaps there is a historical irony here, because we are witnessing a modern, secular Inquisition – a determined effort to force everyone to accept a new set of orthodoxies or face damnation as social heretics if they refuse. Parliament and the courts should protect people like Mr and Mrs Johns, but have thrown them to the wolves. It is a disgrace.”
But then, what do asses really know about human nature?
Michael Kirke is a freelance writer in Dublin. He blogs at Garvan Hill.
Retrieved March 3, 2011 from http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/christianity_is_so_yesterday_says_uk_high_court/
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Descent into Decadence: Breast Milk Ice Cream in London, Incest in New York - Why Not?
From the What Are We Coming To? Department. An ice cream store in London recently sold breast milk ice cream until the local council banned it. The flavor was a bestseller and the first to sell out, despite the "yuck factor it elicited. (There are several video clips on the web. The Telegraph's story and clip may be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8356099/Breast-milk-ice-cream-banned-from-London-shop.html .)
At least they banned it. Is the "yuck factor" not enough? Compare the proposal in Switzerland - following the case of the progressive academic at Columbia University, David Epstein, accused of a 3-year affair with his 24 year-old daughter - to legalize consensual incest.
Epstein's lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo, commented to with ABC News:
In both cases - breast milk ice cream in London, father-daughter 'consensual' incest in New York - the troubling aspect is not so much that such behavior (like every kind of immoral or socially disapproved behavior) occurs. Rather it is that, in what Michael Sandel calls the "procedural republic" where the state is imagined to be neutral about moral matters, the intellectual resources are lacking to say why such activities should not be legal and, indeed, protected from discrimination.
This last point comes to mind because the British High Court has upheld the banning of a couple in Derbyshire from caring for small children as foster parents because they consider homosexual behavior to be immoral. The black couple, Pentecostal Christians in their 60s, withdrew their application after a social worker expressed concerns when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896 )
In that case, the court discriminated between kinds of Christianity, saying that some Christians (i.e., the secularized, liberal kind) might well make good foster parents, while people with traditional, orthodox Christian views on sexual morality like Mr and Mrs Johns might well not.
Such views, said the judges, might conflict with the welfare of children.
The court said that while there was a right not to face discrimination on the basis of either religion or sexual orientation, equality of sexual orientation took precedence. Thus, in Britain's ultra-secularized society, orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others are marginalized and may legally be banned from mainstream child welfare activities.
Why then, should people who are unwilling to tell the small children in their charge that incest among adults or the sale of breast milk ice cream are acceptable behaviors not also be excluded from fostering or adopting children - or being hired as social workers?
At least they banned it. Is the "yuck factor" not enough? Compare the proposal in Switzerland - following the case of the progressive academic at Columbia University, David Epstein, accused of a 3-year affair with his 24 year-old daughter - to legalize consensual incest.
Epstein's lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo, commented to with ABC News:
"Academically, we are obviously all morally opposed to incest and rightfully so," Galluzzo said. "At the same time, there is an argument to be made in the Swiss case to let go what goes on privately in bedrooms."(From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/david-epsteins-lawyer-we-_n_797138.html)
"It's OK for homosexuals to do whatever they want in their own home," he said. "How is this so different? We have to figure out why some behavior is tolerated and some is not."
Galluzzo also said that even though Epstein's daughter had emerged as a victim in the case, she could "be best described as an accomplice."
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Galluzzo questioned if prosecuting incest was "intellectually consistent" with the repeal of anti-sodomy laws that resulted from Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. "What goes on between consenting adults in private should not be legislated," he said. "That is not the proper domain of our law."
In both cases - breast milk ice cream in London, father-daughter 'consensual' incest in New York - the troubling aspect is not so much that such behavior (like every kind of immoral or socially disapproved behavior) occurs. Rather it is that, in what Michael Sandel calls the "procedural republic" where the state is imagined to be neutral about moral matters, the intellectual resources are lacking to say why such activities should not be legal and, indeed, protected from discrimination.
This last point comes to mind because the British High Court has upheld the banning of a couple in Derbyshire from caring for small children as foster parents because they consider homosexual behavior to be immoral. The black couple, Pentecostal Christians in their 60s, withdrew their application after a social worker expressed concerns when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896 )
In that case, the court discriminated between kinds of Christianity, saying that some Christians (i.e., the secularized, liberal kind) might well make good foster parents, while people with traditional, orthodox Christian views on sexual morality like Mr and Mrs Johns might well not.
Such views, said the judges, might conflict with the welfare of children.
The court said that while there was a right not to face discrimination on the basis of either religion or sexual orientation, equality of sexual orientation took precedence. Thus, in Britain's ultra-secularized society, orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others are marginalized and may legally be banned from mainstream child welfare activities.
Why then, should people who are unwilling to tell the small children in their charge that incest among adults or the sale of breast milk ice cream are acceptable behaviors not also be excluded from fostering or adopting children - or being hired as social workers?
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